New Corona entry regulation came into force on August 1

As of yesterday, August 1, 2021, stricter rules apply when entering Germany. These apply to all modes of transport. All entrants to Germany who are over 12 years old must from now on prove that they are either recovered, vaccinated or negative-tested. If entering from virus-variant areas, vaccinated and recovered persons are also required to test.

Here is an overview of the key points of the updated entry regulation:

• Validity of the regulation: August 1 to December 31, 2021.
• Only two categories of risk areas: There are now only high-risk areas (previously high-incidence areas) and virus variant areas. Updates on these are published every Friday by the RKI.
  • The category ‘risk area’ is no longer applicable, the status of the previous simple risk areas has been cancelled. This means that the countries previously classified accordingly – Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Iraq, Croatia, Morocco and Turkey – are no longer risk areas. The Digital Entry Application (DEA) requirement is no longer applicable.
  • High-risk areas are currently Egypt, Georgia, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, UK and Cyprus. Classification is no longer based solely on incidence, but also on hospitalization rate, test rate and positive rate, and the ratio of incidence to Germany.
  • If an area is downgraded, the regulations of the new classification will also apply from that point on for entrants who are already in quarantine.
• Extension to all modes of transport: The pre-entry detection requirement (testing, vaccination, recovery) is extended to all modes of transport. All previous test types (PCR/antigen/LAMP) will continue to be accepted as pre-entry tests.
• Validity of tests: PCR tests may have been done a maximum of 72 hours before departure, antigen tests 48 hours. For entry from virus variant areas, antigen tests may only be 24 hours old.
• Proof of age 12 and older: Proof of testing, vaccination and recovery must now only be provided by passengers aged 12 and older, instead of 6 and older as before.
• DEA requirement: DEA requirement remains for all entrants from high-risk and virus variant areas.
• Vaccinated/recovered: There is no pre-testing requirement for vaccinated/recovered except from virus variant areas.
• Free testing: free testing for non-vaccinated/non-recovered persons from high-risk areas after 5 days is still possible with all known types of testing. Children under 12 years of age may exit quarantine after 5 days without testing.
• Quarantine requirement: there is still a 14-day quarantine requirement for those returning from virus variant areas. An exception is only possible for double vaccinated persons if the RKI explicitly confirms the effectiveness of the vaccine against the corresponding variant.
• Crews: For crews, the testing obligation does not apply after layover in high-risk areas > 72 hours. In the case of layovers in virus variant areas, there is still a testing obligation upon entry, a quarantine obligation for stays > 72 hours and the DEA obligation for stays > 72 hours. Beyond that, crews are generally not subject to DEA.
• Transfer passengers: All types of transfer passengers may again be transported from virus variant areas. This means that transfers to Schengen are also possible again. Transfer passengers from virus variant areas are not subject to pre-testing. The transport ban continues to apply to non-German citizens/non-permanent residents with final destination Germany.
• Control obligations: The control obligations of carriers remain unchanged. There are to be random checks.