The EU has made changes to its safe travel list, removing Australia, Canada and Argentina
The European Union has announced that Argentina, Australia and Canada should be removed from its Travel Safe List–the list of countries to and from which it proposes that member countries should allow travel into the EU for non-essential reasons from third-party countries.
The EU updates its list of safe countries every two weeks, a process it has been doing since 30 June 2020. As of 17 January 2022, the complete list of countries comprises:
- Bahrain
- Chile
- Colombia
- Indonesia
- Kuwait
- New Zealand
- Peru
- Qatar
- Rwanda
- Saudi Arabia
- South Korea
- United Arab Emirates
- Uruguay
- China, subject to confirmation of reciprocity, which also includes the special administrative regions of China Hong Kong and Macao.
It is up to each individual EU member state to decide if it will follow the EU guidelines, as it is not a legally binding decision. Many countries have changed travel restrictions, vaccine and quarantine requirements throughout the pandemic and most are allowing vaccinated travelers to travel freely, although this is gradually including the idea of a booster jab being essential as being counted as fully vaccinated.
The EU has voted to make Covid Certificates valid for only 9 months, meaning that a booster shot will become a requirement to travel freely across Europe in 2022.
The U.S. was taken off the EU’s safe list at the end of August 2021, after the U.S. moved above the criteria of more than 75 new Covid-19 cases daily per 100,000 inhabitants over the previous 14 days–the U.S. at that point was registering 507 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The EU considers residents of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican as EU residents for the purpose of the Council’s recommendation and Schengen countries (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland) are also regarded as safe countries. A complete list of EU-wide travel restrictions and guidelines can be found here.
