Police expect 8000 people will fly into Brisbane today from interstate with people keen to get back before those borders close to people from Greater Sydney.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk warned of lengthy delays and urged travellers to plan ahead.
"There will be delays at the border so think about your travel plans and think about where you need to go and think about the timing of those journeys," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"I'm not making any apologies for those delays because our police have a very important job to do and I want to thank everybody for the work that they are doing on our boarders to keep Queenslanders safe."
Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said police were well prepared ahead of the influx.
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"We are in a position to be able to process them very effectively," he said.
"Our borders are working and I've listened with interest to some of the suggestions that are coming out there around what we should consider and in terms of how we do our borders."
Commissioner Gollschewski again touted the state's new alert system when it came time for people to renew their border declaration passes.
"Certainly those people that are coming out of the Greater Sydney hotspot, that have a border declaration pass will be getting push notifications telling them that there is changed circumstances and they need to update their passes," he said.
"That is just an example of some of the things we have done to try to streamline the system. High confidence there."
On Wednesday, Greater Sydney was declared a hotspot effective from 1am tomorrow.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she had no prior warning of the decision.
READ MORE: View the full list of places affected by the Greater Sydney hotspot declaration
"There has been more outbreaks in other parts of Greater Sydney and that will now become a COVID declared hotspot taking effect from 1am on Saturday," Ms Palaszczuk said.
"We have done this to ensure we give notice to Queenslanders who may want to return home.
"We are in extraordinary times at the moment and we have to do everything we can.
"Queenslanders should not be travelling to Sydney."
Returning Queenslanders will be required to self-fund two weeks hotel quarantine when the new measures come into effect."
In the last 23 hour period NSW has recorded 21 new cases of COVID-19, with just two in hotel quarantine.
Health officials are yet to reveal the breakdown of the new cases and whether they are connected to existing clusters.
You can get up-to-date information from the Federal Government's Coronavirus Australia app, available on the App Store, Google Play and the Government's WhatsApp channel.
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