Last update: July 20th, 2021.
Iceland was one of the first countries to issue COVID-19 vaccination certificates at the start of the year.
In the first week of June, Iceland began welcoming travellers carrying COVID-19 passports. It has since fully implemented the EU Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC).
As of July 20th, over 70% of Iceland’s population is fully vaccinated.
Iceland COVID pass vs. EU Digital COVID Certificate
Since January 21st, the Icelandic Directorate of Health has been locally offering digital vaccination certificates. These passes are only available to vaccinated citizens of Iceland, but they are in accordance with existing European standards.
The European Union has also agreed to implement the EU Digital COVID Certificate in EEA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway), as well as Switzerland.
On June 16th, Iceland began issuing the EU Digital COVID Certificate. The EUDCC became the standard COVID pass in Europe on July 1st.
The EU’s vaccine passport offers proof that the holder has been fully vaccinated, recently recovered, or recently received a negative PCR test result.
This will allow Europe, particularly the Schengen area, to restore free movement.
What are the restrictions for travelling to Iceland?
For several months, Iceland has allowed vaccinated and recovered tourists to enter the country.
Visitors must provide a certificate proving that they have received the vaccine or recovered from the virus.
“Certificates may be in paper or electronic format,” says Sveinn Gudmarsson, communications director at Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. “Border control will evaluate whether a certificate is valid and will consult a representative of the Chief Epidemiologist [health care worker] as needed.”
Iceland is accepting vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), or the World Health Organization (WHO). These are:
- Tozinameran-COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (Comirnaty®; BNT162b2) Pfizer/BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH.
- COVID-19 Vaccine (Vaxzevria®; ChAdOx1-S) AstraZeneca AB.
- COVID-19 Vaccine (ChAdOx1-S) AstraZeneca/SK Bio, SK Bioscience Co. Ltd.
- COVID-19 (ChAdOx1-S) Vaccine AstraZeneca (Covishield™), Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd.
- COVID-19 Vaccine (Ad26.COV2-S) Janssen-Cilag International NV.
- COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna (mRNA-1273), Moderna Therapeutics.
- SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine BIBP (Vero Cell), Sinopharm/Bejing Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd.
- COVID-19 Vaccine Sinovac-CoronaVac (Vero Cell), Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd.
Travellers arriving to Iceland have to take a COVID-19 test whether or not they can provide proof of vaccination or recovery.