Thailand's visa exemption drops to 30 days on 15 September 2026.
| Rule | Until 14 Sept 2026 | From 15 Sept 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Stay stamped at entry (tourism) | 60 days | 30 days |
| Countries on the exemption list | 93 | 60 (plus 2 at 15 days; 3 moved to visa on arrival) |
| Extension at immigration | Unchanged — one 30-day extension, ฿1,900, at the officer's discretion | |
| Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) | Unchanged — free, online, in the 3 days before arrival | |
What was published, exactly
On 31 August 2026 the Ministry of Interior's announcements went into the Royal Gazette — volume 143, special issue 207, as Thai press reported it — and Gazette publication is the step that turns a cabinet decision into law. The change was approved in cabinet in May 2026, the final country lists cleared in July, and then it all sat unpublished through the summer while posts claimed it was already in force. It wasn't, until now. The announcements take legal effect 15 days after publication: 15 September 2026.
Three things changed at once. The visa-exemption list itself was cut from 93 countries and territories to 60, at 30 days per entry. The Seychelles and Mauritius were given their own tier at 15 days. And Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia moved off the exemption list onto visa on arrival. Early reports over the summer said 59 countries; the list as published has 60 names on it — and 60 + 2 + 3 across the three tiers is the arithmetic that matches the government's own stated total of 65 countries and territories.
The dates that matter
| Your situation | What you get |
|---|---|
| Arriving up to and including 14 September 2026 | The old rule: a 60-day stamp |
| Arriving 15 September 2026 or later | The new rule: a 30-day stamp |
| Already in Thailand on 15 September | You keep the stay stamped at entry — nothing is shortened retroactively |
That transition reading comes from the Gazette notice as reported by Thai press, and it matches how Thailand handled the last change in 2024: the stamp you get is whatever rule is in force on the day you land. Which cuts both ways — if a 60-day plan depends on arriving 13 September instead of 15 September, book the earlier flight by more than a day and have a fallback, because nobody at the boarding gate owes you the old rule.
The 60 countries that keep visa-free entry
As published, in the announcement's own order. If your passport is here, you enter visa-free for tourism and get 30 days from 15 September 2026:
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahrain
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Bhutan
- Brunei Darussalam
- Canada
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Fiji
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Indonesia
- India
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Oman
- Philippines
- Poland
- Portugal
- Qatar
- Romania
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Türkiye
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
Separate tiers: Seychelles and Mauritius get 15 days visa-free. Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia now use visa on arrival instead.
The missing names that set off the panic posts
Scan that list and some big absences jump out: South Korea, China, Russia, Hong Kong, Brazil. Headlines doing the maths — "93 countries down to 65!" — read those absences as bans. They aren't. Thailand runs visa-free entry on two separate tracks, and the Gazette notice only rewrote one of them.
The track that changed is the unilateral list — countries Thailand exempts by its own announcement, which is what a ministry announcement can rewrite whenever cabinet agrees. The other track is bilateral treaties, agreed country-to-country, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand's own summary of the change is explicit that those arrangements continue, at 90, 30 or 14 days depending on the agreement. South Korean passports keep 90 days under a treaty listed by Thai embassies. Chinese passports keep 30 days under the mutual exemption agreement in force since 1 March 2024 — it's on China's foreign ministry list of visa agreements, dated and in force. Neither depended on the scheme that just shrank.
What about passports that were on the old 93-name list, aren't on the new one, and hold no treaty? The ministry hasn't published a side-by-side of who fell off, and we won't invent one. If that might be you, check Thailand's official e-Visa portal for your nationality's current requirement before booking anything — and treat any repost claiming to know the full dropped list with suspicion, because we went looking for an official version of it and it doesn't exist yet.
Staying longer than 30 days
The extension, in the country. The standing mechanism survives the change: one extension of stay of up to 30 days, at any immigration office, for a fee of 1,900 baht, granted at the officer's discretion. That takes a 30-day stamp to roughly 60 days for one fee and one morning of queueing. It has been the routine move for years — the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok documents the same fee and mechanism — and reporting on the new rules confirms it continues to apply to the 30-day exemption.
The Tourist Visa, before you fly. If you know the trip runs past a month, the cleaner route is a 60-day Tourist Visa (TR) from Thailand's official e-Visa portal — thaievisa.go.th, the only site to use — applied for before travel. It grants 60 days at entry and can be extended by 30 more in the country, which covers a full season of slow travel legally and calmly.
Or fit 30 days well. Thirty days in Thailand is a lot of trip when the route respects seasons and transfer times. Our 14-day itinerary runs at half that budget of days, and the planner demo builds routes that fit inside a single stamp by design.
The land-border fine print
The notice writes a cap into the land routes: entries under the 30-day exemption at land border checkpoints are limited to twice per calendar year, with nationals of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore exempt from the cap. Air arrivals carry no such number in the notice. If your trip weaves overland between Thailand and its neighbours — Malaysia by train, Laos across the Friendship Bridge, Cambodia at Aranyaprathet — count your calendar-year land entries before assuming the third one works. Border-run loops that quietly reset a stay are what this clause exists to end.
What didn't change
The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is untouched: every foreign visitor still completes it online in the three days before arrival, it is still free, and the official site is still the only one to use. Passport mechanics are untouched: six months' validity beyond arrival and a blank page. Immigration officers can still ask for proof of onward travel. And overstay maths is the same as ever — 500 baht per day, capped at 20,000 — with escalating consequences for long overstays, which is now easier to hit by accident if you're still mentally on the 60-day clock. Set the reminder for day 25.
Why big official pages still said 60 days this week
As we published this on 1 September 2026, the UK FCDO's Thailand entry-requirements page — last updated 26 August — still read "You can visit Thailand for a period of 60 days," and the U.S. Embassy's Thai-visas page, last touched in September 2025, said the same. Neither is wrong about what was true when written; both lag what the Gazette changed on 31 August. Government travel pages update on their own schedules, sometimes weeks behind the law they describe. The order of trust runs: the Royal Gazette, then Thai authorities summarising it, then foreign governments, then everything on your feed. We'll keep the dates on this page honest as those sources catch up.
What this does to an actual itinerary
For most trips: nothing. Every route in our guides — the two-week itinerary, every UK school-holiday window, a three-week north-plus-islands loop — fits inside 30 days without noticing the rule exists. The travellers who need to act are the five-week-plus crowd: winter escapers, remote workers between leases, the gap-year sweep. If that's you, decide before booking non-refundables whether the answer is the 1,900-baht extension, the TR visa, or a route that splits the season with a neighbouring country — and if it splits at a land border, reread the twice-a-year clause above.
Quick answers
Do UK, US, EU or Australian passports need a visa for Thailand now?
No. All of them are on the 60-country list, so they enter visa-free for tourism as before — the change is the length of stay, 30 days instead of 60, for arrivals from 15 September 2026.
I land before 15 September — how long can I stay?
Arrivals up to and including 14 September are stamped 60 days, and anyone already in Thailand keeps the stay stamped at entry. From 15 September the stamp is 30 days.
Can I still stay 60 days after the change?
Yes, with one step added: 30 days at entry plus the one-time 1,900-baht extension at immigration, or a 60-day Tourist Visa from the official e-Visa portal before flying.
Did South Korea or China lose visa-free entry?
No — both run on bilateral agreements the notice doesn't touch: 90 days for South Korea, 30 for China. Only the unilateral list changed.
Does any of this affect the Digital Arrival Card?
No. The TDAC continues exactly as before: free, online, within 3 days of arrival, for everyone.
Rules that move two weeks before your flight?
Thailand's entry rules have now changed twice since 2024, this time with fifteen days' warning. The planner we launch in late October carries this kind of change into the trip you've built. Join now and you're a founding member: the Companion ($24 per trip after launch) is free for you, for good.
Thirty days is plenty. Route them well.
Tell the planner your dates and it builds the trip around the seasons, the closures and the real transfer times — comfortably inside a single stamp.
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