Japan Scraps Pre-Entry COVID Test for Fully Vaccinated Travelers

Travelers walking past check-in counters at an international flight departure floor at Tokyo's Haneda airport, Japan, on Dec. 1, 2021. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)

Travelers entering Japan will no longer be required to present proof of a negative COVID-19 test if they have been vaccinated three times, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Aug. 24.

The government will waive the requirement to take a COVID test within 72 hours of departure for fully vaccinated travelers beginning on Sept. 7, local news agency Kyodo News reported.

Japan has lifted most of its COVID measures and resumed accepting foreign tourists from countries classified as having the lowest risk of COVID-19 since last month, but only for package tours.

While Kishida didn’t mention whether Japan would start accepting tourists individually, he said the government would consider raising the daily entry cap, which is presently set at 20,000.

“We will take into consideration the characteristics of the changing Omicron variant and accelerate efforts to take antivirus measures while keeping social and economic activity going as much as possible,” he said.

The move follows Kishida’s goal to implement an entry process similar to that of other Group of Seven (G-7) nations.

Japan has seen a spike in the number of COVID cases, with the daily count of new cases hitting a record of 253,265 on Aug. 20. Despite this, the government stated that no restrictions are necessary at this time due to the low risk of hospitalization.

Kishida previously said that he would consider downgrading the classification of COVID-19 when the situation had stabilized.

COVID-19 is currently classified as a “category two” disease in Japan, the second-highest on a five-tier scale of severity of infectious diseases.

“Category two” infectious diseases allow prefectural governors to require infected persons to be hospitalized or quarantined. Businesses and public transportation are rendered inoperable if their employees become infected, while hospitals are required to report all cases, putting a strain on the medical system.

Local authorities have urged the government to categorize COVID-19 as a “category four” disease, which would result in the disease being treated more like a seasonal flu-like condition, given that Omicron has a lower severity.