Spain weekly update on entry requirements from third countries [15-21 November 2021]

Spain’s Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs, and Social Welfare has updated the entry requirements for third countries as it does every week.

This time, the weekly assessment took into account the Permanent Representatives Committee’s decision to eliminate Singapore and Ukraine from the list of safe countries whose travel restrictions should be lifted.

From May 20th, 2021, the criteria to measure the sanitary risk of each country and consider adding or reducing entry restrictions involve:

• The number of COVID-19 infections in the last two weeks. As a general rule, there can’t be more than 75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. If that’s the case, the country can’t be considered safe in sanitary terms by the Council.
• The number of people infected with COVID-19 variants of interest or variants of concern. The EU is especially careful with more lethal or more infectious COVID-19 variants, or novel variants whose effects are unknown.
• How many COVID-19 tests were carried out in the country and how many of them had positive results in the last two weeks. Only 4% out of 300 tests per 100,000 inhabitants can be positive.
• How many citizens are being vaccinated or how the vaccination campaigns are doing in the country in general terms.

Recent data by the ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) and the EEAS (European External Action Service) showed that Ukraine and Singapore’s COVID-19 statistics were unfavorable this week. Therefore, the EU Council recommended the restoration of entry and travel restrictions for these two countries.

Spain adopted the Council’s recommendation and started applying it on November 15th, 2021 at 00:00 hours. This means that from November 15th, 2021, to November 21th, 2021, Spain will have a new list of risk countries.

Currently, the Spanish authorities consider that all third countries are at risk except for these territories: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Namibia, and Rwanda.

In the European Union, the countries at risk are those that are considered red, dark red, orange, and grey areas by the Council Recommendation 2020/1475 and its subsequent amendments.

This list hasn’t been modified in the past week, so the European countries and areas considered at risk are still Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Iceland, Slovenia, Cyprus, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, France, Portugal, and the Italian regions of Calabria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Marche, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen, Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Piemonte, Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Puglia, Sicilia, Toscana, Umbria, and Veneto.

The requirements for traveling and entering Spain from countries at risk are different for nationals of third countries and nationals of EU Member States, but they all must meet Spain’s health control requirements. First, they must fill a health control form before arrival and obtain a QR code that will be presented at the Spanish borders upon arrival. The health form varies if the traveler comes to Spain by plane or by ferry. No health form is needed if the traveler comes to Spain by land.

Apart from this, citizens of the EU must obtain any variation of the EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate (there are three types: vaccination, diagnostic test, or recovery). Nationals of third countries can’t apply for the DCC but they must present equivalent documentation: certificate of vaccination, certificate of recovery, or a negative NAAT or RAT diagnostic test.