England will mandate that travelers quarantine and receive multiple coronavirus tests as part of its entry requirements.
Per the country’s government, everyone planning to enter England must:
- take a coronavirus (COVID-19) test and get a negative result during the 3 days before they travel.
- book and pay for a travel test package, which will include COVID-19 tests to be taken on or before day 2 and on or after day 8 of their quarantine.
- complete a passenger locator form with details of where they will home quarantine when they arrive.
Starting February 15, everyone allowed to enter England must:
- quarantine for 10 days.
- take a coronavirus (COVID-19) test on day 2 and day 8 of quarantining.
- follow the national lockdown rules.
The travel test package costs £210.
“You will not be able to leave quarantine until you have received both a negative result from your day 8 test and quarantined for 10 days,” the guidelines explain. “If you do not take the tests, you may face a penalty of up to £2,000.”
Travelers coming from a country on the UK’s “Red List” must pay for, and book, a hotel quarantine package that costs £1750. Costa Rica is not on the Red List.
Impacts on Costa Rica
In 2019, 78,562 people from the United Kingdom visited Costa Rica, according to data from the Costa Rica Tourism Board. This made it the European country from which the second-most people traveled to Costa Rica, behind only Germany.
Due to the coronavirus, visits from the UK dropped significantly in 2020. Last year, 24,623 Britons came to Costa Rica — including just 16 people from April to July.
Tourists rebounded slightly in 2020’s later months, with 968 UK arrivals from August to November and 1,155 in December.
British Airways, which typically flies non-stop from London, is expected to resume its route to Costa Rica later in 2021. Other European airlines, including Air France, Iberia, KLM and Lufthansa, retook flights in 2020.
Click here for a list of labs offering coronavirus tests across Costa Rica.
