STA, 15 July 2021 - Significantly tighter rules for entering Slovenia took effect today, as the colour-coded lists of countries were replaced with the requirement that passengers who wish to enter the country need to have a Covid certificate regardless of where they come from.
The certificate will have to prove that passengers have had a negative PCR test within the last 72 hours, a negative rapid antigen within the last 48 hours, certificate of vaccination or proof that they have recovered from Covid.
The EU's green digital certificate and equivalent certificates of third countries are acceptable.
The acceptable vaccines are those by Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen as well as the Russian vaccine Sputnik V and the Chinese Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines.
There are three sets of exemptions: passengers in transit and lorry drivers, owners of land on both sides of the border and accompanied minors under 15.
Persons without a Covid certificate will have to quarantine for ten days and foreigners without a certificate and without residence in Slovenia are allowed entry and quarantine only if they can prove they have a place to quarantine for ten days.
It is unclear how compliance will be verified since Slovenia does not currently have police checks on the borders with Austria, Hungary and Italy, only on the Schengen border with Croatia.
The decision comes amidst concern about a rising number of new cases and a surge in the share of the more infectious delta variant of the novel coronavirus.
