Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel

The order directs the Secretaries of Labor, HHS, Transportation, and Homeland Security to immediately take action to require masks on domestic transportation modes — including airports, commercial aircraft, trains, public maritime vessels, intercity buses, and all forms of public transit. Agencies may make exceptions but must document them and require alternative safeguards. The order also directs the Secretaries of Transportation and Homeland Security to recommend additional domestic public health measures and requires the COVID-19 Response Coordinator to identify ways to incentivize mask-wearing and distancing across transportation systems.

For international travel, the order sets a policy requiring incoming travelers to provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test and comply with CDC quarantine guidance. HHS and DHS must assess and potentially strengthen the existing air-travel testing requirement within 14 days, while HHS, Transportation, and DHS must submit plans for land and sea port public health measures on the same timeline. State and local rules imposing stricter measures than those required by the order are explicitly preserved.

Domestic travelers on commercial aircraft, trains, ferries, buses, and public transit, as well as the transportation industry workers serving them. International travelers entering the U.S. by air, land, or sea who must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. State, local, tribal, and territorial governments whose stricter rules are expressly preserved.

Travelers on most forms of commercial and public transportation face a new federal mask requirement, and international arrivals must produce a negative COVID-19 test before entry. Transportation sector workers gain a baseline federal safety standard, and the mask requirement coexists with any stricter state or local rules already in place.

The COVID-19 Response Coordinator serves as the central hub: directed agency heads must report implementation progress — including any categorical exceptions — within 7 days of signing and regularly afterward. Three parallel 14-day tracks address air, land, and sea international entry. The domestic mask mandate does not itself impose an enforceable rule; it requires each directed agency to complete its own regulatory steps. Agencies retain authority to make case-by-case or categorical exceptions, provided they document each one in writing and require alternative safeguards.