Bangkok floods, October 2026: what's closed and what to change in your trip.

A table like this goes stale in days. If the date at the top is more than a few days old, read the linked sources before you read us.

What happened

Rain started on the afternoon of Thursday 24 September and kept going. AFP reported more than 300mm in some areas between Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning, in a month that had already brought 487mm by the 25th against an average of almost 269mm for those dates (AFP via SBS, 27 September). On Saturday 26 September the city declared a disaster across all 50 districts, "a move that grants local organisations special powers to act". "Our problem is that the canals are full," Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said.

By the disaster agency's count at 6am on 1 October, flooding had affected 1,177,404 households across 30 provinces and Bangkok, and at least 24 people had died. In Bangkok it counted 329,000 households and four deaths, with water levels described as stable (The Nation, 1 October). The president of the Thai Hotels Association put the flooded area at "approximately 30–40% of the capital" and named eastern districts such as Srinakarin, On Nut, Bang Kapi and Ramkhamhaeng, where, he said, relatively few hotels are (The Nation, 30 September).

Bangkok itself

The tourism authority's update of 28 September said "Most tourism areas, attractions and visitor facilities across Bangkok continue to operate", and named the places in the first row of the table. Two days later the hotels association's president said attractions and services "in the central business district, as well as in Thon Buri and Phra Nakhon, continued to operate normally". Time Out's Bangkok desk wrote on 30 September that much of the city was running as normal and named Silom, Sathorn and Sukhumvit (Time Out).

The water is in the east. On the morning of Friday 2 October extra pumps were going into the Rom Klao housing community in Lat Krabang, and the governor's 7.30am report listed where water was still standing or being watched: parts of Srinakarin Road under the motorway, stretches of Suwinthawong, Krungthep Kreetha, On Nut, Luang Phaeng and Chalong Krung roads, Phahonyothin Road near the National Memorial, and the boundary with Pathum Thani. Few visitors sleep out there. Lat Krabang is on one of the roads to Suvarnabhumi, though, which is the next section.

For a street-level view there is Floodboard, a free, independent map that pulls together the city drainage department's feed, the highways department, the weather service and public reports. It colours each flooded road by depth and by whether an ordinary car can get through. It is not an official source and we have not checked it against the ground, so use it for one question: can a taxi get down this road.

On the river, the official line is that the Chao Phraya stays inside its walls in Bangkok. The disaster agency's warning of 2 October covers ten provinces in the river's basin and says the dam releases "will not affect communities inside flood barriers", while asking businesses on the river and residents on both banks in Bangkok to watch the level (The Nation, 2 October). Authorities expect the river in Bangkok to stay "about 40 centimetres below flood barriers" (Khaosod English, 1 October), and the national water office's high-tide alert runs to 4 October (The Nation, 29 September). If your hotel is on the river, ask it what it is seeing.

Airports, flights and bags

Neither airport closed. What failed was the journey to work. Flooded roads kept Thai Airways ground staff from reaching Suvarnabhumi, and arriving passengers waited up to six hours for their bags (Skift, 28 September). About 10,000 suitcases piled up.

The airline cut flights to catch up, 15 on 1 October and nine more on 2 October, and now says it is ready to fly the full schedule from Saturday 3 October. The transport minister wants the remaining bags back with their owners by Saturday night, with Sunday 4 October as the outer limit (The Thaiger, 2 October). From 3 October there is a 24-hour self-collection centre at THAI's Ground Service Maintenance Building at Suvarnabhumi. Look the bag up first by its tag number at baggage.airportthai.co.th, the airport operator's tracking page, then bring your passport, boarding pass and the original baggage tag. Passengers who registered for home delivery are to be contacted by the airline.

Thai Airways' fee waivers cover tickets issued on or before 29 September for flights to or from Suvarnabhumi between 26 September and 11 October. You can move the date on the same route with the change and no-show fees waived, or reroute without the change fee (any fare difference still applies), or take a full refund on an unused ticket if the flight is cancelled or delayed by more than three hours (The Nation, 2 October). The report does not say where to file the request; the airline's ticket office on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road is open on 3 and 4 October from 8am to 5pm. Thai AirAsia and Thai Vietjet waived change fees too, Skift reported, and a roundup by the booking site Wego on 1 October found most other airlines' windows ended in the last days of September. Ask yours.

For the airport run, the tourism authority's advice on 27 September was to avoid the Lat Krabang road to Suvarnabhumi and use Motorway 7 or the Burapha Withi expressway, with the Airport Rail Link running. For Don Mueang it was the tollway or the Red Line train, with airport buses A1 to A4 running but possibly late. It asked travellers to allow at least three hours for an international flight and two for a domestic one. Metered taxis at Don Mueang were suspended that day, with pick-ups moved to the Service Hall building and Grab still working (The Thaiger, 27 September). We could not confirm that the taxi rank is back to normal, so land with the Red Line or a ride-hailing app as your fallback.

Trains

The lines north, northeast and south were running at last report: the tourism authority said on 28 September that the Northern Line had reopened and the Northeastern and Southern were operating. Those are the lines the Ayutthaya trains and the sleepers to Chiang Mai and the south use.

The Eastern Line is not back. On 2 and 3 October six trains, numbers 277 to 282 on the Kabin Buri and Ban Klong Luk border services, run only between Bangkok and Prachinburi, "or until floodwaters recede". The report does not mention the Pattaya train.

The Kanchanaburi line is the one that touches most itineraries. State Railway closed it between Tha Kilen and Nam Tok on 28 September because of flooding at the Tham Krasae trestle, and trains from Thonburi ended at Tha Kilen. That is the stretch with the wooden viaduct. On 2 October it cancelled the weekend excursion trains from Bangkok (909/910) for 3 and 4 October, with full refunds at any station (The Nation, 2 October). We could not confirm whether the daily trains run through to Nam Tok again. State Railway answers on 1690 around the clock.

Kanchanaburi and Ayutthaya

Kanchanaburi

This is the stop we would move. Erawan National Park shut on 27 September, at first for three days. On 1 October its chief said it was still closed to visitors, with trees down across the falls, landslides and a collapse at the second tier, and that reopening would be announced on the park's Facebook page. The Hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre and its walking trail have been closed since 27 September "until further notice"; the centre's own notice cites "flooding and the potential risk of landslides and rockfalls". Sai Yok National Park, which includes Sai Yok Noi waterfall, was still closed on 2 October (MGR Online, in Thai). And the railway was cut short at last report, as above.

Vajiralongkorn Dam, upstream on the Kwai Noi, is releasing more water from 30 September to 4 October, and the warning named raft businesses and riverside restaurants among those who should watch the river (The Nation, 29 September). If you have booked a raft house, ask them. We did not find a report on the Bridge over the River Kwai or the town's museums, open or shut.

Ayutthaya

The old city is an island in the river, and the river is the story. Flood barriers went up along the bank at Wat Chaiwatthanaram and Wat Kasattrathirat on 23 and 24 September (The Nation, 24 September). On 27 September Thai television reported the river over the bank at Wat Chaiwatthanaram (Amarin TV, in Thai). On 2 October it got into Pom Phet, the old fort where the Chao Phraya meets the Pa Sak, to nearly a metre. The Fine Arts Department raised Wat Chaiwatthanaram's barrier by another 50 centimetres, and the culture minister ordered the highest level of watch on all 394 monuments in the historical park, 189 of them on the island (Amarin TV and Daily News, both 2 October, in Thai).

More water is on the way. The government expects the flow that was passing Nakhon Sawan on 1 October to reach Ayutthaya on 3 October. None of the reports we read says which sites are open to visitors today. The ones in the news are on the river bank; we found no report of water at Wat Mahathat or the other temples in the middle of the island, and no notice closing them. So ask before you go, and don't prepay a tour you can't move.

Siam Amazing Park is closed

The water park on the east side of the city was almost entirely under water for five days. On 30 September its operator announced a six-month closure, with the aim of reopening before Songkran 2027, and said the park's zoo would close. Two days later the founder, Chaiwat Luangamornlert, put the damage at more than 500 million baht and said that without real help the park "would have to close permanently" (The Nation, 2 October). So don't buy a ticket for the coming months from any reseller. Our own guide to the park now opens with this notice, and we have taken the ticket link off the Bangkok with kids page.

The other three family parks in that guide are a different case. Safari World, Dream World and Ancient City carried no flood or closure notice on their own websites when we looked on 3 October, and we found no news report of a closure. That is the absence of a notice, which is weaker than a confirmation. Dream World is in Pathum Thani and Ancient City in Samut Prakan, both provinces on the flood list, so ring before you set out.

What is coming: 4 to 7 October

The weather service's third notice, issued at 5pm on 2 October, warns of "thundershowers, gusty winds and isolated heavy to very heavy rain" moving across the country over four days, as The Nation reported it:

• 4 October: the upper and eastern parts of the North, and the Northeast.
• 5 and 6 October: the North, the Central region "including Bangkok and surrounding provinces", the East and the upper South.
• 7 October: western parts of the North and Central region, and the South, easing elsewhere.

The cause it gives is a high-pressure system from China extending over the North and upper Northeast while the southwest monsoon still blows over the Andaman Sea, the South and the Gulf. At sea it expects waves above two metres in thundershowers on both coasts. The prime minister has told the governors of all 76 provinces to prepare (The Nation, 2 October).

For a plan, that means keeping 5 and 6 October loose if you are in Bangkok or central Thailand, with a wet-afternoon fallback and no long road transfer you can't shift. If you fly on one of those days, leave for the airport early. If you have a ferry on any of the four, the operator's decision that morning is the one that counts.

Upstream, the Chao Phraya Dam's release has been raised in steps towards a cap of 2,500 cubic metres per second, and ten provinces in its basin have been told to expect a rise of about 0.40 to 0.70 metres in low-lying areas outside the flood barriers. That is the water now arriving at Ayutthaya.

The rest of Thailand

The disaster agency's list of 1 October is long, 30 provinces plus Bangkok, and most of it is the central plain and the east. On it, among places travellers go: Ayutthaya, Kanchanaburi, Chon Buri (Pattaya), Trat (the province of Koh Chang and Koh Kood) and Chumphon. Not on it: Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Surat Thani (Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao), Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son and Sukhothai.

A province on the list is not under water from end to end, and one off the list can still have a bad day. We found no current report on Koh Chang or Koh Kood themselves; ferries to Koh Chang were suspended at times for rough seas on 25 September (The Thaiger). Ask your hotel there before you travel. For the North and the South the question is the forecast above, not the flood.

If you are there now

Stay out of the water if there is any way round it. The health ministry said on 28 September that drowning and electrocution accounted for most of the 19 flood deaths counted by then (The Nation, 29 September). The disease control department has warned about leptospirosis, an infection carried in contaminated water and mud that gets in through cuts and softened skin. Its advice: wear boots, shower straight after any contact, and see a doctor promptly for a high fever with headache and pain in the calves or thighs. Its hotline is 1422 (The Thaiger, 29 September).

Numbers worth saving, from the tourism authority's list of 27 September: Tourist Police 1155, the TAT contact centre 1672, the city's hotline 1555, medical emergencies 1669, State Railway 1690, Airports of Thailand 1722, the disaster agency 1784.

Should you cancel?

That is your call and your insurer's, and we are not going to make it for you. What the sources say: the UK's advisory, updated on 28 September and still marked current when we read it on 3 October, describes the flooding, says "Travel disruption, including road closures and flooding of low-lying areas, is possible" and tells travellers to follow the advice of local authorities. It does not add Bangkok, Ayutthaya or Kanchanaburi to the places it advises against travelling to (FCDO). Other governments write their own pages. Read yours, because your insurer will.

Our read, for what it is worth. For a trip that starts after this next spell of rain, the changes we would make today are the ones above: take Siam Amazing Park out, treat Kanchanaburi as unconfirmed until its parks reopen, and check Ayutthaya on the day. For a trip that lands this week, the first days in Bangkok work if you keep them loose and stay off the road when it pours. One bad night can change all of it, which is why the date at the top matters more than anything else on this page.