Our visa on arrival guide covers immigration itself, and our tourist scams guide covers the touts you'll meet once you're through it. This is what happens in between: getting a working phone connection and legitimate cash before you head into the city.
Buying a local SIM card
Kiosks for the country's main operators, Grameenphone, Robi, and Banglalink, sit just past immigration in the arrivals area, and any of them can register you as a tourist on the spot. You'll need your passport, which they photocopy, and a passport-sized photo; if you don't have one, there's a photo booth near the arrivals exit that takes one for a small fee in a few minutes. Registration also includes a fingerprint scan on a small biometric device, which is a mandatory part of the process here rather than an optional step, and it's the part most visitors don't expect walking in.
Budget fifteen to twenty minutes if the kiosk isn't busy, longer if it is. One rule worth knowing before you land: tourists are limited to two SIM cards per passport across all carriers nationwide, so buying one at the airport and expecting to pick up a second later at a random shop in another city may not work. If your flight lands very late at night, be aware the kiosks tend to wind down after the last international arrivals of the day, so a midnight or later landing may mean picking up a SIM the next morning instead.
Getting cash without a street exchange
The airport's own arrivals area has legitimate currency exchange counters before you clear customs, which is worth knowing since it means you don't need to look for one once you're already outside and dealing with transport. This is a different thing entirely from the unlicensed street exchange our scams guide warns about; an official counter inside the terminal carries none of that risk. If you'd rather use your own card, our ATMs and cards guide covers which banks actually work with foreign cards and the setting that affects your exchange rate; either route beats arriving in the city with no local currency and no plan for getting any.
The order that makes sense
Handle both before you leave the terminal rather than after: a working SIM means Google Maps, ride-hailing apps, and a way to confirm your hotel booking all work from the moment you step outside, and cash in hand means you're not negotiating a fare with nothing but a card in an unfamiliar currency. Neither takes long, and doing both here removes two separate problems before they can become one.