Non-essential travel to UK allowed from May 17

  • ECO News
  • 14 May 2021

Non-essential trips to and from the UK will be allowed from 12:00 am on Monday, simply by showing a negative test for covid-19 carried out within the previous 72 hours.

Non-essential trips to and from the United Kingdom will be allowed from midnight on Monday, simply by showing a negative test for covid-19 carried out in the previous 72 hours, a government source announced on Friday.

The government decision will be made official this Friday, a source at the Foreign Affairs Minister’s office, Augusto Santos Silva, told Lusa. According to this decision, which will come into force from 12:00 am on May 17, the United Kingdom will be included in the “list of countries whose epidemiological situation allows any travel to take place, subject to the presentation of a negative PCR test, carried out within 72 hours prior to the date of the flight.”

The UK has given Britons the “green light” to fly to Portugal from next Monday, but the final say was up to the Portuguese government, which had to change the current law.

Bookings by Britons for the Algarve had already soared, but this Thursday, the Minister of State and the Presidency said there was still no decision taken to allow non-essential trips. These statements were echoed in the British press and, according to the president of Turismo do Algarve to ECO, cancellations had already started.