Publication
Travelling to Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic
From Department of the Taoiseach
Published on
Last updated on
- 1. What you have to do before you arrive into Ireland from abroad
- 2. What to do if you travel to Ireland from high risk designated countries
- 3. Passenger Locator Form
- 4. Quarantine requirements
- 5. Requirement for a pre-departure COVID-19 RT-PCR test
- 6. Exemptions – travellers who do not need to provide evidence of a pre-departure test
The government advises against all non-essential international travel.
All travellers coming into Ireland must:
- complete a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form
- provide evidence that you have a negative or ‘not detected’ result from a COVID-19 Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test carried out no more than 72 hours before you arrive into Ireland, or have evidence that you are exempt from this legal requirement
If you travel to Ireland from any of the high risk countries, you must complete mandatory hotel quarantine.
The list of high risk countries is as follows:
- Angola
- Botswana
- Burundi
- Cape Verde
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Lesotho
- Malawi
- Eswatini
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Republic of South Africa
- Rwanda
- Seychelles
- Tanzania
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Chile
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- French Guiana
- Guyana
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Suriname
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Austria
- United Arab Emirates
If you do not fulfil the legal requirement for mandatory hotel quarantine you are committing an offence, and can be fined up to €2,500 or get a prison sentence of up to 6 months, or both.
If you are coming to Ireland from any country that isn't on the list of high risk ‘category 2’ countries, including if you are travelling onwards to Northern Ireland, you must complete a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form.
If you don't fill out this form you can be fined up to €2,500 or get a prison sentence of up to 6 months.
You must also fill out this form if you arrive via Northern Ireland and have been overseas in the 14 days prior to your arrival in Ireland.
An exemption from completing the form is in place for providers of essential supply chain services such as hauliers, pilots and maritime staff.
Once you have arrived here you must comply with the health restrictions in place in Ireland.
Passengers travelling to Northern Ireland must ensure that they are familiar with the guidance and regulations in place, including the completion of a UK Passenger Locator Form.
A legal requirement to quarantine has been introduced for all travellers (except if your journey originates in Northern Ireland) – with very limited exceptions.
If you travel to Ireland from a high-risk country then you must complete a period of mandatory quarantine. See here for more details.
For all other travellers:
- a 14-day quarantine period must be undertaken at the address specified on the Passenger Locator Form
- persons who travel from another country to Ireland, and arrive via Northern Ireland, must also observe the mandatory quarantine regime.
If you do not fulfil the legal requirement for mandatory quarantine you are committing an offence, and can be fined up to €2,500 or get a prison sentence of up to 6 months, or both.
You may only leave your place of residence during the quarantine period for unavoidable reasons of an emergency nature to protect a person’s health or welfare, or to leave the State.
You may leave to take a RT-PCR test no less than 5 days after your arrival – if you receive written confirmation that the result of this test is negative/ ‘not detected’ your period of quarantine can end.
You must retain the written confirmation of your test result for at least 14 days.
If your journey began in any of the Category 2 Category 2 'high-risk' countries countries , you must complete the full 14 days of quarantine – regardless of whether you have a negative test result.
If you are arriving into Ireland (except if your journey originates in Northern Ireland) - you must have a negative/‘not detected’ result from a pre-departure COVID-19 Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test carried out no more than 72 hours prior to your arrival in Ireland.
If you come to Ireland without a negative or 'not detected' PCR test, you must complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine in a hotel.
You will be asked to show evidence of this negative or 'not detected' result before boarding the airplane or ferry from the country you are travelling from and will be denied boarding if you cannot produce such evidence. Once you arrive in Ireland - you have to provide this evidence to Irish immigration officers.
You should retain the written confirmation of your test result for at least 14 days.
International transport workers, including workers in aviation, maritime and road haulage sectors are exempt from this requirement where they are travelling in the course of performing their duties.
Passengers who arrive in Ireland solely for the purpose of travelling onwards to another state and do not leave the port or airport are not required to provide evidence of a test.
Patients travelling for urgent medical reasons.
Children aged 6 and under.
If a citizen has a genuine humanitarian emergency requiring urgent travel, and might not be able to obtain the result of a pre-departure RT-PCR test in time, they should contact the nearest embassy or consulate immediately for advice and consular assistance before commencing their journey.
