Maldives Drops All Testing Requirements From Today

From today the Maldivian government has announced it will be removing all PCR testing requirements for tourists who are fully vaccinated (booster doses are not required). The announcement was made yesterday and comes into effect today, March 5th 2022.

In addition, tourists who spend their holiday on inhabited islands will no longer have to do a departure PCR test either.

There’s a catch!

Unvaccinated tourists and kids who aren’t eligible to be vaccinated over the age of 1 will still need to present a PCR test which has to be taken no longer than 96h before the first port of departure.

This means that if you’re holidaying in the Maldives, vaccinated parents won’t have to provide a PCR, but unvaccinated kids will need to present one even if they aren’t eligible for a vaccine.

It’s unclear if a departure test is required for children if you happen to spend your holiday on an inhabited island (to clarify: most resorts are on private islands, so most people would not have to do a departure test anyway).

Summing Up

This is great news for tourists as it makes travel to an expensive place such as the Maldives much cheaper. I’m personally traveling to the Maldives later this month, so this news is very welcome as it will save me from having to do yet another test in Singapore before being allowed to travel to Male.

Most Australian travellers would probably fly to Male via Singapore, so this means that from today you won’t need to do any outbound testing as long as you don’t plan to leave the airport and enter Singapore.

If you plan to stop in Singapore, a supervised rapid antigen test will do the trick (taken within 2 days before your flight), which is much cheaper and faster than the PCR test.

You can find the official press release here.