Honduras has eliminated the pre-check of Nicaraguans and they are no longer the exception to the rule since the immigration pre-check had been abolished for all nationals and foreigners entering Honduras.
It is not yet known if Nicaragua Immigration will reciprocate and exempt Hondurans from their requirement for citizens of their neighboring county to the north from having to complete the pre-check form.
The difference being, Nicaragua has not removed the mandatory pre-check requirement for other nationalities in the way Honduras did.
History
President Xiomara Castro of Honduras announced the ordinance on December 12th 2023 by saying that “pre-checking is no longer a mandatory requirement to leave or enter Honduras”.
Then, on the 14th of February 2024 Honduras announced that Nicaraguans were the exception to that ordinance because of a similar order still in place by the Government of Nicaragua towards Hondurans (even though the Nicaraguan pre-check/entry requirement was not only for Hondurans).
On March 4th 2024, the Government of Honduras reversed the 14th of February decision that created Nicaraguan citizens as the exception to the rule of December 12th 2023 when they lifted the pre-check requirement.
The Government of Honduras reports that the lifting the immigration pre-check was done in the spirit of “an initiative to strengthen the brotherhood and unity between our peoples” (Honduras and Nicaragua).
In addition it was noted that the under the CA-4 agreement, the four nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua “must circulate without any restrictions”.
Honduras implemented the pre-checking of Nicaraguans in 2018 as a direct response to the Government of Nicaragua applying the pre-check requirement for Hondurans entering Nicaragua.
CA-4 Citizens
The Central American Agreement on Free Mobility (CA-4) came about by a Presidential Agreement signed between the presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The idea of the agreement was to allow the “intraregional transit of nationals of the signatory countries between said countries”.
