The Foreign Office has issued new advice for holidaymakers who need to prove their COVID status for travel.

It says that clients who intend to show a PDF printout of their COVID Pass must ensure the PDF is dated from 1 November.

So anyone who printed a PDF of their COVID Pass from the NHS app or website before Monday should be advised to print another copy.

The Foreign Office said this is to ensure that the certificate can be scanned successfully.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced in a tweet on Monday that the NHS COVID Pass is now linked up to the EU Digital COVID Certificate. He said this would make travel to EU countries easier by using tech to digitally recognise someone’s vaccine status.

It’s not clear if linking the NHS pass to the EU certificate is why travellers need new copies of their paper vaccine certificates.

The Foreign Office included the warning in its updated advice for Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia and the Netherlands yesterday and has since added Greece, Italy and Malta and many other countries, both EU and non-EU.

The new rule also applies to clients travelling to Switzerland, which is not part of the EU but it has signed up to the EU Digital Certificate.