“Not self administered antigen test” less than 24 hours before departure?

[redblonde]

Hi all - sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, I did look but struggled to find anything. For entry to France we need a “not self administered” test no more than 24 hours before departure for our single vaccinated teen. We leave on Boxing Day - do we need to find somewhere open on Christmas Day or is there a way round? Any advice or recommendations gratefully received! Thanks

Unlike PCR tests which need to be sent off to the lab - antigen test results should be issued within an hour so depending on the time of your flight, you could do it on the day of travel instead of Christmas Day. These tests are administered by staff so you won’t have to worry about that!

Where are you flying from? I use Express Test and they have sites at pretty much all major airports in the UK and I find their prices very reasonable. You can find slots as early as 7am!

I had a quick look at FCO’s advice for travel to France and it says you do not need a negative test (assuming you’re fully vaccinated)

Travellers who are fully vaccinated do not need an essential reason to travel to France and do not need to self-isolate on arrival. Fully vaccinated travellers no longer need to present evidence of a negative test result before travel. Fully vaccinated travellers will need to present the following documents:

a completed ‘sworn statement’ (déclaration sur l’honneur) form self-certifying they are not suffering from symptoms associated with coronavirus and have not been in contact with confirmed cases in the preceding fortnight. This can be found on the French government’s website
proof of vaccination status

Good luck and have a nice time!

Sorry didn’t read that you’re travelling with a teen so ignore the last part!

Self-administered is fine so long as you use one of the companies that issue a certificate of negative test. You just can't use an NHS test.

We travelled to France with a teen and used c19testing.co.uk for her pre-travel test. It’s exactly the same as our NHS LFTs except it costs money! You register it on their site, and they email you a certificate pretty quickly. We timed it to maximise her use of the certificate: 24 hrs to enter France, 48 to get us onto the campsite, and up to 72 hrs for the pass sanitaire for restaurants. After those 72 hrs we would have had to test her again for the pass, but we just stuck to self-catering instead.

Thanks everyone. We are driving to Francexabd it seems there is no testing at the Eurotunnel terminal. But it sounds like “not self administered” isn’t as strict as it sounds.

I just came across your thread while doing some research of my own for the same situation. We are due to fly to France boxing day and are having the same worries.

We will go ahead, but only if we can do self administered (as we don't want to have to go to PCR testing site on Xmas day). Did you get to the bottom of whether self administered (e.g. like the one provided by c19testing.co.uk) are accepted?

Thanks!

I think I just saw on one of these threads that people were getting turned away if they didn't have PCR tests going into France so things may have moved on!