Date Published: 11/11/2020
ARCHIVED - Travellers to Spain must provide negative PCR test from 23rd November
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
A negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of travelling must be provided by all travellers from “risk” countries
After months of pressure from the regional governments of some of the principal gateway airports to Spain, the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, has finally given in, and will now demand a negative PCR test from travellers arriving in the country from risk areas 72 hours prior to arrival.
Similar measures have been in place in the airports of major capitals such as Paris, Rome, Berlin, Brussels, Athens, Amsterdam, Vienna or Moscow for several weeks, and Spanish regions have repeatedly asked the Spanish Government to implement this type of control for months, in some cases, such as that of Madrid, since the end of the state of emergency in June.
Until now, temperature controls and a form giving the contact details of foreign tourists have been the only measures applied.
The new measures will apply to travellers from countries considered to be “risk” countries under the EU traffic light system. This basically means that any country which is not classified as green, and has an accumulated incidence rate across the last 14 days higher than the green level of between 25 and 150 cases, and a positivity rate of over 4% is a risk country (all of Spain’s neighbours and the UK are risk countries at the moment).
Passengers must provide a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to their journey, by means of the "original" document with the diagnosis, which may be written in Spanish or English and which may be on physical paper or in electronic format.
When the form has not been completed electronically, through the QR code generated through the website www.spth.gob.es or the Spain Travel Health-SpTH application, it may be submitted in paper format before boarding, accompanied by in this case, the original document certifying the performance of the diagnostic test.
The Ministry of Health has advised that travel agencies, tour operators and air or maritime transport companies and any other agent that markets tickets must inform passengers of the obligation to have a PCR with a negative result in order to travel.
Canary Islands
Although the Government has already approved a protocol to oblige travellers arriving in the Canary Islands to provide a negative test, the measure has not yet entered into force, although the Canary Islands will begin to insist on a negative test from Saturday, November 14th onwards. All tourists ( both from the Spanish mainland and foreign) must present a negative test result in order to stay in a hotel on the island; if they do not have this certificate, they will not be able to access the hotel.