Fully vaccinated people from the EU and US will no longer have to quarantine upon arrival to Scotland.
From 4am today, anyone touching down in Scotland who has received both doses of a Covid vaccine will skip the 10-day isolation period, subject to countries remaining on the amber travel list.
The decision was announced by the Scottish Government earlier this week, hours after UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the relaxation of measures for England.
It has been described as a '"significant easing" of restrictions from the Scottish Government.
The change does not apply to people who have been in France in the 10 days prior to their arrival, due to concerns over the Beta variant of coronavirus.
Travellers need to show a negative test before departure and produce a negative PCR test result on day two after arrival.
The requirement to take a further PCR test on day eight is being dropped.
Those arriving will be required to show either the EU Digital Covid Certificate or the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s white card – known as a CDC card – to prove they are fully vaccinated.
READ MORE: Sick pay U-turn creates dilemmas for frontline staff
Announcing the changes last week, Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson the change is down to “overwhelming success” of the vaccination scheme in Scotland as well as “successful rollouts” of vaccine programmes in the EU and US.
He said: “Fully vaccinated travellers will be able to travel to Scotland under this significant relaxation of international travel measures, providing a boost for the tourism sector and wider economy while ensuring public health is protected.”
He urged people to “continue to think very carefully about travelling – especially given the prevalence and unpredictable nature of variants of concern”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel