It has been announced that the former “traffic light” lists of destinations will be scrapped from 4 October in favour of just two lists.

The green list will be replaced by a list of countries that are deemed “safe” for travel by the UK government, the amber list will no longer exist, and the red list will remain of destinations deemed “unsafe for travel”.

The changes were announced by the UK government in the latest travel update on 17 September, and will take effect from Monday 4 October.

The new look “safe list” - described by the Department for Transport as the ROW or “rest of world” outside of the red list - combines the countries formerly on the green and amber lists, as well as eight new additions that will join it on 22 September.

This means that from September, the list will contain 51 countries in total.

Follow travel update LIVE: Latest news from today’s announcement

Fully vaccinated travellers returning to the UK from these “safe” destinations, which carry a lower risk of Covid reimportation, will no longer have to carry out a pre-departure test before arriving into the UK from that 4 October, but will still have to until then.

Fully vaccinated travellers will still have to do a post-arrival PCR test within two days of entering the country, until “late October” when cheaper lateral flow tests will be allowed.

However, travellers who have not had both vaccines will have to self-isolate for 10 days even when coming from the countries on this new “safe” list - taking a day two, day eight and an optional ‘test to release’ Covid test along the way.

Unvaccinated travellers will still have to take a pre-departure test before travelling into the UK.

The changes will initially only apply to arrivals into England. The devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are able to set their own rules.

Here’s everything you need to know about what’s on the safe, formerly green, list.

Which countries are on the green list now?

There are now 43 nations on the new list of safe destinations:

Which countries will be on the new safe or “ROW” list?

At 4am on 22 September, the above countries will be joined by eight new additions, taking the new-look list to 51 countries:

The amber list, it has been announced, will be scrapped from 22 September, when the changes come in.

In other news, no countries have been moved to the “unsafe” red list - to find out which countries remain on the red list, click here.

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