Canada has resumed its mandatory arrival testing for fully vaccinated air travellers.

The testing programme at Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto was temporarily suspended on June 11 as part of a strategy “to transition traveller testing for air travellers into the community”.

Unlike before, the Covid-19 testing will now take place outside of airports to reduce congestion in the terminals. This must be completed by the end of the next calendar day after arriving into Canada, either by an in-person appointment at select testing provider locations and pharmacies or via virtual appointment for a self-swab test.

Travellers are not required to quarantine while awaiting the test result.

Travellers will receive an email within 15 minutes of completing their customs declaration if they have been chosen for testing. The email will contain information to help them arrange their test with a provider in the region they are entering.

If passengers test positive, they will be required to isolate for ten days from the date of the test result.

Those who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, unless exempt, must continue to test on days 1 and 8 of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.

The Public Health Agency of Canada stated:

“Moving testing outside of airports will support testing for travellers arriving by air while still being able to monitor and quickly respond to new variants of concern, or changes to the epidemiological situation.

“Mandatory random testing continues at land border points of entry, with no changes.”

Jean Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, added:

“As we have said all along, Canada’s border measures will remain flexible and adaptable, guided by science and prudence. We need to keep border testing measures in place because that is how we track importation of the COVID-19 virus, and of new variants of concern. We will keep adapting our border measures to balance the need to protect Canadians while supporting our economic recovery.”

Travellers must continue to provide mandatory travel information within 72 hours of arrival in Canada via the ArriveCAN platform.