Passengers arriving into Scotland from Portugal or French Polynesia will have to self isolate for two weeks as of Saturday,
The development widens the discrepancies in the coronavirus travel policies of Westminster and the devolved administrations.
The Scottish Justice Secretary confirmed the new Portugal measures in a Tweet on Thursday, saying: “If arriving into Scotland from Portugal or French Polynesia from 4am Sat (5th Sept) you’ll have to self-isolate for 14 days.
“Gibraltar high up our watch list of countries we are monitoring closely. This week’s data shows increase in test positivity & cases per 100k in Portugal.”
There was speculation that the UK Government would reimpose the quarantine requirement on Portugal due to a spike in Covid-19 cases, leading many holidaymakers to pay up to £554 to fly home this week.
The Government was also under pressure to reimpose quarantine rules on arrivals from Greece after Scotland and Wales introduced restrictions in recent days.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced there were no changes to the Government’s list on Thursday.
The Welsh Government then revealed that it is removing the exemption from the 14-day self-isolation requirement for travellers returning from Portugal, Gibraltar and seven Greek islands.
The new rule comes into force at 4am on Friday.
The Scottish Government later said passengers arriving from Portugal would have to quarantine from 4am on Saturday, as well as those arriving from French Polynesia.
Scotland began requiring travellers from anywhere in Greece to enter quarantine from Thursday.
There were 23.0 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people in Portugal in the seven days to Wednesday, up from 15.3 a week earlier.
A seven-day rate of 20 is the threshold above which the UK Government has considered triggering quarantine conditions.
Mr Shapps said a number of other factors are taken into account in relation to the list, including the level of change in cases, extent of testing, and whether outbreaks are “contained”.
