UK travel restrictions: Which countries are on the UK’s quarantine list?

People entering England from key holiday destinations including Spain, France, and parts of Greece and Portugal now have to quarantine.

But the requirement to self-isolate has been dropped if you’re arriving in the UK from other destinations, including Thailand.

The latest additions to the UK’s quarantine list are Denmark, Slovakia, Iceland and Curaçao with people entering from those countries needing to isolate from 04:00 BST on Saturday.

Most people entering the UK from overseas have to quarantine unless the country is on the list of exempt ”travel corridors”.

But many countries have lost their travel corridor status and are back on the quarantine list, including:

The decision is often made when 20 or more people out of every 100,000 in a country, or island, are infected over seven days, but other factors are also considered. These include:

Countries can now share more robust and detailed breakdowns of their coronavirus rates.

That’s prompted the UK to introduce regional travel corridors, whereby quarantine measures can be introduced for a country’s mainland, but not its islands – or vice versa, if only one has a high rate of coronavirus.

The distinction is only made between islands and the mainland, as it is too difficult to distinguish between inland regions, and people could travel too easily between them.

To this effect, travellers to England must quarantine if they return from seven of the Greek islands, or from mainland Portugal.

Health is a devolved policy, meaning each UK nation sets its own quarantine list. But until recently these have generally been identical.

In early September, Scotland and Wales decided to apply quarantine measures to all, or parts, of Greece after a number of cases of the virus were traced back to travellers from there.

They have also both added Portugal to their quarantine list, after it breached the threshold of 20 cases per 100,000 people.

But England and Northern Ireland did not immediately apply quarantine restrictions to travellers from Greece and Portugal at that point, although they have since added areas within those countries.

Travellers from countries that pose a “reduced risk” from coronavirus – in the government’s eyes – are exempt.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Azores, Barbados, BES Islands, Cuba, Cyprus, Dominica, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Greece (except seven islands), Greenland, Grenada, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macau, Madeira, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Seychelles, South Korea, St Barthélemy, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Pierre and Miquelon, St Vincent and the Grenadine, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Vatican City, Vietnam

Those entering the UK from the common travel area – the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man – are exempt, as are the 14 British Overseas Territories.

They can be fined up to £3,200 in England if they do not provide accurate contact details, or £1,920 in Wales.

The UK’s coronavirus rate has risen to more than 40 cases per 100,000 people, taking it well above the 20 case threshold it often imposes on travellers from other countries.

Travellers leaving the UK could still face restrictions – including quarantine – when they arrive in one of the exempted countries.