Travel Vaccine Requirements by Country (2026 Data)

Travel vaccine requirements by country come down to one vaccine at the border: yellow fever. Under the International Health Regulations it is the only vaccination a country may routinely demand as a condition of entry, and 119¹ of 220 countries and territories on the 2022 list (revised January 2023) asked for proof from at least some travelers. Only 42² places are themselves at risk of the disease. Since 11 July 2016, one certificate has been valid for the life of the person vaccinated.¹

Everything else is advice rather than a border rule: hepatitis A, typhoid, rabies and Japanese encephalitis vaccines, and malaria prevention by area. Seven of the 19 places that asked every traveler for proof were also at Level 4, Do Not Travel, on the U.S. advisory scale in September 2026.³ Reported yellow fever cases rose three years in a row to 631⁴ in 2025. On one county clinic's proposed 2026 fees, a typical set of travel shots adds up to $287 to $994.⁵⁶

Which countries require a vaccine for entry?

Only yellow fever can be a routine condition of entry. Proof of any other vaccination can be asked for only under temporary recommendations issued for a public health emergency of international concern, as with polio.¹ On the 2022 list, 100¹ countries and territories asked for yellow fever proof from travelers arriving from, or passing through, a country with risk of transmission, and 19¹ asked everyone. Together that is 54.1% of the 220 entries; the other 101¹ had no yellow fever entry requirement.

The map shades each country by its rule. The all-traveler rule is almost entirely African, with 18 of the 19 entries; arrival-based rules are common across the Americas, Asia and the Pacific; and in Europe only three entries list any rule.¹ Small islands and territories without an outline on the world map are not drawn.

Two kinds of rule: arrivals from risk countries, or everyone

The 19 all-traveler places are Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, French Guiana, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo and Uganda.¹ All 19 are themselves at risk of yellow fever transmission.² Grouped by WHO region, the share of entries with any rule falls from 92.0%¹ in Africa to 5.4%¹ in Europe, where only Albania, Kazakhstan and Malta list one.⁷

The Americas (73.5%¹) and South-East Asia (72.7%¹) sit close together. The Western Pacific is split almost evenly: 17 of its 33 entries, or 51.5%, ask for proof. In the Eastern Mediterranean, 9 of 21 do (42.9%).¹⁷

Age limits and layovers

Yellow fever rules are among the most detailed travel restrictions by country, and two details decide whether one reaches a given traveler: a child's age and the length of a layover. Of the 119 places that ask for proof, 61² set the threshold at 1 year of age and 54² at 9 months, 115 in all (96.6%). Honduras asks for proof only from people aged 1 to 50 years, Sint Eustatius from 6 months, and Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone state no age.²

Layovers matter for the 100 places whose rule targets arrivals from risk countries. 59¹ of them count a transit of more than 12 hours in an airport of a risk country, 10¹ count any transit, and 29¹ have no transit clause; Guyana counts more than 4 hours and Paraguay more than 24. The 12-hour line goes back to a 2010 expert view that under 12 hours of airport transit in a risk area, the risk is almost non-existent.¹

A rule at the border is not the same as a risk on the ground. Of the 119 places that require proof, only 37 are themselves at risk of transmission; the other 82 require it without being at risk.²⁶

Where yellow fever is a risk

42² countries and territories are classed as having a risk of yellow fever transmission in all or part of their territory: 28 in Africa, 13 in the Americas and one, Sudan, in the Eastern Mediterranean. Their own entry rules differ: 19 ask every traveler for proof, 18 ask arrivals from other risk countries, and five ask for nothing at all.²

The five at-risk places with no entry rule are Argentina, where the risk covers only Misiones and Corrientes, Brazil, Peru, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago.² Vaccination is recommended for travelers to all or part of 42¹ countries and territories, generally not recommended for 3 (Eritrea, Somalia and Zambia) and not recommended for 175.¹ Severe cases are deadly: about half of the roughly 15% of infected people who become severely ill die within 7 to 10 days.⁸

Travel vaccine requirements, country by country

The table lists every country and territory on the 2022 list with its yellow fever entry rule, the minimum age, whether the vaccine is recommended for travelers, the malaria prevention type and the U.S. advisory level as of September 25, 2026. Sort any column by its header; the full list opens with the button below it. A dash means no value is given, or the place has no advisory of its own. The rules are shown as listed in 2022 (revised January 2023), and countries can change them at any time.¹³

The list is older than its date suggests. Only 143⁶ of the 220 entries (65.0%) were last confirmed in 2021 or 2022, and 10 carry no year because they date from before 2013.¹

The reason is the response rate. For the 2022 edition, a survey went to 196 States Parties on 16 March 2022, and 70¹ (36%) answered by 15 August. None of the 47 in Africa replied, against all 21 in the Eastern Mediterranean.¹

Polio, meningitis and Hajj certificates

Beyond yellow fever, 22¹ countries and territories listed other vaccination requirements in 2022, most tied to polio or to the Hajj pilgrimage. Polio appears in 18 entries, meningococcal meningitis in 10, seasonal influenza in 4 and Haemophilus influenzae type b in 1 (Afghanistan, for Hajj travelers); 10 of the 22 mention the Hajj.¹ Saudi Arabia asks for meningococcal vaccination for Hajj and Umrah, Iran asks arrivals from polio-endemic countries for polio vaccination 4 weeks to 12 months before arrival, and Egypt asks for polio vaccination regardless of age. Polio lists change, so these entries are shown as listed in 2022.

Passports and visas head most lists of travel documents by country, but the yellow card, the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis, is the one health document a border can routinely ask for.¹ Since 11 July 2016 a yellow fever certificate is valid for the life of the person vaccinated, and no country can require a booster as a condition of entry.² No other vaccine, cholera included, can be a routine entry requirement.¹

Malaria prevention by country

Malaria has no entry rule, but the list gives each country a prevention type. Type A means very limited risk and mosquito-bite prevention only; Type B means risk of non-falciparum malaria, with bite prevention plus chloroquine, or doxycycline, atovaquone-proguanil or mefloquine; Type C means risk of P. falciparum malaria, with bite prevention plus atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline or mefloquine.¹ The medicine is chosen by drug-resistance pattern, side effects and contraindications. 75¹ entries are Type C, 14 Type A and 5 Type B, and 126 list no type.

Of the 94 entries that name a type, 79.8% are Type C.⁶ Eight countries mix types by area: Brazil, Thailand and Yemen combine A and C (Thailand's C areas lie near the Cambodia and Myanmar borders, and Yemen's Socotra is A), while Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela combine B and C.¹ The 2022 list notes four countries as certified malaria-free: Paraguay (2018), Algeria and Argentina (2019), and China (2021).¹ More have been certified since: as of July 2025, 47⁹ countries and 1 territory were certified malaria-free, including Cabo Verde and Egypt (2024) and Georgia, Suriname and Timor-Leste (2025).⁹

Recommended but not required: the other travel vaccines

Most travel vaccines are advice, not entry rules. Hepatitis A is among the most common vaccine-preventable infections in travelers, with high endemicity in parts of Africa and Asia, intermediate levels in Central and South America, eastern Europe and parts of Asia, and low levels in western Europe and the United States.¹⁰ Rabies viruses (lyssaviruses) occur on every continent except Antarctica, and dog rabies persists in Africa, parts of Central and South America, and Asia.¹¹

Typhoid is widespread: about 9.2 million typhoid and 3.8 million paratyphoid cases a year worldwide, with about 133,000¹² deaths. In the United States, about 85% of typhoid and 80% of paratyphoid cases occur among international travelers, over 70% of them after travel to Bangladesh, India or Pakistan.¹² Japanese encephalitis is rare in travelers: 16 cases among U.S. travelers from 1993 to 2024 and fewer than 1 per million travelers to Asia.¹³

Yellow fever in numbers: coverage and cases

Coverage of the yellow fever vaccine among 1-year-olds in countries at risk rose from 12%¹⁴ in 2000 to 53%¹⁴ in 2025, a gain of 41 points, and it is still 27 points short of the 80% recommended.¹⁵ Growth has slowed: coverage stood at 41% in 2009 and has added 12 points since. On a straight line fitted to 2010-2025, after the 2003-2009 catch-up, coverage would reach about 58% in 2030 and 80% in 2050, with a 95% range of about 73% to 88% in 2050.⁶ This is our calculation, not a forecast.

Country figures spread widely. In 2025, Guyana reached 99% and Colombia 96%, and 12 of the 39 countries with a figure were at or above 80%. Argentina (7%), Panama (5%) and Kenya (3%), which vaccinate only in risk areas, were near the bottom, and Ethiopia and South Sudan reported 0%.¹⁴

Reported cases tell a noisier story. They peaked at 5,344⁴ in 1988, fell to 54 in 2014, and have risen each year since 2022: 217, then 476, 513 and 631⁴ in 2025, 23% more than in 2024. The Americas drove the latest jump, from 61 cases in 2024 to 341 in 2025, while Africa fell from 452 to 290.⁴ Reported counts understate the disease: in outbreaks, actual cases may be 10 to 250 times higher.⁸

Single years swing from 54 to 2,591 cases since 2000, so no straight-line fit describes the series; it is shown as a table, not a projection.

Two countries accounted for 38.7% of the 2025 total: Colombia with 124 reported cases and Brazil with 120. South Sudan (87), Peru (49) and Uganda (47) followed, and 24 countries reported at least one case, including 2 in Canada.⁴

Yellow fever vaccination also lags other childhood vaccines. In 2025, 85% of the world's children got three doses of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, 84% a first measles dose and 78% three doses of Hib vaccine, against 53% for yellow fever in the countries at risk.¹⁵ About 21 million children missed their first measles dose, and 13.5 million were counted as zero-dose.

Travel safety by country

The U.S. travel advisory scale rated 214 destinations on four levels as of September 25, 2026: 81³ at Level 1, Exercise Normal Precautions; 81 at Level 2, Exercise Increased Caution; 28 at Level 3, Reconsider Travel; and 24³ at Level 4, Do Not Travel. Three in four (75.7%) were at Level 1 or 2. Of the ratings, 126 (58.9%) were last updated in 2026, and the oldest dated from June 27, 2023.³

Level 3 and 4 ratings cluster in a few regions. In the Eastern Mediterranean, 19 of 23 destinations (82.6%) were at Level 3 or 4; in Africa, 31.9%; in Europe, 9.3%; and in the Western Pacific, 6.5%.³ The map shows each destination's level; small islands are not drawn.

Grouped by the same WHO regions used for the yellow fever list, South-East Asia had 30.0% of its destinations at Level 3 or 4 and the Americas 16.7%. In the Americas that meant Colombia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela at Level 3, and Haiti at Level 4.³⁷

Each summary names the risks behind its level. On our count of the reasons named in each summary, crime appears in 90³ of 214 (42.1%), terrorism in 64, civil unrest in 60, health in 41 and kidnapping in 35.⁶ Landmines appear in 21 summaries, armed conflict in 16, arbitrary enforcement of laws in 6, and piracy and wrongful detention in 3 each. Nine summaries, including Ukraine and Russia, have no single sentence of reasons to count.

U.S. travel restrictions by country: the Level 4 list

The 24 Level 4 destinations were Afghanistan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Burma, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Niger, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen.³ Levels move: at their latest updates, Cyprus, Nepal and Venezuela were lowered, Tanzania was raised from Level 2 to 3, Mozambique was lowered from 3 to 2, and Jordan moved to Level 3 with an ordered departure.

Health rules and safety ratings overlap most at the strict end. Of the 19 places that required yellow fever proof from every traveler, 7 (36.8%) were at Level 4: Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Uganda.¹³ Among the 91 matched places with no yellow fever rule, 46 were at Level 1.

How much do travel vaccines cost?

Prices depend on who buys. The federal vaccine price list gives two prices per dose: a contract price and a private-sector price, which is the manufacturer's list price to private buyers, not what a patient pays.¹⁶ On the list dated August 3, 2026, private-sector prices ran from $47.81 a dose for polio (IPOL) to $260.13 for mpox (Jynneos); hepatitis A cost $83.73 (Vaqta) or $89.57 (Havrix), and the meningococcal ACWY vaccine MenQuadfi $177.11. The list does not include yellow fever, typhoid, rabies, Japanese encephalitis or cholera vaccines.

Private-sector list prices were 37.9% to 120.4% above the contract prices; Havrix was 112.8% above.⁶ For the vaccines missing from that list, clinic fees are the available benchmark. One Utah county health department's proposed 2026 fee schedule lists rabies at $435⁵, Japanese encephalitis at $390 (the line does not say per dose or per series) and yellow fever at $222⁵, with typhoid at $144 in either its injectable or oral form.

The same schedule adds a travel administration fee of $50 for a 30-minute visit or $100 for an hour. A national retail clinic chain lists a typhoid vaccine at $245, $101 more than the county, and a pre-travel consultation at $107 to $126; yellow fever vaccine is not on its price list.¹⁷ Adding the county fees for one dose of each vaccine and a visit gives a rough range for common sets, before insurance and second doses.

How much is the travel tax in the Philippines?

The Philippines levies a travel tax on individuals leaving the country. The full rate is PHP 2,700¹⁸ for first class and PHP 1,620¹⁸ for economy, about $43.02 and $25.81 at the central bank reference rate of PHP 62.756 per dollar on September 25, 2026.¹⁹ The standard reduced rate is PHP 1,350 or PHP 810, and a privileged reduced rate for dependents of Overseas Filipino Workers is PHP 400 or PHP 300.¹⁸

First class pays PHP 1,080 more than economy, and the standard reduced economy rate is exactly half the full one.⁶ By law, half of the proceeds go to tourism infrastructure, 40% to tourism-related higher education and 10% to culture and the arts.¹⁸

What it adds up to for a trip

For a trip, the numbers sort into three layers. The first is the border: 119 places asked for yellow fever proof on the 2022 list, and one certificate now covers every future trip.¹ The second is advice: hepatitis A, typhoid, rabies, Japanese encephalitis and malaria prevention depend on the destination, not on a border rule. The third is cost and safety: a set that includes yellow fever came to $509 on one county's proposed fees, and 7 of the 19 strictest yellow fever places were also at Level 4.⁶³

The list itself carries a warning: requirements are subject to change at any time, many entries were last confirmed years ago, and some countries have changed their rules since 2022. For a given trip, the destination country's current rule is the one that applies.¹

Conclusions

1. The strictest borders overlap with the least safe. 7 of the 19 places that asked every traveler for yellow fever proof were at Level 4 in September 2026.
2. Most rules protect the destination, not the traveler. 82 places require proof without being at risk of transmission, while 5 at-risk places require none.
3. The list is older than it looks. None of the 47 states in Africa answered the 2022 survey, although 46 of the region's 50 entries require proof.
4. Coverage climbs slowly while cases rise. Coverage gained 41 points in 25 years to 53%, while reported cases rose three years running, from 217 in 2022 to 631 in 2025, led by the Americas.
5. The yellow fever shot is a one-time cost. One $222 dose lasts a lifetime; a set with hepatitis A, typhoid and a visit comes to $509 on one county's proposed fees.