Lifting of compulsory quarantine requirement on arrival at Hong Kong
The Hong Kong SAR Government has announced the lifting of the compulsory quarantine requirement for travellers from overseas places or Taiwan starting from 26 September.
With immediate effect, the boarding requirements and quarantine arrangements for travellers from overseas places or Taiwan will be adjusted as follows:
Boarding requirements
- Presentation of a negative nucleic acid testing report prior to boarding will no longer be required. Instead, all passengers are only required to self-declare a negative Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) result conducted within 24hrs prior to departure, when completing the HKSAR Health & Quarantine Information Declaration.
- Boarding requirement of having completed vaccination for Hong Kong residents will be lifted. Non-Hong Kong residents aged 12 or above will still be required to be fully vaccinated or have obtained a medical exemption certificate issued by a medical practitioner before they are allowed to board a flight for Hong Kong.
Medical surveillance
- No compulsory quarantine will be required upon arrival at Hong Kong. There will be three days of medical surveillance during which travellers are free to go out but are obliged to comply with Amber Code restrictions under the Vaccine Pass, followed by a four-day self-monitoring period, making it a 7-day observation period in total.
- Please note that passengers will not be able to travel to the Chinese Mainland during the 3 days of medical surveillance, as the Amber Code would restrict them from undergoing the relevant special nucleic acid test at the Hong Kong International Airport that is required for departing from Hong Kong to the Chinese Mainland.
Arrival arrangements
- "Test-and-go" arrangement will be implemented at the Hong Kong International Airport, i.e. travellers will not be required to wait for the test result at the airport after undergoing specimen collection for the nucleic acid test. They can take public transport or self-arranged transport to return to their home or their hotel of choice.
From the Chinese Mainland and Macao SAR
The Return2hk Scheme and Come2hk Scheme will be extended to cover all places in the Chinese Mainland and Macao with no quota restriction. Advanced application and nucleic acid test before arrival at Hong Kong are also not required. In other words, inbound persons from the Chinese Mainland or Macao will not be required to undergo home quarantine after arriving at Hong Kong.
For more information regarding the latest travel information, please visit the Hong Kong SAR Government’s COVID-19 website and our COVID-19 information centre.
Additional passenger flights
As Hong Kong’s home airline, we are fully committed to rebuilding the connectivity of the Hong Kong aviation hub. We intend to add more than 200 pairs of passenger flights in October to both regional and long-haul destinations. In view of Japan’s relaxation of travel restrictions for inbound visitors, Cathay Pacific will resume daily flights to Tokyo (Haneda) from 1 November and four-times-weekly flights to Sapporo from 1 December. We will also increase flight frequencies to Tokyo (Narita) to 43 pairs and Osaka to 50 pairs in October.
For more information regarding the latest flight schedule, please visit our website.
Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to welcoming your travellers on board soon.