Photo: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

International Travelers No Long Need a Negative COVID-19 Test to Enter the US

United States News
by Nickolaus Hines Jun 10, 2022

International travelers coming into the United States will no longer be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taking within one day of the flight. The Biden administration made the announcement today that the mandate expires on Sunday, June 12, at 12:01 AM EDT, according to the AP.

A mandate on testing for international travelers has been in place in some form for the past year. Exact qualifications have changed with variants, vaccines, and new information. In its latest iteration since the November omicron variant surge, air travelers had to test within one day of travel regardless of vaccination status or citizenship.

Notably, this rule didn’t apply to land border crossings, and many other countries dropped testing requirements months ago. In some cases, travelers were leaving countries with relatively low COVID rates and needing to have a rapid negative test to get into a US with significantly higher rates.

According to the AP, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will reevaluate any testing requirement needs every 90 days and there’s a possibility a new variant may lead to a reinstatement.

As with the mask mandate, travel industry leaders have pushed the Biden administration to drop the barriers to entry to the US to help boost one of the hardest hit industries over the past two years. Lifting the testing mandate makes international travel easier during a summer travel season that’s expected to be a big rebound of visitor numbers to get closer to, or greater than, 2019 numbers.

Discover Matador