The Norwegian government announced significant changes to its travel and entry restrictions when unveiling the third stage of its reopening plan at a press conference on Friday.
This comes after the Norwegian border has been effectively closed to anyone who has not been a Norwegian citizen or resident for almost six months.
Soon family, partners and EU citizens with a valid Covid certificate will be able to visit Norway. On top of that there will also be significant changes, for UK arrivals in particular, to the hotel quarantine rules.
Below, we’ll take a look at the rule changes, what they mean to you, and when they go into effect.
“We now see that we will be able to verify the corona certificate of other EEA countries as early as June 24,” Education Minister Guri Melby said at a government press conference.
The certificate must have been designed in accordance with the European framework and be presented in the form of a QR code at the border.
Travelers from countries where the QR code is not currently available will not be admitted.
In Norway, you are not considered to be fully vaccinated until a week after your last vaccination.
Current entry conditions such as pre-entry registration and border testing will still apply.
EU citizens with the Covid certificate will not be required to self-quarantine
From June 19, entry is open to family and partners from the EU / EEA and UK to visit citizens and residents of Norway.
Children and stepchildren (regardless of their age), parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to visit.
Entry quarantine rules will still apply to family and partners traveling to Norway.
Only partners over 18 will also be able to visit. You will need to be together for at least nine months and the parties must have met in person before.
Partners will need to complete a free application with the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) before traveling. The application page is currently not live on UDI.no.
Travel tips
On July 5, the Foreign Office will remove travel advice that advises against travel within the EEA / Schengen and to countries on the EU’s safe travel list.
This is important because it means that insurers will pay if you have any issues while traveling in these areas.
Insurers will also not pay for claims made in countries where the government has advised against travel.
The Foreign Office may change the advice if infections increase or if variants of concern are detected.
Entry quarantine thresholds to be modified
From June 21, Norway will start the process of adopting the traffic lights diagram. However, the exemption thresholds will not change until July 5.
From Monday, Norway will introduce green countries in its traffic light system. Countries with less than 25 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 will now be green rather than yellow.
From July 5, however, that will change and the threshold will be raised to 50 cases per 100,000 for green countries.
You can consult the list of soon to be green countries here.
Fewer people will need to enter quarantine hotels
Starting June 19, fewer people will need to enter quarantine hotels as the threshold for quarantine hotels will be doubled from 250 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 to 500 per 100,000 over a 14-day period.
According to ECDC, all European countries are below this incidence rate.
If you are to arrive in Norway from a country now exempt from hotel quarantine, it is worth documenting proof of exemption, as in the past travelers who were exempt under the rule changes were anyway directed to quarantine hotels.
Children under 18 will no longer be required to enter quarantine hotels, and arrivals outside the EEA / Schengen will be able to test outside of hotels with a free PCR test three days after arrival.
The ten day quarantine period will still need to be home-based once released from a hotel.
UK arrivals will be required to enter a quarantine hotel for at least three days
From June 21, passengers who were in the UK for more than ten days before traveling to Norway will need to be quarantined in a hotel for three days after entering Norway due to the prevalence of the Delta variant. , who is said to be from India. , in Great Britain.
They will be released after returning from a negative PCR test.
