North Korean ordinary passports: Panama authorized visa required
Panama's current Embassy visitor schedule separately lists the Republic of Korea as visa-free and the People's Republic of Korea in the authorized-visa cohort. In that paired context the latter maps to North Korea, whose ordinary-passport visitor must obtain consular issuance after Migration Service authorization before travel.
- Applies to a standard North Korean ordinary passport used for a short visitor trip; diplomatic, official, service, residence, work, transit and other special-document routes remain outside scope.
- The applicant must appear in person at the Panamanian consulate. The authorized-visa approval process may take up to 60 business days, and travel should not be finalized until the visa is granted.
- A traveller holding a qualifying valid visa or residence from the countries named in Panama's Executive Decree 521 exception may use that conditional waiver instead; it is not the unconditional passport baseline.
- Migration Service authorization and consular issuance do not guarantee final admission at the border.