Bahamians exempt from Travel Health Visas, COVID negative tests still required

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TheBahamas, December 11, 2021 – Bahamian citizens and Permanent Residents will no longer need a Travel Health Visa to re-enter the island come Monday December 13th. This was announced in the House of Assembly by Minister of Tourism and Investment, Chester Cooper.

The new regulations for entry will see vaccinated Bahamians only needing a negative PCR or Rapid Antigen test and non-vaccinated Bahamians needing a negative PCR test.

The government has also reversed the travel ban on several African Nations which had been  implemented with the discovery of the Omicron Variant.

The Travel Health Visa was introduced in late 2020, in response to Covid-19. Official correspondence from the then FNM government said the travel visa was supposed to eliminate the need for quarantine.

All persons wishing to enter the Bahamas, citizens and tourists alike had to apply for a travel Health visa. The cost, to which citizens were not exempt, depended on the length of their stay.

The then opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was heavily critical of the measures and promised that if they were elected they would do away with them. On September 16, the PLP was elected to power and have been rolling back restrictions systematically ever since.

During parliamentary debates on new, more relaxed public health measures, the PLP Government accused the FNM of only loosening restrictions for foreign nationals who wanted to bury dogs but leaving their citizens stranded.

The travel health visa will remain in place for tourists seeking to visit the Bahamas