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Here is the UK quarantine form that you need to fill in from tomorrow

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From tomorrow, all arrivals into the UK must complete a 14-day quarantine.  We thought you might be interested to see the form that all that incoming travellers, including UK residents, must complete.

If you are travelling to the UK you must now complete the ‘public health passenger locator form’ in order to comply with the 14 day quarantine regulations. You may face a £100 fine or be refused entry if you do not.

The Government website makes it clear that you should complete the form before you travel but, oddly, no earlier than 48 hours before your travel.  Each adult must complete their own form.

The form and government guidance went live on Friday in order to allow passengers arriving from tomorrow to complete the required paperwork. You can see the form on this page of the GOV.UK site here.

You’ll need the following details to complete the public health passenger locator form:

  • passport
  • name of the airline, train or ferry company
  • tour company (if travelling with a tour group)
  • booking reference
  • arrival airport, station or port
  • arrival date
  • flight, train or bus number
  • quarantining address
  • emergency contact

Failure to isolate for the full 14 days could result in a £1000 fine.  If you are fined multiple times, the fines will increase each time to a maximum of £3200.

Only a small percentage of people will be checked, and the checks will be carried out by ringing your mobile phone – not in person – to ask where you are.  On this basis, it seems very unlikely that many fines will be issued.

uk quarantine form to complete

Everyone who is arriving from outside Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man must complete the form.  In theory there is no sneaky way to enter the country via Ireland and avoid completing the form and quarantining as was speculated in some quarters.  However, as entrants from Ireland do not pass through Border Control, it is unclear how this is enforced.

“You will also need to complete a public health passenger locator form if you are travelling from the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and have been outside the Common Travel Area in the last 14 days.”

The guidance suggests going straight the place where you will self-isolate, although it does allow people who have had a long journey to break it up by stopping in safe accommodation. In such circumstances you must also provide the intermediary address when completing the form.

A lot of people are exempted from the mandatory isolation period. Diplomats, defence personnel and variety of key workers for the rail, air, ferry and agricultural industry do not have to do so. You can see the list of exempted individuals here.

You will note that there is one exception for:

“Workers with specialist technical skills for essential or emergency works or services (including commissioning, maintenance, and repairs and safety checks) to ensure the continued production, supply, movement, manufacture, storage or preservation of goods”

….. which seems to have substantial scope.

There is also an exemption for people who live in one country and work in another, and commute between the two at least once a week.

Weirdly, according to 9(a) of the Statutory Instrument, you are permitted to leave the UK even if you have not completed the 14-day isolation period. At that point you are someone else’s problem!

9. During the period of their self-isolation, P may not leave or be outside of, the place where P is self-isolating except—

(a) to travel in order to leave England, provided that they do so directly

The Statutory Instrument is the legal framework which will be used to enforce the rules, whilst the government guidance on GOV.UK is simply the customer-friendly version. If you have some spare time to kill and enjoy the prospect of reading a legal document you can do so here.

Comments (155)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • SydneySwan says:

    What an absolute joke! .I presume the virus will abide by the rules and not infect diplomats, defence personnel and key workers in the rail, air, ferry and agricultural industries and anyone else who is exempt. It is ludicrous to be implementing quarantine when the horse bolted 3 months ago but with all these exemptions and a lukewarm checking up policy it will be pointless. Try visiting Australia and see how to implement quarantine properly.

  • IslandDweller says:

    I’m now even more confused. These regulations refer to England. Does this mean there is no similar quarantine in the other three parts of the UK, or is there planned to be separate legislation in the other three constituent parts of the UK?

  • Dezbez says:

    Given how well HM Government has implemented everything else during the crisis and how clear it has been with its messaging I’m looking forward to this being a roaring success. What could possibly go wrong.

  • MT says:

    Why do you suggest there is no way to avoid this by going via Ireland, surely if I was to book myself on a flight with BA from anywhere and then connect straight onto Dublin with the back to back flight booked from Dublin to London I could then avoid needing to fill this form in and thus the quarantine.

    • mradey says:

      Yup, Eire is virus free and once you breathe their air, you will become virus free too.

    • Sarah says:

      “You will also need to complete a public health passenger locator form if you are travelling from the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and have been outside the Common Travel Area in the last 14 days.” Not sure if there’s any way that they can actually track whether you’ve done this though

  • Tim W says:

    Interesting to note that the check is by calling your mobile phone – but according to the article, they don’t ask for your mobile number!

    • JG says:

      Phone number is asked for in form. Email address also required to complete it, which would be interesting for some of my elderly relatives… Not that anyone would want to travel when faced with this form.

  • mradey says:

    In all honesty, I do not answer my phone to unrecognised numbers. Has the law been changed to force me to answer my phone?

    • ChrisBCN says:

      You raise a good point. My phone doesn’t live in my hand all day, it’s often I’m another room and I wouldn’t know somebody had called for potentially hours. So would they enforce that your phone has to be next to you at all times? The entire thing is stupid and ill thought out on so many levels.

  • Oli says:

    I would think that you can’t fill the form more than 48h before travelling because they plan to pull the scheme at short notice at some point…
    It isn’t clear if the day of travel is the 1st of the 14 days?

  • Michael C says:

    We don’t have mobile phone coverage in our house – so guess we’d just be whacked with the fine?!

    Love the fact that you can travel onwards – have a quick confining w/end with pals, then off to Ireland!

    • JG says:

      There is provision to say you have no phone coverage/access…

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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