Canada's new travel rules for fully vaccinated travellers take effect today (November 30), which is good news to many as it includes no testing required for shorter trips and an expanded vaccine list.
To be considered fully vaccinated, a traveller must have received the full series of a vaccine-or combination of vaccines-accepted by the Government of Canada at least 14 days prior to entering Canada.
Canada no longer requires fully vaccinated travellers to provide a negative PCR test for entry if they've been out of the country for less than 72 hours. This applies to both land and air borders.
For fully vaccinated travellers with right of entry into Canada who are travelling by air, the 72-hour period runs from the initially scheduled departure time for their flight leaving Canada to the scheduled departure time for their return flight to Canada. Travellers will be responsible for maintaining proof of the 72-hour period to show airline/rail companies and border officials as required (e.g., boarding pass, travel itinerary).
The list of accepted vaccines has been expanded to include Sinopharm, Sinovac and COVAXIN, matching the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Use Listing (EUL). These are now added to existing accepted vaccines Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Back in October, the Canadian government mandated that all travellers on all federally run rail and airlines would need to be fully vaccinated. There was a grace period that allowed unvaccinated to show proof of negative PCR in order to travel. That is no longer the case. As of today, a valid COVID-19 test will no longer be accepted as an alternative to vaccination for travel within Canada as well. To take a flight or a train, travellers must be fully vaccinated with one of the expanded list of vaccinations unless they qualify for a limited exemption to this requirement.
Full details can be found on the Government of Canada website.
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