Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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 (158)

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

  • James Love says:

    Headline on this is misleading. This doesn’t apply to the UK. Only England.

    • Rob says:

      Er, no.

      “If you arrive in the UK from 8 June onwards, you must complete this form before you travel. You cannot submit the form until 48 hours before you’re due to arrive in the UK.“

      • John says:

        It is a UK wide (pointless) measure, but enforcement can be different depending on attitude of devolved institutions. So far Belfadt, Cardiff and Edinburgh administrations haven’t explained how much they intend to differ from Patel’s ridiculous phone call/fines regime.

        Incidentally, Dublin is passing details of transit passengers to UK authorities, so theoretically UK Border Force can ensure compliance in its jurisdictions.

        • Matt says:

          What if booked on 2 tickets? Will Dublin still know it’s a transit?

          • John says:

            When you arrive in Dublin you have to complete Irish passenger locator form, even if only in transit through airport (or taking aircoach etc to N Ireland). These forms were voluntary but 34% failed to complete them, so now mandatory.

            If you indicate onward travel to GB/NI, your details will be passed through using normal channels. Not sure what happens with those going to rest of Common Travel Area (eg Isle of Man) or continent.

            Actual enforcement by Border Force, PSNI, Police Scotland etc is a different matter.

      • Rupert says:

        S3 ….a person who arrives in England….

      • ChrisC says:

        Actually reading the SI

        the title is

        PUBLIC HEALTH, ENGLAND The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020

        And Part 1 (citation,commencement and application)

        1 (2) These Regulations apply as respects England only

        That does not preclude Wales, Scotland and N Ireland enacting their own SIs but this one is for England only.

        • Rob says:

          That wasn’t the question!

          Someone said the headline was wrong re everyone entering the UK having to fill in the form.

          Everyone must fill in the form. What happens after that is down to your specific country.

    • ChrisC says:

      UK Gov is responsible for immigration and entry requirements.

      It’s why we have the UK Border Force and UK passports etc. And not a specific Scottish Border Force or Welsh Passports or Northern Ireland Visas.

      Devolved administrations can have different quarantine implementation measures as those are within their range of devolved powers.

  • PeterK says:

    You also need to supply an email address in order to register online at the outset and have that email address verified.
    Thankfully you don’t have to print off a hard copy of the form but if you don’t print or can’t print a copy you must store an electronic version of the completed form to show to officials. That should be fun!

  • Jac says:

    As a frontier worker, it looks i can continue to travel to/from the UK without the need to get into quarantine. However i m not sure what will happen if my 6 y.o. travels with me. I would not be subject to quarantine so she could also leave home with me but she could not go to school (year 1) (as she would have to stay with me). She is too young to be expected to fill in her own firm, apply for an email address and have her own phone.
    I dont think they could fine her either 1000£ for breaking quarantine. As i would be travelling to/from a place with lower infection rate i dont think i m putting the UK at risk (i came back yesterday so if yesterday was safe why would next week not be safe?) but i dont want problems at the border nor my child missing out on education… any thoughts?

    • Anna says:

      The rules are that even if you don’t have to quarantine (like my OH), your family does. I would imagine the parent would be held responsible for any quarantine breach by a child, but hey ho this is the government and it wouldn’t surprise me if they haven’t thought of this!
      You are one of the many people who are probably more at risk from getting COVID at work than on holiday (like my OH). I wonder if you could drive 260 miles to leave your 6 year old with her grandparents while you went back to work? 😋

      • Jac says:

        I am exempt to fill in the form but my 6 year old would have to fill in the form and provide a tel number and have an email address… grandparents live overseas so i could drive to there but not to be allowed to pick her up or we would both have to quarantine…

        • Lea Carter says:

          You will still need to fill in the form so not exempt to fill it in however there will be an exemption on the form to tick so the need to quarantine is negated.
          I am still unsure what proof?? will be required as the form needs to be completed 48 hours and less before travel.
          Can anybody offer clarification on this?

          • Anna says:

            Proof is a letter from your employer confirming that you are exempt.

  • Ian says:

    I guess you’re allowed to not self quarantine if you’re attending a BLM protest? That seems to bypass any dangers of the virus

  • Lea Carter says:

    I live in Vienna (UK passport) work in the UK although I haven’t been back to my England address since Austria closed the airport here. I now have my first flight back on the 19th June as the airport opens here on the 15th. What proof will I need to use this clause as an exemption on the quarantine?
    I have been travelling between the two countries for 17 years weekly and have hundreds of Boarding Passes stored to prove this.

  • Dave says:

    “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.”
    Nothing weird, this allows people to come to the UK to visit relatives (for example), they then isolate at their relatives’ house and then return abroad within 14 days. This means they don’t have to stay in the UK for the full 2 weeks.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      Does that then mean the relatives have to isolate for 14days? It’s not isolation if you are with others.

  • IslandDweller says:

    Although the UK has a common border force, and throughout the government guidance documents they refer to UK, the legal document clearly states (see point 2 of the first paragraph in the statutory instrument – link below) that this regulation applies only in England. This is an absolute dogs breakfast.
    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/568/pdfs/uksi_20200568_en.pdf

    • Anna says:

      It’s almost as if they feel they have to be seen to be doing something, but they’ve deliberately made it unenforceable so it won’t actually have any impact – or am I attributing too much intelligence to them?

  • John says:

    My planned trips for June were as follows – Tirana 1 night, 2 nights at home (London), day trip to Copenhagen, 3 nights at home, drive to Glasgow, 1 night, drive back 1 night in Lincoln, Zurich 3 nights, train 1 night in Freiburg then Frankfurt then duesseldorf, home for 1 night, day trip to Oslo, drive to Belfast via Chester 1 night each, train to Dublin, ferry to isle of man 4 nights.

    It would seem that from the England side this itinerary would be permitted without quarantine as long as I drive directly to Glasgow and skip the night in Chester.

    • Anna says:

      I wouldn’t worry, John, there is no way on earth they are going to be fast enough to catch you with that schedule 🤣

    • Chrish says:

      John@ WOW how can you skip all night to Chester lol

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.