COVID-19 Passports: 6 Things You Must Know About Them

Are there countries that use it?

An ACTUAL passport? No, there is not. However, if we are talking about the Israel and New York State mobile apps and the EU Certificate, then a number of countries and a U.S. state are using a form of a centralized database that can check the vaccination status or negative test result.

The EU Digital COVID Certificate is used by the 27 EU member states, together with 18 other countries and territories: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Israel, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Morocco, Monaco, North Macedonia, Norway, Panama, San Marino, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and The Vatican. It allows for free movement and fewer restrictions for the vaccinated population, but also allows for regulations that impose restrictions to be made based on the certificate on a state-by-state basis.

What is the case for the United States?

At the moment, there is no concrete plan for the United States to use such a vaccine as the official position of the White House is that they want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. With certain states imposing COVID vaccination proof in order to do certain things, there seems to be an incline in at least developing an easier way to prove you have been vaccinated as the vaccination card could be easily lost or stolen if we are not careful.

We will have to wait and see how the situation unfolds.

Who can travel to the United States and what are the requirements?

With all these talks of traveling, we should mention that there are continuous changes and if you wish to travel outside of the United States you should check the requirements of the country or state you are going to. Moreover, you should keep up to date with the entrance requirements for being able to come back to the U.S.

For citizens, nationals, lawful permanent residents, and immigrants, the CDC advises not to travel at all unless you are fully vaccinated. However, if you happen to travel, when you come back home, you need to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than 3 days before your flight if you are vaccinated, or no more than 1 day before, if you are not. Moreover, after you have arrived, there is a recommendation of taking a COVID test 3-5 days after you have arrived whether you are vaccinated or not, together with 7 or 10 days of quarantine if you are unvaccinated. These are not imposed, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Things change if you are not a U.S. citizen or immigrant as you have to be fully vaccinated to enter the territory, with some exceptions. And even then you are required to show a negative test in order to travel.

With how rapidly things are changing, we recommend you keep an eye on the CDC website for up-to-date accurate information.