Canada's Travel Restrictions Will Soon Require Pre-Arrival Tests For Short Trips Again

Soon Canada's travel restrictions will once again include the requirement for travellers entering the country to take a pre-arrival test even for short trips.

On December 17, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos gave an update on measures to deal with the Omicron variant and announced that travellers will have to have a negative test result before arriving in Canada no matter how long their trip is.

"We are reintroducing the requirement for a pre-arrival PCR test result for all travellers leaving the country for less than 72 hours," Duclos said.

The health minister also revealed that the pre-arrival tests for travellers need to be taken in a country other than Canada.

When the requirement was in place previously, travellers were able to take the test they needed to re-enter the country while in Canada before they actually left for their short trip.

The rule comes into effect as of December 21, 2021, and will be required for all trips of all durations.

"This is not a perfect measure but it's an important one," Duclos said. "It's an additional layer."

Before this, on November 30, the federal government had dropped the pre-arrival testing rule for some travellers.

At that time, fully vaccinated people with the right of entry to Canada who left and re-entered the country within 72 hours no longer had to show a negative result when they came back.

As of December 15, the federal government is advising against non-essential international travel as Canadians could contract the virus or get stranded abroad while travelling.

"Now is not the time to travel," Duclos said.