Austria has flung open its doors to South Africans – as long as they are fully vaccinated.
The EU country opened its borders to a group of countries now re-classified from ‘virus variant areas’ to ‘other countries’, with effect from August 18.
The Austrian authorities announced that fully vaccinated travellers arriving from the UK, India, Russia, Botswana, Nepal, South Africa, and Zambia are no longer required to undergo quarantine and these countries have been removed from the virus variant areas list, according to Austria’s official government travel portal.
Up to now, South Africans and others on the list were banned from travelling to Austria for non-essential purposes, and were only allowed entry for business travel, medical reasons, or other purposes, on the condition of a ten-day quarantine.
The requirement now is full vaccination, with the last dose having been administered 22 days before entry into the country. Once in the country, travellers may need to show documentary proof of vaccination in order to enter hotels, restaurants, museums etc.
Travellers must have been immunised with one of the following vaccines:
- BioNTech/Pfizer
- AstraZeneca
- Johnson & Johnson
- Moderna
- Sinovac
- Sinopharm
- Covishield
The portal says that these vaccine doses are recognised even if they are mixed. This means that travellers are considered fully vaccinated in Austria even if they have received vaccine doses from different companies.
Austria is on the UK’s green list.
