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Which countries will now accept the NHS covid vaccination app?

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As you may have read in the national press, the NHS covid vaccination certificate was, on Friday, given equal standing with the EU Covid-19 Vaccine Passport scheme. This makes your life far easier when trying to get into restaurants and other venues.

None of the coverage I saw went into exactly where you can now use your NHS app, so I thought I would look at this today.

The first thing to make clear is that you do not need to download any EU vaccination passport app.

Which countries will now accept the NHS covid vaccination app?

You may, like me, have downloaded the French TousAntiCovid app in recent weeks and gone through the fiddly process of uploading your NHS vaccination QR code. This is no longer necessary.

Any establishment which is scanning an EU-issued vaccination app can also now scan the QR code in the NHS app. This makes travel across the 27 European Union countries substantially easier.

It isn’t just the EU though …..

What is important to know is that other countries have made similar deals with the EU and, under a reciprocity arrangement, will also now scan and accept the NHS app.

The following Schengen Area associated countries have implemented the EU vaccination passport:

  • Iceland
  • Swizerland
  • Norway
  • Liechtenstein

In addition, the EU ‘microstates’ are also participating, which adds:

  • Andorra
  • San Marino
  • Vatican City
  • Monaco

The EU is also recognising vaccine certificates issued in the following countries – and vice versa – which also means that they will accept the UK NHS app in return:

  • Albania
  • Armenia
  • Faroe Islands
  • Israel
  • Morocco
  • North Macedonia
  • Panama
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine

You can find out more on the European Commission website here.

Comments (154)

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

  • Leonard Klahr says:

    Israel requires proof of booster jab. This is not on NHS Covid Pass.

    • Simonbr says:

      I noticed this. The covid booster is recorded inappropriately on my NHS app under GP health record, acute medicines. You may find yours there too.

  • Andrew says:

    I tried to use the NHS app in Switzerland yesterday, and it may be accepted officially but they wouldn’t let me into the cheese festival with it. Still said I needed the Swiss app.

  • Mr. AC says:

    While this may have been announced, reality on the ground in Switzerland as of yesterday was that scanning QR codes from the NHS app gives a red “invalid certificate” result on the apps that restaurant and hotels use. Our hotel decided to ignore it (presumably because we’re not the only people with this problem), but most restaurants force us to sit outdoors. Getting the local certificate (which takes 5 days and costs 30 CHF per head) is still a safer bet for now.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Or just skipping the madness in Switzerland all together

      • JohnT says:

        I got the Geneva canton certificate – took a week. Will see what works best on the 11th!

        • Chris says:

          I have just received this to make my life easier as someone who received their vaccine in Guernsey. Have loaded into both the Swiss and EU apps.

      • Char Char says:

        yep!

  • Rosalie says:

    I’m in Athens when asked in restaurants and bars to see my vaccination pass I’ve shown them a scanned copy of my NHS certificate and that has been accepted here. They even checked it to make sure it has 2 doses shown.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    The French scanning app has been updated, the Latvian has not. It be a little while yet before we can use the NHS QR without complications.

    • Gavin says:

      France had a separate agreement, so their app has already been accepting NHS QR codes for a couple of months.

  • Ian M says:

    I find the need for Covid passports for day to day life in these countires disgusting. The world knows that whether you’re vaccinated or not you can still catch Covid and you can still infect others. There’s no justification for tyrannical approach.

    • Andrew H says:

      Most of the world also knows that you are less likely to catch COVID or infect others if vaccinated and if you do catch it you are much less likely to get seriously ill. Apart from you it seems.

      Try and help stop people getting ill and dying. And grow up; “tyrannical” “disgusting”. Showing an app or a piece of paper… that is just so hard to do isn’t it?

      • Ian M says:

        Good morning Andrew,

        There’s a lot of data that shows things to be not as clear cut as you seem to believe.

        For instance a new Lancet study from Sweden which shows vaccine effectiveness against infection dropping to zero after 9 months, and effectiveness against severe outcomes dropping to just 20% after 8 months.

        There are countless studies showing similar

      • Ian M says:

        Also, how about the fact that, according to the data provided by the UK Health Security Agency, in the 40-79 age group in the UK, those vaccinated are more than twice as likely to catch and transmit Covid than those unvaccinated?

        • Jeff Greene says:

          Dodgy data. Do some research

          • Ian M says:

            Another study…

            “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States”

            https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

          • J says:

            Why has the UK government published the ‘dodgy data’ then?

          • Bagoly says:

            @Ian M
            that S10654-021-00808-7 paper is shockingly bad.
            E.g. “Even though vaccinations offers protection to individuals against severe hospitalization and death, the CDC reported an increase from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (between January to May 2021) in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, amongst the fully vaccinated [10].”
            Reading the source they quote, what it actually says is that amongst the dead, the proportion of those vaccinated increased from 0 to 15.1%, which is very different.
            Back in January when nobody was fully vaccinated, the proportion of those who died who were fully vaccinated was of course 0.
            If we went to situation where 80% were vaccinated, and vaccination was 90% effective against death, and nothing else was changing, we would find that 28.57% of the deaths were fully vaccinated.
            That 28.57% is not very meaningful, although is useful for confirming the (90%) vaccine effectiveness.

        • Yuff says:

          There are also more of that group in hospital as well but there is a perfectly simple reason for that.

        • Char Char says:

          They actually started removing the percentages per 100k now in their surveillance reports from last week to hide this fact!

          • Rob says:

            There was a piece in the Times yesterday about this. You need to read the umpteen pages of notes to the data which explain exactly why it shows this, but it isn’t what you think – it is down to testing and the fact that the unvaccinated, in general, avoid meeting people because they are not totally stupid – they may have reasons not to be vaccinated but they fully understand what can happen to them if they get covid.

        • Gary Robert Owen haran doyle says:

          If you test more people you get more hits.
          People (you) need to get off “cases” that’s a meaningless statistic now that 80+% are vaccinated.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        “Showing an app or a piece of paper… that is just so hard to do isn’t it?”

        Yes because my vaccine (now over 6 months old) means diddly squat to anyone but ME.

        And if most of the world “knows” that first statement then most of the world is misinformed

        • Jeff Greene says:

          It’s correct. Studies prove it to be true despite what you might want to believe. There was another in the lancet the other day

        • Rui N. says:

          You are the one misinformed if you think that’s not true.

          • TGLoyalty says:

            “Most of the world also knows that you are less likely to catch COVID or infect others if vaccinated”

            You’re less likely (for a while) but if you do get it you are just as infectious as someone unvaccinated.

            According to the study, which ran from September 2020 to September 2021 and included 440 households in London and Bolton doing PCR Covid tests:

            People who are double jabbed have a lower, but still appreciable, risk of becoming infected with the Delta variant compared with unvaccinated people

            They also appear to be just as infectious

            Vaccinated people clear the infection more quickly, but their peak viral load – when people are most infectious – is similar to that seen in unvaccinated people

            This may explain why they can still readily pass on the virus in household settings

      • Char Char says:

        Most of the world has been told that by mainstream media, only long term data will show the true effectiveness which nobody can provide at the moment especially with flawed studies that nobody can quesiton.

    • AJA says:

      @IanM I suspect you are in the minority. Do you agree with the need to show your passport (whatever nationality) or ID card to enter the EU?

      Are you also in favour with or against the need for lateral flow and PCR tests?

      I think if you agree with covid testing and with ID cards or passports showing your nationality that you are being contradictory being anti Covid passports.

      The ID card / passport proves who you are while the covid passport proves you are vaccinated and therefore less of a risk of being ill or infecting others. The lateral flow or pcr tests simply prove you are not actually ill with covid at the time of the test. Where’s the problem?

      Of course if you don’t want the covid passport you can just stay at home and don’t travel. That’s the reality.

      • J says:

        Yes to tests. Everyone should be tested equally. Whilst the reasons are mainly behavioural, over 40s in the UK are twice as likely to have Covid if double vaccinated than non-vaccinated. Their transmission rate to others is reduced by 35-65% though. Those two moreorless balance out to make everyone equally infectious to others. The vaccines protect the vaccinated person super well, but don’t do a huge amount for those around them.

        • Freddy says:

          If you want protection from covid, get the jab. If you don’t then, don’t. But please do away with these covid passes/locator forms/pre-departure forms/tests/covid passports. Unless a country does not have a ready supply of vaccine they shouldn’t be placing any barriers in place for day-to-day life. People need to get on with life now without producing bits of meaningless papers

          • Blair says:

            Exactly Freddy. We’ve reached (in Europe at least) the threshold for personal choice. These things are a slippery slope. What next, HPV jab checking before school disco?

  • Luca says:

    Agree with the posts here, the NHS app in Switzerland does not scan and give ‘validated’ result.

    It’s very easy to check, download the Swiss app to check the certificates and scan your own screenshot of the NHS QR code.

  • Stu says:

    FWIW, we were in France over 3 weeks ago and our Scottish NHS app worked perfectly everywhere we went, even then.

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