Japan will relax some of its strict Covid-19 border controls next month by raising the daily cap on entrants and cutting the quarantine period from seven days to three.
The country has banned non-resident foreigners from late November to the end of February to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.
Japan’s limit on new entrants will rise from 3,500 to 5,000 per day next month and foreign nationals will be able to enter for purposes other than tourism.
Arrivals will have to quarantine for three days and test negative for Covid on the last day of isolation.
Those who have been vaccinated three times and depart from countries where infections are stabilising will not need to quarantine, according to a report in Kyodo News.
The outlet quoted Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, saying: “It is the first step in our gradual easing of the restrictions.”
The news has been welcomed by InsideJapan, part of the Inside Travel Group, which expects “an incremental easing” of restrictions over the coming months.
Co-founder Alastair Donnelly said: “Although the announcement doesn’t mean that the doors are open again for international tourism, it does mean that there are significant moves from Japan, that we believe, will lead to opening of international tourism again.
“We expect that there will be some international travel from the early summer onwards.”
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