U.S. to Require Negative Covid-19 Tests for Travelers from China

The United States will require a negative Covid-19 test for travelers to the U.S. from China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.

Beginning Jan. 5, 2023, all air passengers 2 years old and older will need to provide a negative test no more than two days prior to their departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau, and show the negative result to their airline. Should a passenger test positive more than 10 days before a flight, they can provide documentation of recovery in lieu of the negative test result, according to the CDC.

Airlines must confirm the negative Covid-19 test result or documentation of the recovery for all passengers before they board or deny boarding to the passenger.

The requirement applies to all air passengers regardless of nationality and vaccination status. It also applies to persons traveling from China via a third country transit, and to passengers connecting through the U.S. onward to further destinations.  

The U.S. joins India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in requiring such testing after the Chinese government announced it was lifting its strict zero-Covid policies, and it stopped reporting the number of Covid cases in the country. 

The CDC announced this requirement "to slow the spread of Covid-19 in the United States during a surge in Covid-19 cases in the [People's Republic of China] given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC."