Travel City drops entry ban for foreigners residing in the mainland

Foreigners residing in mainland China can enter Macau without undergoing quarantine from today.

According to a dispatch from the Chief Executive, these foreign passport holders can enter the city without prior authorization from health authorities provided that they have not been outside mainland China within 10 days prior to entry.

Inbound Portuguese passport holders who hold a valid foreigner’s residence permit in the People’s Republic of China for the purposes of work, personal matters or family reunion are eligible for visa-free and quarantine-free travel.

However, travelers must still show negative results from a nucleic acid test, with varying requirements depending on whether they arrive via a land border, by sea or by air. 

Under Chief Executive Dispatch No. 64/2022, the city had banned the entry of non-Macau residents to slow the spread of Covid-19 as the city echoed Beijing’s zero-Covid strategy.

However, in response to the needs of residents and organizations, health authorities have exempted certain groups of people from compliance with the relevant measures.

These include foreign domestic workers, teaching staff and Portuguese nationals who have not traveled to other places except the mainland and Hong Kong in the 21 days prior to arriving in the city.

Later, the border exemptions were extended to spouses and next-of-kin of Macau residents and students enrolled in local universities.

These individuals, however, would still need to apply to the Health Bureau for an entry exemption. 

According to the dispatch, health authorities have the power to exempt people from compliance with entry measures. 

“That would apply in matters serving Macau’s public interest, particularly those relating either to disease prevention and control, or emergency rescue,” the government previously stated.

Such exemptions could also be granted with a view to “ensuring proper operation of public services in the community and of meeting the basic day-to-day needs of the Macau public.”

Macau is one of very few places in the world where borders are still closed, which has previously shuttered casinos, leading to the lowest gaming revenues in decades, and rounds of mandatory mass testing throughout June and July as authorities struggled to find the origin of the Covid-19 case found in mid-June.