About Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office travel advice
Source: gov.uk (2025-09-24)

How to use FCDO travel advice and how FCDO assesses the risks to British nationals abroad.

Overview

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) provides travel advice about the risks you face when travelling abroad. There is specific advice for countries and territories (https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice), and general advice for different types of travel or traveller.

FCDO travel advice provides objective information to help you make better-informed decisions. You should use FCDO Travel Advice when planning travel alongside other sources.

Deciding whether it is safe for you to travel

No foreign travel can be guaranteed safe. FCDO publishes travel advice to help you decide if it’s safe enough for you to travel to a particular destination. In some instances we also give information about how to reduce the risks you may face there. All environments contain some level of risk and you should consider what precautions you should take.

You must take personal responsibility for your own travel. Only you can decide whether you should travel to a country or stay there, and what activities to take part in.

You may face different risks due to your:
- gender
- ethnic background
- sexuality
- health
We have general guidance for specific types of traveller (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/helping-british-people-overseas-travelling-and-living-abroad) to help you understand some of these risks.

When we advise against travel

The FCDO sometimes formally advises British people against ‘all but essential travel’ or ‘all travel’ to a particular country.

Your travel insurance could be invalidated if you travel against advice from FCDO.

We only advise against travel if we think the risk to British nationals is unacceptably high. For example, this could be due to:
- armed conflict
- military coups
- civil unrest
- disease outbreaks
- natural disasters
For terrorist threats, we only advise against travel:
- in situations of extreme and imminent danger
- where the threat is sufficiently specific, large-scale or widespread to affect British nationals severely
We may advise against travel to:
- a whole country
- parts of a country
The ‘Warnings and insurance’ section of each travel advice page lists all the areas where we advise against travel.

If you want to know about changes to travel advice for a specific country, you can sign up to receive email alerts about updates.

Advice against all travel

Our maps are coloured red to show the areas where we advise against all travel.

Advice against all but essential travel

We sometimes advise against all but essential travel. You must decide whether your travel is essential. For example, you may have urgent family or business commitments. Only you can make an informed decision based on your individual circumstances and the risks.

Our maps are coloured amber to show the areas where we advise against all but essential travel.

Removing advice against travel

Circumstances can change quickly. We cannot tell you how our advice may change in the future. We will remove advice against travel as soon as the situation allows.

Terrorism threat levels

We constantly review the threat of international terrorism to inform and advise British nationals travelling and living abroad.

Where possible, we offer information and advice about the likelihood of terrorists trying to carry out attacks. This includes:
- potential targets
- details of groups or individuals posing a threat
We may also provide details of previous terrorist activity. We do not advise against travel to every country where there is a risk of terrorists operating.

UK Counter Terrorism Policing has information and advice on staying safe abroad (https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/safetyadvice/) and what to do in the event of a terrorist attack. Find out how to reduce your risk from terrorism while abroad (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/reduce-your-risk-from-terrorism-while-abroad).

Being safety aware

If you choose to travel, you should use the information in our travel advice along with other sources of information about your destination to consider your itinerary and what you can do to avoid the risks described.

Think about how you can take local advice or change how you plan things to keep yourself safe. Your tour company may offer a welcome meeting that includes a safety briefing, or in more challenging environments you may wish to seek advice from a private security company.

Where FCDO staff are required to work in areas where travel advice highlights security concerns, the staff receive appropriate security training and protection.

The FCDO cannot provide tailored advice for individual trips. Read this travel advice and carry out your own research before deciding whether to travel.

How we update advice

Our main concern is always the safety of British nationals. We know our travel advice sometimes affects businesses and international relations. We do not let this influence our advice.

We constantly review our travel advice for each country or territory. We keep it up to date and make sure it includes the most important issues for British people visiting or living there.

We may link to information provided by other countries, including local service providers. FCDO does not endorse or recommend this information. We are not responsible for the content of other organisations’ websites.

If we’re aware of an incident that might significantly affect British people, we update travel advice as quickly as possible. We may publish several updates each day during a crisis or as a situation is developing.

We base our travel advice on evidence from different sources, including:
- local knowledge from our embassies abroad
- information provided by the local authorities in each country
- in some cases, information gathered by the intelligence services
The amount of information we can provide varies from place to place.

Travel advice does not generally cover individual streets or neighbourhoods. Even generally safe destinations are likely to have places you may not want to visit, particularly at night. You should get local advice about these places and carry out your own research.

Entry requirements

We provide information on the most common entry requirements for people travelling on a full ‘British citizen’ passport (https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality) from the UK. We link to information provided by other countries, including embassies and foreign government departments. FCDO does not endorse this information. We are not responsible for the content of other governments’ websites.

Health advice

Each country guide includes a health section with advice on:
- travel health risks
- local healthcare
- travelling with medication
We link extensively to TravelHealthPro as the experts on health risks overseas. Their website has specific advice on the health risks you will face in your destination country (https://travelhealthpro.org.uk/countries), as well as recommendations on vaccines and other precautions you can take.

The NHS provides general information on travel vaccinations (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/travel-vaccinations/).

Changing or cancelling travel plans

If you want to cancel or change a travel booking, contact your travel company.

Travel companies, including airlines, often take travel advice into account. However, only you and your travel company can decide to cancel or change a flight ticket, holiday, tour or excursion. You must discuss refunds with your airline, tour operator or travel agent. We do not decide when travel can take place.

If you’ve booked a package holiday, your travel company must follow the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2018/9780111168479/contents). Your travel company must give you a refund if there has been a significant change at your destination or in its immediate vicinity after you book and before you travel.

Citizens Advice (https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/holiday-cancellations-and-compensation/cancelling-a-package-holiday/) provides advice about consumer rights to cancel a travel booking.

Travel insurance claims

Wherever you’re travelling, you should buy appropriate travel insurance and check your policy includes the cover you want. See our foreign travel insurance guidance page (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/foreign-travel-insurance) for more information.

Travel insurance companies sometimes refer to our travel advice in their policies. For example, your policy may not provide cover if you travel to a country where FCDO advises against travel. Some policies may allow you to make a claim if you cancel a journey because our travel advice changes.

However, each individual insurance policy is different. Only your travel insurance company can decide whether to accept an insurance claim. If you’re unsure if your policy is valid or whether you can make a claim, contact your insurance company.

For refunds or changes to travel, check with your travel provider. You may also be able to make a claim through insurance, however, insurers usually require you to talk to your travel provider first.

Previous versions of travel advice

Previous versions of FCDO travel advice are on the National Archives website (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/*/http:/www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice). You may need this to check or support an insurance claim.

Travel Aware Campaign

The Travel Aware (https://www.gov.uk/travelaware) campaign is a joint venture between the FCDO and the travel industry to help make sure British travellers are better prepared when they go overseas. It helps them to stay safe and understand risks in different countries by helping to deliver the messages in our travel advice to a wide audience.

The FCDO does not endorse any of the companies who are part of the Travel Aware campaign. The FCDO is not involved in the production or sale of the companies’ products, nor do we monitor their quality.

Moving, living or retiring abroad guides

The FCDO’s Moving, living or retiring abroad guide (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/moving-living-or-retiring-abroad) sits alongside our travel advice and signposts you to the different administrative tasks you may need to complete. For some countries, there is an additional Living in guide (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/overseas-living-in-guides) with information relevant to that country.

Disclaimer

This information is provided by the Foreign, Development & Commonwealth Office (FCDO) for the convenience of British nationals, as a general guide only. It is not a substitute for obtaining your own legal advice.

Neither the FCDO nor any of its employees can provide any guarantees, conditions or warranties as to the accuracy of the information on this page nor on any of the pages relating to Support for British Nationals Abroad (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/support-for-british-nationals-abroad). We do not accept liability for any loss, costs, damage or expense which you might suffer as a result of relying on the information supplied.

For example, the FCDO provides lists of local lawyers and translators for general information purposes only. We aim to provide British nationals with relevant information to help them to make better-informed decisions, but our lists are not recommendations and should not be treated as such. The FCDO accepts no legal responsibility in respect of such material, or for the consequences of any choice you make to take any such lists into account when instructing a local lawyer or translator.

The FCDO works with a range of independent partner organisations but we cannot be liable or held responsible in any way for their advice, decisions or outcomes. We are not responsible for the content of other organisations’ websites and cannot accept any legal responsibility for any information they give you.

Read our full disclaimer (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/foreign-commonwealth-development-office-fcdo-consular-information-disclaimer).