US to Drop Foreign Air Traveler Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement

The US will stop requiring most foreign air travelers to be vaccinated against Covid-19, amid complaints from travel companies that the rule depressed tourism revenue.

The requirement will cease “at the end of the day on May 11,” the Biden administration said in a statement, the same day vaccine rules for federal employees and contractors will be over.

In ending the mandate, the US joins Canada, Mexico and dozens of other countries that have dropped their vaccine rules for visitors. It is the Biden administration’s latest step to unwind precautions instituted during the pandemic.

The US last summer dropped its requirement that visitors arriving by plane must test negative for coronavirus, but not the rule that international travelers be vaccinated.

The tourism industry, including a trade association representing American Airlines Group Inc., Carnival Corp., and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., has long pushed the Biden administration to lift the mandate that visitors prove they’ve been fully vaccinated, defined by the Centers for Disease Control as two weeks after their final dose of an accepted vaccine.

International passenger air travel to the US has been slowly recovering though it has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. More than 185 million passengers boarded international flights to the US in 2022, down 23% from 2019.

The US will separately end its Covid-19 public health emergency declaration on May 11. The status allowed Americans special access to Medicaid, the program that provides health coverage to low-income people, along with emergency pandemic services.