People who can present vaccination certificates from the UK are exempted from both the entry ban and the requirement for a negative test on arrival to Sweden, the government announced last week.
The entry ban has been in place since 2020, but did not affect UK residents until the end of that year, because it was treated as an EU/EEA country until the end of the post-Brexit transition period. Under the entry ban, people wishing to travel to Sweden from outside the EU/EEA needed to fall into an exempt category (such as travelling for urgent family reasons or being a Swedish resident) as well as providing a negative test.
The change is effective from October 11th.
“Sweden and the UK have close ties and a long history of cooperation in many important areas. Travel between Sweden and the UK is of major importance for both countries from a range of perspectives,” the government said in its statement, noting that people fully vaccinated in Sweden have been allowed into the UK for some time.
The UK is not the first country to have its vaccination certificates approved by Sweden. From late September, people people who can present a Covid-19 vaccination certificate issued in Albania, Andorra, the Faroe Islands, Israel, Morocco, Monaco or Panama were also exempted from the entry ban and negative test requirement.
Under current Swedish travel rules, entry from most non-EU countries is not permitted unless the traveller falls into one of several exempt categories. Those categories include all Swedish residents and EU citizens, as well as people travelling for urgent family reasons and certain business travel, as well as from a small number of non-EU countries considered as “safe”, for example.
As of October 4th, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova have been removed from the “safe” list while Chile, Kuwait and Rwanda have been added to it, meaning that travellers from the latter three countries can enter Sweden by showing they are resident in one of these countries and presenting a negative Covid-19 test, without needing to fit into another exempt category.
The entry rules are currently in place until at least October 31st, but could be further extended.
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Sweden should follow the UK’s example and only allow people who have two of the same vaccine. And only vaccines administered by the Swedish health service in Sweden or somewhere else. Why should we treat the UK differently than they have treated everyone else?
kind of have had enough of this special regard for the UK, your articles are only about that, all the other citizens are what then?
Hej! We know that many of our readers travel between the UK and Sweden (not only UK citizens) and a lot of them have been in touch to ask for updates on the travel rules, so this is in response to readers’ requests. We have also published several articles in the past year that focus on the travel rules in general, but also how they affect various groups of readers, such as the travel rules from the US, India and other non-European countries.
What stories would you like us to cover more?
Any news on allowing vaccinated tourists from the United States? Will we be allowed on November 1?
Hej, I’m afraid there’s no news on this yet. The government has hinted it’s exploring the possibility of allowing vaccinated tourists from the US, but it hasn’t been confirmed so I can’t say what will happen on November 1st. We will cover any updates and you can keep up-to-date with our latest travel articles here: https://www.thelocal.se/tag/travel-news/
Hi Gabrielle,
The government have just annouced that vaccinated tourists from the US will be allowed in from November 5th.
Here’s our article with all the info: https://www.thelocal.se/20211028/sweden-lifts-entry-ban-for-fully-vaccinated-us-travellers/
Best,
Becky