The Philippines has ended its world’s longest lockdown on foreign travelers and has started opening its doors for fully vaccinated tourists.
Starting today, February 10, foreign travelers from 157 countries and territories with visa-free arrangement with the Philippines will be allowed entry after more than two years.
They are entitled to a stay not exceeding 30 days as per Executive Order 408.
The list of countries whose citizens will allowed entry to the Philippines can be found on this link: https://dfa.gov.ph/list-of-countries-for-21-day-visa.
The government is brimming with optimism that the number of incoming tourists will see a gradual increase with the reopening of borders, after a massive drop of arrivals in 2021.
As per recent data of the Airport Operations Division of the Bureau of Immigration (BI), only 1.4 million foreign travelers arrived in the country in 2021, which was significantly lower than the 3.6 million in 2020.
During pre-pandemic, foreign tourist arrivals were hitting 16.9 million, according to the BI.
Other requirements, as stated under the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) Resolution 160-B, include:
- Full vaccination against Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) and is in possession of an acceptable proof of vaccination, except only for minors below 12 years of age traveling with their fully-vaccinated foreign parent/s;
- A negative RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) Covid-19 test taken within 48 hours prior to the date and time of departure from the country of origin/first port of embarkation in a continuous travel to the Philippines, excluding layovers; provided, that, he/she has not left the airport premises or has not been admitted into another country during such lay-over;
- Valid tickets for their return journey to the port of origin or next port of destination not later than 30 days from date of arrival in the Philippines;
- Passports valid for a period of at least six months at the time of their arrival in the Philippines;
- Travel insurance for Covid-19 treatment costs from reputable insurers, with a minimum coverage of USD35,000 (around PHP1.7 million) for the duration of their stay in the Philippines (obtained before arrival).
At present, over half of the country’s population or 60 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19, while around 8.2 million have received their booster shots.
