27/11/2021
PORTUGAL APPLY TO?
All passengers, regardless of nationality - including Portuguese - and where they come from, are required from December 1st to submit a negative Covid test in order to enter Portugal. This applies even to people who are already vaccinated or recovered.
ARE CHILDREN ALSO COVERED BY THIS RULE?
Only children under 12 years old are excluded from the requirement to present a negative covid test for travel. If they are over 12 years old, the same rule as for adults applies.
WHO MONITORS THIS?
The airlines and border control are obliged to check the negative test of all passengers who are travelling to Portugal, which must be done at the time of check-in - with a fine of €20,000 thousand per passenger in case of infringement.
DOES THE OBLIGATION TO SUBMIT COVID TESTS ALSO APPLY TO THOSE ENTERING MADEIRA AND THE AZORES?
No, the measures announced by António Costa to come into force on December 1st apply to mainland Portugal. The autonomous regions are responsible for their own rules. But all passengers travelling from Madeira or the Azores to Mainland Portugal, Portuguese or foreign, must present a negative test at'check in' to be able to board (in the opposite direction of the trip, the rules decreed by the autonomous regions are complied with) .
ACCORDING TO THE NEW RULES, IS A NEGATIVE TEST NEEDED AT 'CHECK IN' WHEN TRAVELLING 'FROM' A PORTUGUESE AIRPORT?
No, this depends on the rules adopted by the countries you are travelling to. The scope of the measures announced is limited to passengers disembarking in Portugal and hence the control of the test must be carried out during 'check in' at the destination from which you leave.
IN THE EVENT OF SHORT-TERM TRIPS (FOR EXAMPLE, LEAVES ON DECEMBER 1ST AND RETURN ON DEC 2ND): IT IS POSSIBLE TO TAKE A TEST IN PORTUGAL AND USE IT WHEN CHECKING IN IN THE COUNTRY FROM WHICH YOU WILL DEPART?
Yes, as long as the covid test carried out within the valid time before departure - which for PCR is within 72 hours and for antigen within 48 hours. Beware of delayed flights, etc - this may cause the test to become outdated and thus prevent your trip.
WHAT TESTS ARE VALID IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO TRAVEL?
Tests can be PCR (laboratory) or antigen (pharmaceutical) tests. Only self-tests (ie, NHS home tests) which do not provide a certificate are excluded. It is important to respect the validity of the tests: PCR can be performed within 72 hours before travel and antigen tests within 48 hours before.
WHERE CAN PEOPLE TAKE THE TESTS TO TRAVEL?
Tests must be taken at the destination you are leaving from (unless the test taken leaving Portugal is still valid, as stated above). It is important that, regardless of the destination where the test is carried out, they can be recognised, that is, they contain information reporting with the date, time and type of test performed. If they do not contain all this information - date, time and type of test - they are not considered valid for entering Portugal.
DOES THE TEST OBLIGATION APPLY ONLY TO THOSE ENTRYING BY AIR?
No, it applies to all people who enter the Portuguese mainland, whether by air, sea or land.
IF YOU COME FROM SPAIN BY CAR, DO YOU NEED TO HAVE A VALID TEST?
Yes, although at present the land borders are open, but at any time, security authorities can ask random travellers for the document.
BECAUSE OF THE NEW RULES, WILL THERE BE MORE CONTROL POINTS AT THE AIRPORTS FOR THOSE ARRIVING ON A TRIP?
António Costa stated that control at airports will be strengthened, even using private security companies to ensure that test certificate checks are carried out on all passengers and not randomly. How this will actually come in to practice is still being studied by the Government, but the idea is that it will come into force on 1st December.
Airlines say new travel measures “do not make any sense”
The airlines are baffled by the new measures, unaware of the data that could possibly support the accusation made by Portugals Prime Minister of “profound irresponsibility”.
RENA, the Association of Airlines does not agree with the measures proposed this Thursday by the Government to contain the spread of the pandemic, and refutes the accusations of irresponsibility, instead speaking of "possession" and "confiscation."
The association say they are perplexed by the "public statement by António Costa, in particular the passage in which he refers generically to the 'irresponsible' behavior of airlines and the tightening of sanctions for potential non-compliance (violation of the duty to control the requirement of a test) to a €20k thousand fine per passenger".
The association representing the majority of airlines that fly to Portugal - including TAP, but also companies such as Lufthansa, Air France or EasyJet - says it does not know why the Government took such restrictive and punitive measures. They guarantee that there is no reason to believe that airlines are not strictly adhering to the rules.
"We are not aware of any data or information that could substantiate the accusation made. On the contrary, the experience of RENA member companies is that on flights with hundreds of passengers, there are sometimes fortuitous situations in one or two cases, the result of human errors, of those who were neither trained nor hired to be an agent of the Portuguese State and who do not speak the Portuguese language", explains António Moura, lawyer and executive director of RENA.
Moura ensures that RENA member companies "scrupulously comply with the duties assigned to them in terms of safety and support for public health measures, namely the requirement for a vaccination certificate or test to be able to transport passengers". Because, he explains, Portuguese law already provides for a fine of up to €2000 per passenger for cases where the company does not comply with this duty. On a 150-passenger flight, it's a potential fine of 300,000 euros, he adds. "This is already a perfectly good deterrent!"
This is not the prime minister's view. “We found that, unfortunately, the airlines have not fulfilled their obligation”, said António Costa. He continued: “It is an act of profound irresponsibility to transport and disembark people who are not tested. We want to keep borders open and civil aviation activity functioning, but it is a strict obligation to ensure the safety of those transporting and the destinations to which they fly”. It is because of these alleged flaws that the prime minister says sanctions will be tightened.
As of December 1st, António Costa announced that all passengers, regardless of nationality - including Portuguese - and where they come from, are required to submit a negative test to covid to enter Portugal, whether or not they are vaccinated. (READ MORE HERE...)And it is the airlines that are obliged to check the negative test of all passengers who are going to transport to Portugal - with a penalty of a fine of 20 thousand euros per passenger in case of infringement, with the possibility of their flight license to operate in Portugal even being suspended.
RENA's astonishment extends to the scale of the fine that António Costa announced, which goes from two thousand to 20 thousand euros. "The 10-fold increase in the administrative offense framework seems to us to be totally disproportionate and completely meaningless, especially considering that it is an accessory obligation or duty of a private operator acting in substitution for the State."
RENA's criticism is harsh. "Public health policies are a responsibility of the State that must be financed by the State's own resources, not by dispossession or confiscation by economic operators", he stressed.
António Moura also considers that this measure, taken from a "purely local perspective", "does not make any sense in a country that has tourism as the central axis of its economic policy. It will further damage one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic."
