Interstate Hotspots - Pre-Travel requirements for travellers

All people travelling to the Northern Territory must complete the border entry form.

If you are intending to travel to the Northern Territory from an identified coronavirus hotspot you are advised to cancel your plans. Likewise if you are a Territorian intending to travel to a hotspot you are advised to cancel your plans.

Any exemption granted before the 17 July 2020 are invalid if the person travelling has been in an identified hotspot.

See Google map with current hotspots.

Anyone arriving into the Northern Territory from or through a declared hotspot in the last 14 days must undertake 14 days mandatory supervised quarantine. If travelling to or from an airport within a declared hotspot, point 4 from the ‘Directions for COVID-19 Hotspots’ below provides advice.

This will be at your own cost. The cost per person for supervised quarantine is $2500.

Mandatory supervised quarantine will be at the Howard Springs quarantine facility or another approved facility elsewhere in the Northern Territory. All quarantine facilities are alcohol-free.

What should I do if an area is declared a hotspot after I have travelled through it?

Travellers need to keep up-to-date with where they can travel and which areas have been declared COVID-19 hotspots, as the COVID-19 situation in Australia is continually evolving. If an area is declared a hotspot after you have departed but before you arrive in the Territory you will be placed in mandatory supervised quarantine.

If an area you have been in is declared a COVID-19 hotspot within 14 days of your arrival in the NT, you must:

• Contact the COVID-19 hotline 1800 008 002 and identify yourself as a person who has been in an area that has been declared a hotspot since you arrived in the NT
• If directed, you must submit to a test or assessment for COVID-19 infection
• Practice physical distancing (e.g. keep 1.5 metres away from others, if unwell stay home, sleep in a separate bedroom away from others, minimise contact with people) until 14 days has elapsed since your arrival in the NT.

Travellers must be aware of their responsibilities as per NT Chief Health Officer COVID-19 Direction (No. 47) PDF (349.1 KB).

Don’t put the community at risk.

Other important information

• People in supervised quarantine will be subject to testing before exiting quarantine. If you refuse a test, there will be 10 days added to your quarantine time.
• If you’re found to have provided misleading information on your arrival form you could face a fine of $5,056 for an individual, $25,280 for a business and a possible prison term of up to 3 years.
• There are very limited reasons by which an exemption will be considered.

Download the COVIDSafe app, it helps to support and protect you, your friends and family.

Directions for COVID-19 Hotspots

I, Hugh Crosbie Heggie, Chief Health Officer, under section 52 of the Public and Environmental Health Act 2011, consider it necessary, appropriate or desirable to take action to alleviate the public health emergency in the Territory, declared by instrument entitled "Declaration of Public Health Emergency", dated 18 March 2020 (the public health emergency declaration), by making the following directions:

1. These Directions take effect from 9:10am on 15 July 2020 and remain in force while the public health emergency declaration is in force.
   Note for direction 1
   The period the public health emergency declaration is in force has been extended under section 50(2) of the Act. These Directions remain in force during the period of extension.
2. The purpose of these Directions is to identify COVID-19 hotspots for my Directions relating to Territory border restrictions.
3. From 9:10am on 15 July 2020 each of the following areas are considered to be a COVID-19 hotspot:

4.   A person is taken not to have been in a COVID-19 hotspot if the person has been in a COVID-19 hotspot only in one or more of the following circumstances:

1. the person travelled through a hotspot in or on a motor vehicle, public transport or a bicycle and did not leave the vehicle, disembark the public transport or dismount the bicycle while in the hotspot;
2. the person was only at an airport located in a hotspot;
3. the person travelled into or out of a hotspot by motor vehicle, public transport or bicycle directly to or from an airport located in the hotspot and did not leave the vehicle, disembark the public transport or dismount the bicycle while in the hotspot except to enter or leave the airport;
4. the person:
   1. arrived by aircraft or motor vehicle from outside a hotspot; and
   2. travelled directly to a hotel that is within 5 km of an airport (an airport hotel) located in a hotspot for the purposes of overnight stay while transiting; and
   3. did not leave the hotel room (except in an emergency) until departing the hotel to travel directly to the airport.

Examples for direction 4

1. A person who travels by car through an area that is a COVID-19 hotspot but stops in the area to refuel the car or drop an item in a friend's mailbox, has been in the area.
2. A person who rides a bicycle through an area that is a COVID-19 hotspot and stops in the area to buy a drink has been in the area.
3. A person who flies into an airport located in an area that is a COVID-19 hotspot, remains at the airport during a 6 hour stopover and then departs the airport on an aircraft, is taken not to have been in the area.
4. A person who flies to an airport that is located in an area that is a COVID-19 hotspot, takes a taxi from the airport to an airport hotel that is also located in the area that is a COVID-19 hotspot, checks in, orders room service and remains in the hotel room overnight, checks out the following day, travels directly back to the airport and takes a flight out of the area, is taken not to have been in the area.