While Japan is not completely open to the world just yet, the country has continued to ease its tight border restrictions in recent months. Kyodo News confirmed on Friday that, as speculated earlier this month, the Japanese government will double the cap on overseas arrivals to 20,000 people per day starting on Wednesday June 1. However, the move does not include allowing general tourism.
On top of the raised entry cap, the report also states that the government will ease Covid-19 arrival testing and quarantine rules by dividing countries and regions into three groups depending on their current coronavirus situation. Under the new grouping system, international travellers from the group with the lowest infection rate will be exempt from requirements to test on arrival and quarantine at home.
As reported by The Mainichi, travellers from the group with the second lowest rates will not require arrival testing and quarantine if they have been vaccinated three times with Japanese-government-approved Covid-19 vaccines. Arrivals coming from areas with the highest Covid-19 infection rates will still need to go through the current procedure, including a PCR test upon arrival and isolation.
Which destinations are in each category has not yet been announced, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has added more information to its website about the plan. The three categories will be named Blue, Yellow and Red, in increasing order of Covid-19 infection rate. Kyodo News reports that a breakdown of the plan is expected to be released next week – we'll have a full explainer for you then.
In other news, it was announced earlier this week that Japan would allow a limited number of tourists from certain countries to enter on a trial basis.
For more information, see our breakdown of Japan's current border rules.
This article was originally published on May 20 and updated on May 23.
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