COVID Travel—How to Get a COVID-19 Viral Test on the Road?

Are you planning to travel soon? Then you may need a valid and multilingual test certificate to enter your country of destination.  For example, based on CDC requirement:^[1]

If you plan to travel internationally, you will need to get a COVID-19 viral test (regardless of vaccination status or citizenship) no more than 1 day before you travel by air into the United States. You must show your negative result to the airline before you board your flight.

Why does the Order specify 1 day rather than 24 hours?

The 1-day period is 1 day before the flight’s departure. The Order uses a 1-day time frame instead of 24 hours to provide more flexibility to the air passenger and aircraft operator. By using a 1-day window, test acceptability does not depend on the time of the flight or the time of day that the test sample was taken.

For example, if your flight is at 1pm on a Friday, you could board with a negative test that was taken any time on the prior Thursday.

How to Get a COVID-19 Viral Test on the Road?

There are two options:

• Online-monitored COVID-19 Ag Home/Hotel Test
• Read the companion article here.
• Airport COVID-19 Test Center
• Most international airport offers COVID-19 test for travel.  For example, Frankfurt International Airport in Germany offers such service (link)

Resources

1. Requirement for Proof of Negative COVID-19 Test or Documentation of Recovery from COVID-19
2. Frankfurt Airport--COVID-19 test center
• Rapid antigen test: digital test result within 15 to 20 minutes (Antigen Test: 29,00 EUR)
• In our COVID Test Center at Frankfurt Airport in Terminal 1 located in the passage between the long-distance train station and Terminal 1 and in Terminal 2 on level U4/parking garage, you can be tested for COVID-19 by means of an RT-PCR test, an antigen rapid test and an antibody rapid test.
3. CDC Accepted for US Reentry - Rapid Test Kit for Travel
4. EcoCare test center (Germany)