Beginning April 1, fully vaccinated travellers coming to Canada will no longer need to provide a pre-arrival negative COVID-19 test.
This decision to ease Canada’s border screening measures was announced on March 17 by the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos.
Currently, travellers wishing to enter the country by air, land or water must provide a valid pre-entry test, performed 72 hours before arrival, or an antigenic test result, performed the day before departure. These tests must be administered at health facilities or through a telehealth service.
“Adjustments to Canada’s border measures are made possible by a number of factors, including Canada’s high vaccination rate, the increasing availability and use of rapid tests to detect infection, decreasing hospitalizations and growing domestic availability of treatments for COVID-19. As vaccination levels and healthcare system capacity improve, we will continue to consider further easing of measures at the borders-and when to adjust those measures-to keep the people in Canada safe,” he said in a press release.
Vaccination requirements for travellers entering Canada remain in place. There are very few exemptions from entry requirement for unvaccinated foreign travellers, amongst them are Ukrainian citizens, temporary foreign workers coming to work in the agricultural or food industry, and people who regularly cross the border for work.
Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated travellers are still required to be tested on arrival and remain in quarantine for 14 days. They also need to retest on the eighth day of their quarantine.
To be considered fully vaccinated, the Canadian government requires that travellers have received a full recommended dose of one of the following vaccines:
- AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD
- Bharat Biotech
- Janssen/Johnson & Johnson
- Moderna
- Novavax
- Pfizer-BioNTech
- Sinopharm BIBP
- Sinovac
Travellers must upload their proof of vaccination into the ArriveCAN application.
The latest change to Canadian border measures comes just weeks after the federal government announced it was loosening restrictions as it transitions away from its emergency response to the pandemic.
As of February 28, travellers arriving in Canada who are fully vaccinated, regardless of their country, are no longer subject to mandatory screening, but are instead randomly selected for screening upon arrival.
In addition, travellers are no longer required to remain in quarantine while awaiting their test results.
Similarly, unvaccinated children under 12 years of age entering Canada no longer have to be quarantined for 14 days.
In recent weeks, cases of COVID-19 have decreased in Canada. Mask mandates and other health restrictions related to COVID-19 are being lifted across the country and Canadians are increasingly considering a return to normal life.
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