Travel & Tourism
Cyprus Lifts Entry Rules for Fully Vaccinated & Recovered Travellers
The Cypriot authorities have announced that the travel restrictions will no longer remain in place for travellers who have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 disease.
Travelers who can prove that they have received all necessary doses of an authorised vaccine or they have recently recovered from COVID-19 will not be required to undergo any tests to visit Cyprus, irrespective of colour-categorisation of their country of departure,” the statement of the authorities reads.
This means that travel rules when reaching Cyprus will now be based on travellers’ vaccination and recovery status rather than the origin country they are travelling from, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
In line with the new rules, travellers who have been vaccinated or recovered from the virus can enter Cyprus as long as they hold an EU Digital COVID-19 Vaccination or Recovery Certificate issued by an EU/Schengen Area country or any other third-country that is already connected to the EU DCC.
This suggests that only vaccination and recovery certificates issued by specific competent authorities of third countries are accepted upon arrival in Cyprus.
Vaccination certificates are recognised in Cyprus provided that the document proves that the holder has completed primary vaccination within the last nine months or has received a booster shot. The vaccination process must be completed with one of the vaccines authorised for travel.
This means that Cyprus accepts only vaccination passes indicating immunisation with AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria, Covishield, SKBion Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen, Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Sinovac, Covaxin, and Novavax.
As for recovery passes, they are accepted as long as the document proves that the holder has been infected with the virus within the last 180 days.
On the other hand, the authorities have explained that the colour-coded system will continue to apply to persons who have not been vaccinated or recovered from the virus.
Unvaccinated and unrecovered travellers who enter Cyprus from a green-listed country are required to take a PCR test within 72 hours or a rapid antigen test within 24 hours before departure.
In contrast, stricter rules apply to those from a red country. Unvaccinated and unrecovered travellers from a red-listed country need to take another test upon arrival in Cyprus in addition to the pre-entry test.
As for the grey category, it has been explained that travellers from this list need to undergo a mandatory ten-day quarantine requirement. The self-isolation period can be ended earlier, provided that a negative PCR test is present on the seventh day.
The current categorisation of countries that Cyprus has is as follows:
Red EU/Schengen Area countries: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Vatican City State, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.
Red third countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belarus, Canada, Chile, China (including Hong Kong and Macao), Colombia, Egypt, Georgia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, New Zealand, Oman, Peru, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, UK, US, and Uruguay.
All the other countries that were not mentioned in any of these two lists are part of the grey one.
