It’s Official: Japan Reopening On Jun 10 To 98 Countries & Regions, Including S’pore. Here’s What You Need To Know About Travelling To Japan - 8days Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

It’s Official: Japan Reopening On Jun 10 To 98 Countries & Regions, Including S’pore. Here’s What You Need To Know About Travelling To Japan

Don’t rush to book flights to Japan until you’ve read till the end.

It’s Official: Japan Reopening On Jun 10 To 98 Countries & Regions, Including S’pore. Here’s What You Need To Know About Travelling To Japan

After two long years, the first tourists just arrived in Japan earlier this week under a limited trial programme to restart tourism. And already the country announced yesterday (May 26) that it will further open up.

From June 10, tourists from even more countries, including Singapore, will be allowed to enter Japan for leisure travel with no vaccinations required.

Border restrictions will also ease from June 1 to allow for a new daily cap of arrivals of 20,000 per day, double from the current 10,000 people daily.

However, travellers can only enter Japan with scheduled tour groups (more on that later) and no individual travellers will be allowed.

As part of its reopening plan, Japan has classified countries into three groups: Group Blue for lowest risk countries (Singapore falls under this category), Group Yellow, and highest risk countries are under Group Red.

Singapore is in Group Blue, assessed by Japan as the lowest-risk group. Both vaccinated and unvaxxed travellers from this group can travel to Japan (under the prevailing conditions). They do not need to do an on-arrival PCR test or undergo quarantine.

Before you rush to book your Japan flights, hold up. There are certain conditions that all travellers, even those from Group Blue countries (yes, that’s us), have to adhere to.

#1: Travellers must be part of guided tour groups and be escorted by tour guides. These packaged tours must be sponsored by Japanese travel agencies and similar organisations responsible for taking in the visitors, Nikkei Asia reports. These groups will consist of a limited number of people. However, Japan has not specified any numbers, or if travellers or furnished further details. 

#2: No individual travellers will be allowed entry into Japan. Those solo #YOLO trips to Japan will have to wait, folks.

#3: International flights at more airports in Japan. Besides Tokyo’s Narita Airport, more international routes will resume at Hokkaido’s New Chitose Airport and Okinawa’s Naha Airport, so it's likely packaged tours will be allowed in these areas too.

What do the Blue, Yellow and Red classifications mean for travellers? Here's what we know so far, according to Japan media reports.

Group Blue: Singapore is one of the 98 countries that fall under this category, together with Thailand, Australia, US, UK and more. Travellers from these countries will not be required to be vaccinated, do not need to do any on-arrival PCR tests in Japan or go through any quarantine.

Group Yellow: There are about 100 countries in this tier, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Portugal. Unvaccinated travellers from Group Yellow countries will be required to do an on-arrival test in Japan, complete a seven-day home quarantine (or three-day home quarantine accompanied by a negative result of a voluntary Covid-19 test). Vaccinated travellers from these countries will be exempt from on-arrival tests, home quarantine and other measures.

Group Red: Travellers from the four Group Red countries — Albania, Fiji, Pakistan and Sierra Leone — will be required to do an on-arrival test and three-day quarantine in a government-designated facility. However, vaxxed travellers can do a seven-day home quarantine (or three-day home quarantine accompanied by a negative result of a voluntary test) instead.

Photo: Unsplash/Denys Nevozhai

Advertisement

Shopping

Advertisement

Want More? Check These Out

Watch

You May Also Like