Effective today, April 1, 2022, eligible travellers entering Canada will no longer need proof of negative Covid-19 test result on a PCR nor antigen COVID-19 test.
Eligibility to Waived Testing Requirement
Fully vaccinated travellers will no longer need to complete pre-arrival test (which includes the molecular COVID-19 test or an antigen test) to get into Canada by land, air or water.
I have been asked a question in person quite a few times since November 8, 2021, when the United States opened its borders to more Canadians. So I thought it would make a post out of it.
The question is: “Can we travel from Canada to the United States by land, return to Canada within 72 hours, and not have to provide a negative Covid-19 test in either direction?”
Effective today, November 8, 2021, Canadians can travel more freely across the U.S. land border. Granted there are some conditions to keep in mind.
Conditions to Cross the U.S. Border
Over the past 19 months, (since March 2020), the United States has only allowed non-essential travel into their country from the Canadian land border crossings.
The Federal Government announced yesterday (October 6, 2021) that all travellers must be fully vaccinated by October 30, 2021 before boarding planes, trains or marine vessels.
Who needs to be fully vaccinated?
All travellers include people who are aged 12 and older. The vaccination rule (fully vaccinated) applies to passengers:
About a month ago, the Canadian government open its borders, slightly, for U.S. residents. Though not fully open, travel restrictions were eased.
Effective today, September 7, 2021, the exemption list was expanded to all other foreign nationals who qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption. Basically, those who qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption are exempt from: quarantine and Day-8 testing requirement.
Effective today (August 9, 2021), fully vaccinated American citizens and permanent residents of the United States can enter Canada and skip some of the quarantine rules. The rest of the world (i.e. other foreign nationals) will tentatively have restrictions eased on September 7, 2021. But it doesn’t work the other way around when Canadians want to enter the United States. The U.S. border is still closed to Canada until at least August 21, 2021.
Since February 22, 2021, people entering Canada have had to quarantine at an approved hotel, however, there are exceptions to the rule (discussed below). This is an addition to the proof of negative COVID-19 test that needs to be presented at the border.
It has been a couple of months since all these rules came into effect, so I thought I’d put together a more comprehensive guide overall and provide any updates since then.
CBC released an article about people finding ways to circumvent the hotel quarantine requirement, so I thought I’d chime in my thoughts into the matter since it seems to be a hot topic.
Quarantine Requirement
We have written an extensive post already on the hotel quarantine requirements.
See also: Covid-19 Updates
It’s official, the Federal Government announced new restrictions for incoming travellers that will come into effect on February 22, 2021. This announcement was made back on January 29, 2021, but with no start date till now. Some rules kick in on February 15, 2021 though.
Land Border Crossing
These warnings are becoming more of a reality as the Prime Minister announced today that travellers who are returning to Canada will soon have to quarantine in hotels … at their own cost. The point of this measure is to continue to discourage travel outside of Canada. The more recent one was the 72-hour negative test that came into effect on January 7, 2021.