The Singapore Vaccinated Travel Lanes open up quarantine-free travel for fully-vaccinated travelers. For those vaccinated in the US or Canada, providing proof of vaccination that is acceptable to the Singapore authorities is not easy.
There have been multiple reports that share the experiences of our own which highlight a challenge for some would-be VTL travelers originating in the US and Canada.
Most travelers from these locations can easily meet the requirements for being fully vaccinated:
- To be considered fully vaccinated, either two shots of an approved vaccine, or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is required.
- Any vaccine is accepted if it has been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for Emergency Use
- Mixing of approved vaccines is accepted.
- The final dose must be completed at least 14 days prior to arrival in Singapore.
The challenges arise if the proof of vaccination is not in the form of a digitally certified one with a scannable QR code. If a traveler is unable to produce a digitally verifiable vaccination certification through an officially recognized source, they will not be eligible to use the VTL and avoid quarantine.
Per the Singapore Safe Travel website, the accepted proof of vaccination can come from:
Vaccination Certificates
- Singapore Vaccination HealthCerts issued via the Notarise portal
- EU Digital COVID Certificates (EU DCC) issued by any VTL country/region
- SMART Health Cards (SHC) issued by:
- CommonTrust Network issuers in any VTL country/region (listed here and here);
- Vaccination Credential Initiative issuers
- Any Canadian province
- National Health Service (NHS) COVID Passes found on the NHS mobile app
- International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate (QR code in ICAO Visible Digital Seal for Non-Constrained Environments (VDS-NC) format) issued by any VTL country/region
- [For entry into Singapore from 14 November 2021, 2359hrs, SGT] Static QR Code on the COOV app or COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate issued by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), downloaded from the KDCA website*
Canada
Canada offers a Canadian COVID-19 proof of vaccination. The document can be used as proof of vaccination required to travel domestically in Canada and also to provide proof of vaccination history when travelling internationally. As of this writing, the national Canadian COVID-19 proof of vaccination is available in almost all Provinces and Territories with the exception of Alberta and New Brunswick. Alberta does offer proof of vaccination in a QR code format, which is acceptable to Singapore and New Brunswick is set to launch one sometime in mid-November. You can learn more about the program and how to get and use the poof via the website: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-covid-19-proof-vaccination.html
United States
UPDATED 11/13/2021 – Good news for those with US vaccinations.
^If your vaccination record was issued in the US but you are unable to produce a digitally verifiable vaccination certificate, you can provide either
(a) your digital vaccination record retrieved through your state’s or local health authority’s public health database, or
(b) your physical vaccination records and a letter signed by your vaccination provider to attest to your vaccination status; the attestation letter should contain:
- your name and at least one other personal identifier such as the date of birth or passport number corresponding exactly with the information in your passport used for entry into Singapore;
- the name of the vaccine administered for each dose; and
- the date when each dose was administered.
The United States does not offer a national program of vaccination status. The issuance of a SMART Health Card as required by Singapore for VTL, lies with specific states, medical organizations and pharmacies that provide the COVID-19 vaccinations. This leaves some who were fully-vaccinated inside the US without the proof required to enter Singapore under the VTL.
SMART Health Cards are issued in conjunction with The Common Trust Network. The list of entities through which the SMART Health Card is available are listed on the website: https://www.commontrustnetwork.org/verifier-list The list is long, and can be confusing considering the complexity of the insurance and healthcare system in the US. To simplify things for those who were not vaccinated in a participating State, visit the website of your healthcare provider and MyChart. If you received your vaccine at a CVS, Rite Aid or Walmart you should be able to retrieve your SMART Health Card from there.
While helpful in some situations, not all digital versions of vaccination cards are a SMART Health Card. It is important to note that other systems and apps may offer a QR code of vaccine status or a digital vaccine card, but those may not be permissible as a verified SMART Health Card. For example companies such as Clear and VerifFLY which are used within the US frequently for access to events requiring vaccination or in conjunction with airlines to speedily review an uploaded proof of vaccination which could be a copy of the paper CDC Vaccination Record, will create a QR code. Those two providers, however are not listed as approved SMART Health Card providers.
The Common Trust Network also provides a SMART Health Card Verifier App which uses the camera within the app to scan a SMART Health Card QR code. It is easy to download to a personal phone and scan any QR code to verify if it qualifies as a SMART Health Card. The results will be one of the following:
- If a SMART Health Card is verified: The SMART Health Card scanned is valid and comes from a verified issuer.
- If a SMART Health Card is partially verified: The SMART Health Card scanned is valid, but may have come from an issuer that is not recognized. The issuer may not be part of the CommonTrust Network. In the case of a partially verified result, the issuer URL will be provided.
- If a SMART Health Card is not verified: The SMART Health Card scanned is not valid, as it may have been corrupted, or modified after it was issued.
Please note: The Verifier app only scans SMART Health Cards. It does not scan paper CDC cards.
To test the system, we scanned both a SMART Health Card provided by an approved medical insurance provider and a QR code created by the Clear Health Pass Digital Vaccine Card. You can see the code was not verifiable with the Clear Health Pass Digital Vaccine Card QR code, but those from the SMART Health Card were accepted.
Things change rapidly and there are many requests being made to the Singapore government to expand the form of vaccination proof it will accept from the US. Always check for the latest information even up to the point of departure to be sure to have the latest information.
