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Minister for Health announces update to list of designated States

The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, has announced that he has removed one state from the list of Designated States for Mandatory Hotel Quarantine.

 

The country removed from the list is Ecuador. This change is effective from today.

If you are travelling to Ireland, you must fill out an electronic Passenger Locator Form before departure.

You also have to have appropriate valid proof of vaccination or recovery, or to present evidence of a negative RT-PCR result from a test taken within 72 hours prior to arrival into the country. More information is available on www.gov.ie/travel.

ENDS

A full list of designated States is available here.

* If your journey originates in a country which is designated:

If you have valid proof of vaccination, you will need to:

  • present evidence of a negative result from a RT-PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before arrival · undergo self-quarantine
  • if you receive a negative result from a RT-PCR test taken from day 5 onwards after arrival into Ireland, you will be able to end your self-quarantine

To be fully vaccinated you must have waited the correct length of time after the final dose of the EMA-approved vaccine.

The table below sets out what fully vaccinated means.

A full course of any one of the following vaccines:

Regarded as fully vaccinated after:

2 doses of Pfizer-BioNtech Vaccine: BNT162b2 (Comirnaty®)

7 days

2 doses of Moderna Vaccine: CX-024414 (Moderna®)

14 days

2 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine: ChAdOx1-SARS-COV-2 (Vaxzevria® or Covishield)

15 days

1 dose of Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Vaccine: Ad26.COV2-S [recombinant] (Janssen®)

14 days

If you have valid proof that you have recovered from COVID-19 for example a recovery certificate or a positive RT PCR test result taken not less than 11 days and not more than 180 days before arrival in the State, you will need to:

  • undergo self-quarantine
  • if you receive a negative result from a RT-PCR test taken from day 5 onwards after arrival into Ireland, you will be able to end your self-quarantine

If you do not have valid proof of vaccination or recovery, you will need to:

  • present evidence of a negative RT-PCR test result taken in previous 72 hours before arrival
  • undergo mandatory hotel quarantine
  • if you receive a negative result from a RT-PCR test taken from day 10 onwards after arrival into Ireland, you will be able to leave hotel quarantine

All other rules around travel should also be followed such as the completion of the online Passenger Locator Form in advance, self-quarantine/quarantine at home in certain circumstances etc. Antigen tests are not acceptable for entry into Ireland.