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We have a flight back to the US tomorrow and our airline (Fiji Airways) has notified us that we will need to present a completed CDC Attestation Form at check-in.

Is this form something that would typically be provided or completed at the check-in counter, or are travellers expected to print it out and bring it with them?

We are not US citizens or residents, and are just transiting through (train and bus and car into Mexico, same day)

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Is this form something that would typically be provided or completed at the check-in counter, or are travelers expected to print it out and bring it with them?

Depends on the airline. If they require it, airlines will generally have copies at the counter but they may be grumpy about handing them out (the darn thing is 5 pages long) . It's certainly easier to fill and print up front if you have access to a printer.

We are not US citizens or residents, and are just transiting through (train and bus and car into Mexico, same day)

That doesn't matter. The US does not have a concept of transit without entering the country, so there is no material difference between entering the country or just transiting. You will have to go through full immigrations and customs procedure at your first airport in the US.

Same for Canada. I was once asked by a Canadian Immigration officer: "how long are you planning to stay in Canada" to which I answered "hopefully only another 45 minutes". They didn't think that was funny though :-)

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  • "The US does not have a concept of transit": they absolutely do; they have a whole visa category dedicated to it. It's just a very old fashioned concept of it whereby the transiting traveler can stay in the US for up to 29 days.
    – phoog
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 22:32
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    RE my comment about citizenship and transiting - this was more to show that we're required to fill the form but that were not there long enough for the testing requirement
    – Midavalo
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 23:16
  • "not how the rest of the world defines it": Australia also has a transit visa. So do the UK and Suriname. Even the Schengen visa code considers transit under a C visa, for example at art. 5(2). The fact that "transit" often means an airport transit without passing through immigration controls doesn't mean that the older meaning has been abandoned everywhere, nor indeed anywhere.
    – phoog
    Commented Mar 31, 2023 at 9:14
  • @phoog: I deleted my comments. Feel free to suggest a better wording and I update the post.
    – Hilmar
    Commented Apr 1, 2023 at 11:25
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Is this form something that would typically be provided or completed at the check-in counter, or are travellers expected to print it out and bring it with them?

For all the flights I took since the beginning of the pandemic, the attestation form was entirely electronic. I'd be extremely surprised if Fiji Airways is any different. There should be a link somewhere during the check-in process to fill it out. No need to print anything.

Worst case scenario, you'll be asked to do it at the check-in desk at the airport, if they actually required it to be printed out Fiji Airways would quickly get on the news for denying boarding to hundreds of travelers.

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  • Fiji Airways sent a link to the form (took me ages to find the link it was buried deep in the email) and it's a link direct to the CDC pdf. We've filled it in now but have no way to print it, so hopefully the pdf on my phone will be adequate
    – Midavalo
    Commented Mar 30, 2023 at 23:14
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Another data point: I flew on Hawaiian Air to the US in December 2022. At checkin they had paper forms to fill in while waiting in the checkin queue. It was a couple of pages but only had a very few things to fill in and sign. There was no other electronic requirement and nobody asked for anything covid/vaccination related when we landed in the US.

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I'll add this as an answer with our experience, but will leave the accepted answer checked.

We're currently in the departure lounge in Fiji so haven't flown yet, but have been checked-in without issue.

Our vaccination papers were not looked at (or even asked for).
We were asked for the Attestation Form which we said we had on our phone. At first the agent asked us to email the PDF forms to an email address, but then changed her mind and just asked us to sign the last page and she'd complete it on our behalf. We did not leave with those forms so no idea what happens with them next.

If anything is mentioned when we enter the US I'll update this answer.

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