Exemption from travel quarantine

Historical archive

Published under: Solberg's Government

Publisher: Ministry of Health and Care Services

News story | Date: 10/06/2021

People who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 during the past 6 months will be exempt from travel quarantine from Friday 11 June at 3 pm. This is conditional on their being able to provide documentation of vaccination or of having recovered from COVID-19 using a secure and verifiable QR code solution. Children and adolescents under the age of 18 may shorten their quarantine period if they can present a negative result from a PCR test taken no sooner than 3 days after arrival.

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‘People who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 during the past 6 months, and who can document this in a secure and verifiable way, will not need to go into travel quarantine from Friday 11 June at 3 pm. They will still need to be tested at the border’, says Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie.

‘The Norwegian Government is introducing these changes because the proportion of the population that is vaccinated is increasing, and most people in risk groups have been offered their first dose of the vaccine. Soon a system will be in place to verify the documentation of the vaccination status of travellers arriving from the EU/EEA and the UK’, states Mr Høie.

People who are fully vaccinated or who have recovered from COVID-19 and have a COVID-19 certificate that cannot be verified at the Norwegian border will not be covered by the exemption which enters into effect on Friday 11 June. In principle, these people will only be exempt from the duty to complete travel quarantine once Norway is linked to the EU's solution, which will allow us to verify documentation from other countries.

These changes are consistent with the recommendations from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health of Public Health and the Norwegian Directorate of Health.

Last week the Norwegian Government eased the travel quarantine rules for children under the age of 12. They can now leave quarantine if they present a negative result from a test taken no sooner than 3 days after arrival. This exemption is now being expanded to also include people aged 12–18.

Travel quarantine for people who have received their first dose
Protected people who have received their first dose within the past 3–15 weeks must complete travel quarantine. Last week the Norwegian Government changed the travel quarantine rules, so that their travel quarantine may be shortened if they present a negative result from a PCR test taken no sooner than 3 days after arrival. This exemption is also conditional on people being able to provide documentation using a secure and verifiable QR code solution.

The reason why protected people still need to complete travel quarantine is that people who have only received their first dose of the vaccine have an elevated risk of COVID-19, compared with people who are fully vaccinated. Only having received a single dose of the vaccine appears to offer less protection against new virus variants, like the Delta variant, than against the Alpha variant.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian Directorate of Health therefore believe that it is necessary to continue to require travel quarantine for this group, but that its duration can be shortened following a negative test taken no sooner than 3 days after arrival.