The U.S. Will Require Negative Covid-19 Tests for Chinese Travelers

Wednesday, December 28, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that Chinese traveling to the United States would be required to have a negative Covid-19 test.

Beginning on January 5, 2023, all passengers 2 years of age and older will be required to produce a negative test at least two days before their departure from China, Hong Kong, or Macau and provide the negative result to the airline. According to the CDC, if a traveler tests positive more than 10 days before a trip, they may submit proof of recovery in place of a negative test result.

Before allowing a passenger to board, airlines must check that he or she has a negative Covid-19 test result or evidence of recovery.

The mandate applies to all airline passengers, irrespective of country or vaccination status. It also applies to travelers departing China through a third-country transit and travelers connecting via the United States en route to further destinations.

The United States has joined India, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan in mandating such testing, after the Chinese government’s announcement that it was relaxing its rigorous zero-Covid policy and ceasing to report Covid specific cases.

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.”