UK Goverment to announce 'green list' countries for travel tomorrow

British holidaymakers will finally find out where they can enjoy a quarantine-free holiday tomorrow, as the UK Government is expected to unveil its travel "green list" tomorrow (Friday), with details of where travellers can book an overseas break without having to isolate on their return home.

The ban on non-essential foreign travel for England is due to be lifted on May 17th under Boris Johnson's roadmap out of lockdown.

And tomorrow people will finally be able to begin planning an overseas holiday when the Government publishes details of which countries are safest to visit.

A Downing Street press conference is expected on Friday to set out the details, fronted by either the Prime Minister or Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps.

It is understood that the first green list could be small, as the UK Government plans to “play it safe”.

There is no firm indication yet which countries will be included, but Portugal, Malta, Gibraltar and Israel are among the countries which could make the cut for quarantine-free travel, and the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands want to be recognised separately from mainland Spsin as their incidence rates are lower.

The latest incidence rate over 7 days of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people is 21.2 in the UK, 26.5 in Portugal and 28.6 in Malta, cpmpared to 44.6 in the Canaries.

The UK Government has drawn up a traffic light-style system, where countries are ranked by how safe they are to visit. The decision will be based on factors like vaccination, new variants and infection rates.

People will be able to visit green list countries without quarantining when they get back - although they will have to get a test before travelling and on day 2 after coming home.

Holidaymakers returning from an amber list country must self-isolate for at least five days and pay for two private PCR tests.