By ZEKE MILLER, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

WASH­ING­TON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Joe Biden will ease for­eign trav­el re­stric­tions to the U.S. be­gin­ning in No­vem­ber, al­low­ing for­eign­ers in­to the coun­try if they have proof of vac­ci­na­tion and a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test, the White House said Mon­day.

The new rules will re­place a hodge­podge of re­stric­tions that had barred non-cit­i­zens who had been in Eu­rope, much of Asia and cer­tain oth­er coun­tries in the pri­or 14 days from en­ter­ing the U.S. The changes will al­low fam­i­lies and oth­ers who have been sep­a­rat­ed by the trav­el re­stric­tions for 18 months to plan for long-await­ed re­uni­fi­ca­tions.

White House COVID-19 co­or­di­na­tor Jeff Zients an­nounced the new poli­cies, which still will re­quire all for­eign trav­ellers fly­ing to the U.S. to demon­strate proof of vac­ci­na­tion be­fore board­ing, as well as proof of a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test tak­en with­in three days of flight. Biden will al­so tight­en test­ing rules for un­vac­ci­nat­ed Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, who will need to be test­ed with­in a day be­fore re­turn­ing to the U.S., as well as af­ter they ar­rive home.

Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed pas­sen­gers will not be re­quired to quar­an­tine, Zients said.

The new pol­i­cy will re­place the patch­work of trav­el bans first in­sti­tut­ed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump last year and tight­ened by Biden that re­strict trav­el by non-cit­i­zens who have in the pri­or 14 days been in the Unit­ed King­dom, Eu­ro­pean Union, Chi­na, In­dia, Iran, Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, Brazil and South Africa.

Those trav­el bans had be­come the source of grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal frus­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly among al­lies in the UK and EU where virus cas­es are far low­er than the U.S. The eas­ing comes ahead of Biden meet­ing with some Eu­ro­pean lead­ers on the mar­gins of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly this week.

“This is based on in­di­vid­u­als rather than a coun­try-based ap­proach, so it’s a stronger sys­tem,” Zients said.

The EU and UK had pre­vi­ous­ly moved to al­low vac­ci­nat­ed U.S. trav­ellers in­to their ter­ri­to­ries with­out quar­an­tines, in an ef­fort to boost busi­ness and tourism trav­el. But the EU rec­om­mend­ed last month that some trav­el re­stric­tions be reim­posed on U.S. trav­ellers to the bloc be­cause of the ram­pant spread of the delta vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus in Amer­i­ca.

The Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion will al­so re­quire air­lines to col­lect con­tact in­for­ma­tion from in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers to fa­cil­i­tate trac­ing, Zients said.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear which vac­cines would be ac­cept­able un­der the U.S.-sys­tem and whether those un­ap­proved in the U.S. could be used. Zients said that de­ci­sion would be up to the CDC.

Zients said there would be no im­me­di­ate changes to the U.S. land bor­der poli­cies, which con­tin­ue to re­strict much cross-bor­der trav­el with Mex­i­co and Cana­da.

Britain wel­comed the U.S. an­nounce­ment that it is lift­ing quar­an­tine re­quire­ments for vac­ci­nat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers.

Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son tweet­ed that he was “de­light­ed” by the news. He said: “It’s a fan­tas­tic boost for busi­ness and trade, and great that fam­i­ly and friends on both sides of the pond can be re­unit­ed once again.”

For­eign Sec­re­tary Liz Truss tweet­ed that the move was “ex­cel­lent news for trav­ellers from the UK to the US. Im­por­tant for our eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, fam­i­lies and trade.”

Britain scrapped quar­an­tines for ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers from the U.S. and the Eu­ro­pean Union in ear­ly Au­gust, and has been push­ing for Wash­ing­ton to ease its rules. But John­son said Sun­day that he did not ex­pect the change to come this week.

Air­lines hailed the U.S. de­ci­sion as a life­line for the strug­gling in­dus­try. Tim Alder­slade, chief ex­ec­u­tive of in­dus­try body Air­lines U.K. said it was “a ma­jor break­through.”

Shai Weiss, chief ex­ec­u­tive of Vir­gin At­lantic, said it was “a ma­jor mile­stone to the re­open­ing of trav­el at scale, al­low­ing con­sumers and busi­ness­es to book trav­el to the U.S. with con­fi­dence.”

“The U.K. will now be able to strength­en ties with our most im­por­tant eco­nom­ic part­ner, the U.S., boost­ing trade and tourism as well as re­unit­ing friends, fam­i­lies and busi­ness col­leagues,” Weiss said.

The new air trav­el pol­i­cy will take ef­fect in “ear­ly No­vem­ber,” Zients said, to al­low air­lines and trav­el part­ners time to pre­pare to im­ple­ment the new pro­to­cols.

AP writer Jill Law­less con­tributed from Lon­don.