Thailand’s visa-free stay dropped from 60 days to 30 on 15 September 2026. Most coverage stopped there, and that is half of the change.
The other half is the list. The scheme that ended covered 93 countries and territories. The one that replaced it covers 60. For 34 passports, whether you are still on the list changed, and that matters more than the day count.
We first wrote this page before the date and re-checked it on 7 October 2026 against the official sources, including the Royal Gazette notices. The Corrections section at the end lists what that check changed.
What the official sources say
The Royal Thai Embassy in Washington DC last updated its page on 17 September 2026. It calls the new scheme “New Tourist Visa Exemption Scheme (30 Days)”, with “Effective Date 15 September 2026”, applying to “the following 60 countries and territories”, for “up to 30 days period of stay”. A further period “not exceeding 30 days” is available, with extension “solely at the discretion of the immigration officer.”
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), a government body, published its account on 1 September and names the countries in text. (TAT Newsroom, 1 September 2026) It attributes the change to Ministry of Interior announcements in the Royal Gazette of 31 August 2026, and gives three tiers where the embassy page describes one:
- 60 countries and territories get visa exemption for 30 days.
- Seychelles and Mauritius get 15 days.
- Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia get Visa on Arrival, which is not an exemption. You apply and pay on landing. The embassy’s sheet, described below, gives the fee as 2,000 baht.
The Royal Gazette is the primary text. Four Ministry of Interior notices sit in Volume 143, Special Issue 207 Ngor, dated 31 August 2026, pages 28 to 34: the repeal of the 60-day notice, the 30-day exemption notice, the Visa on Arrival list and the 15-day exemption notice. They are in Thai, and every description of them on this page is our own reading. Each takes effect fifteen days after publication, which is 15 September. The 30-day notice names the same 60 nationalities as TAT’s text, the 15-day notice names Seychelles and Mauritius, and the Visa on Arrival notice names Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia.
The embassy, TAT and the Gazette agree on the date, the count and the stay length. None publishes the comparison below.
Which passports came off the list
The scheme that ended on 15 September had been in place since July 2024. The 2024 notice that the repeal cancels is dated 15 July 2024, and its title covers entry for tourism, work or short-term business contact, with a stay of up to sixty days. We took the 93 from the embassy’s revised sheet of 16 July 2024 when we checked on 10 September. That sheet is no longer linked from the embassy page, so we have not re-read it.
Set the 93 against TAT’s list of 60, which matches the Gazette’s, and the difference is one addition and 34 removals. Kyrgyzstan is added.
These 34 came off: Albania, Andorra, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Korea (ROK), Kosovo, Laos, Macao, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, San Marino, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Ninety-three, less 34, plus Kyrgyzstan, is 60. That comparison is ours, because no source publishes a list of what was removed. We show the arithmetic so you can check it.
Which of the 34 kept access through a bilateral agreement
Coming off the list does not always mean needing a visa. TAT states: “Separate bilateral and related entry arrangements will continue to apply where relevant, providing visa exemption periods of 90, 30 or 14 days, depending on the applicable agreement or arrangement.” On 10 September, neither the embassy page nor TAT said which passports those were.
The embassy page now does. It carries an image headed “For Foreign Visitors Travelling to Thailand”, marked “Adapted from information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand” and “Information as of 31 August 2026”. A Government Public Relations Department post of 2 September also credits the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with announcing the revision and points readers to an infographic. We did not retrieve that image, so we have not compared the two. The sheet’s bilateral section lists:
- 14 days: Cambodia, and Myanmar (international airports only).
- 30 days: China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Laos, Macao, Mongolia, Russia, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
- 90 days: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Korea (ROK) and Peru.
Sorting our 34 against that sheet gives three groups. The sorting is ours, because the sheet never uses the word removed.
- 12 have bilateral terms on the sheet. China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Laos, Macao, Mongolia, Russia and Vietnam at 30 days. Brazil, Korea and Peru at 90 days. Cambodia at 14 days.
- 1 has the 15-day exemption. Mauritius, which held 60 days and now holds 15.
- 21 appear nowhere on the sheet. Albania, Andorra, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Kosovo, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Panama, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Uzbekistan.
The sheet is a summary and we have not seen a longer official list, so absence from it does not prove that no arrangement exists. Its Visa on Arrival section names only three countries, so none of the 21 is listed there either. We would read that as a prompt to get a visa before you go. That reading is ours, so confirm it with a Royal Thai Embassy before you book.
The sheet also does not say whether the bilateral terms carry the tourism-only wording or the twice-a-year land limit described below. The Gazette notices attach those to the 30-day exemption, and nothing we read extends them to the bilateral arrangements either way.
Of the 34, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka are the two Asian passports that the sheet does not mention.
The embassy page’s list link
On 10 September the page’s single link for the list, labelled “New Visa Exemption 30 Days (PDF)”, opened the scanned July 2024 sheet for the 60-day scheme. The scheme’s terms were current and its membership list was not.
On 7 October the label is still there, but nothing in the page source links from it. The page now carries the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sheet as a picture, which you cannot search. It is easier to check a nationality against TAT’s text list or the Gazette. The embassy page remains the authority on the scheme’s terms.
What else the embassy page requires
Four conditions sit alongside the scheme.
Cash. Entrants under the exemption “must possess adequate cash of or equivalent to 20,000 Baht per person or 40,000 Baht per family.” At 33.6 baht to the US dollar, the European Central Bank reference rate for 6 October 2026 as published by Frankfurter, that is about 600 US dollars a head. It is a condition of entry.
TAT’s proof-of-funds reminder of 6 July 2026 says it “does not introduce a new measure”. It lists “Transit Visa and certain visa-exempt cases under immigration regulations: 10,000 Baht per person, or 20,000 Baht per family.” and “Tourist Visa: 20,000 Baht per person, or 40,000 Baht per family.”, and says “published requirements may vary by entry category.” That reminder predates the 30-day scheme and does not mention it, so it does not contradict the embassy page, but two official figures are now in circulation. We would carry the embassy’s higher one, since it is written for this scheme.
Passports only. The exemption “applies only to foreigners holding passports issued by the countries listed above. Other travel documents issued to foreigners by these countries are not acceptable.”
Tourism only. The embassy page frames the exemption as being for tourism, and the Royal Thai Embassy in London, on a page updated 8 September, says it is “for tourism purposes only”. The 60-day notice that was repealed also covered work and short-term business contact, so a meeting or a few days of remote work no longer has that cover on a visa-exempt entry. That last point is our reading of the Thai text, not a statement from any of the sources.
Temporary passports are accepted, with a validity floor. Emergency and provisional passports are accepted by the Immigration Bureau under the 30-day scheme, but the document “must be valid for at least six months upon returning to the country of residence.”
Land borders are capped twice a year
Under the 30-day exemption, TAT states travellers “may generally enter Thailand under this exemption no more than twice per calendar year” through land checkpoints. The Gazette text says the same: the cap applies to entry through an immigration checkpoint or border checkpoint adjoining a land border. Nationals of Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Singapore are excepted, as are others the Minister may designate. The same twice-yearly land limit applies to the 15-day tier.
The London embassy’s page puts it more loosely. It says eligible passport holders may enter under the scheme “only twice within a calendar year”, with no mention of land borders, and that anyone planning more entries is “strongly advised to apply for an appropriate type of visa.” We read that as shorthand, because the Gazette limits the cap to land entries. If you plan to fly in and out more than twice a year, ask first. If you cross to Laos, Cambodia or Malaysia and return overland, the cap bites on the third return.
Both schemes allow a further period not exceeding 30 days at the officer’s discretion. Under the old rule an extension took a stay from 60 to 90. Under the new one it takes 30 to 60. The discretionary part has gone from a third of the stay to a half.
Still unconfirmed: whether entries before 15 September kept 60 days
Widely circulated reports say that entries made on or before 14 September keep the 60-day allowance for that entry, even if the stay runs past the cutoff. A 60-day stay that began on 14 September would run into November, so this matters to anyone in Thailand now on an older stamp.
No official source we could read confirms it. The embassy page does not mention it. TAT’s account does not either: it says only that from 15 September, travellers previously covered by the 60-day exemption “will instead be subject to the applicable 30-day visa exemption, 15-day visa exemption, Visa on Arrival, or other relevant entry arrangements.” The London embassy pages do not mention it.
On 7 October we read all four Gazette notices, including the one that repeals the 60-day scheme. None contains a transitional clause for travellers already admitted. The repeal notice has two articles: it cancels the 2024 notice and takes effect after fifteen days. That is a finding about the text, not a ruling on what happens to people with an older stamp. If the answer is written down, it sits in Immigration Bureau practice, and we could not find that published. Some news and law-firm write-ups say stays granted before 15 September are honoured, and one attributes it to the Cabinet’s approval of the reform. We could not trace it to an official text, so we do not count it.
We also tried the Thai Immigration Bureau and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular site. The Immigration Bureau site refused an ordinary request, and a scraping service that loaded its English home page found no notice about the change. The consular site returned “Site not available”.
What we would do
Check your nationality against TAT’s list first, or the Gazette if you read Thai. If your passport is one of the 34, twelve have a bilateral term on the embassy’s sheet. For the 21 the sheet does not mention, ask a Royal Thai Embassy before you book.
If you are in Thailand now on a stamp issued before 15 September, the permitted-until date in your passport is the date you have been given. We could not confirm that it will be honoured as stamped, so if your stay runs well past 14 October, ask the Immigration Bureau before you rely on it. TAT lists its call centre as “Call Centre: 1178, with English-language service available”.
If you are arriving now, plan on 30 days and carry the 20,000 baht. If you want to spend every winter in Thailand, that is a residence question, which retirement visas that open at 50 answer.
Corrections
2 September 2026. The first version said the embassy page still described the old 60-day rule. That was wrong: the page had been updated on 1 September, before we published, and we had fetched an older copy without re-checking it. We rewrote the article against what the page says.
Later the same day. We added TAT as a second government source. It states outright three details we had carried as unconfirmed reports (the 15-day tier, the Visa on Arrival change and the land-border cap), and it names the nationalities. The transition rule was not upgraded, because TAT does not mention it.
10 September 2026. We re-verified both sources and made four corrections.
- The framing was incomplete. We had treated the change as a cut in stay length that was “wrong for five nationalities”. The list also shrinks from 93 to 60, so 34 passports come off. That section is new.
- We had said “Seychelles and Mauritius drop to 15 days.” Only Mauritius drops. Seychelles was not on the list of 93, so its 15 days is a grant. Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia did not “move to” Visa on Arrival either, since none held the exemption.
- We had said the list of 60 was in the embassy’s linked PDF. That link still served the July 2024 document for the old scheme, so the article now points at TAT’s text list.
- We had declined to reproduce any country list, because lists copied by hand acquire transcription errors. That holds for the list of 60, which a reader can open at the source. It does not hold for the list of 34, which no source publishes, so we now publish it with the arithmetic shown.
7 October 2026. We rewrote the article for after the change took effect. We re-read the embassy page (now updated 17 September), TAT’s account, the four Gazette notices and TAT’s 6 July proof-of-funds reminder, and checked two Royal Thai Embassy London pages. Five things changed.
- The embassy page’s list link no longer serves the 2024 document. The page carries a Ministry of Foreign Affairs sheet as an image, which settles the bilateral question we said neither source answered on 10 September. It gives terms to 12 of the 34 removed passports, puts Mauritius on 15 days and lists nothing for the other 21. The earlier line that neither source said which passports keep other arrangements is withdrawn for those 13.
- We read the Gazette notices directly for the first time. They confirm the date, the three lists and the land-border cap, and none contains a transitional clause. The transition question stays unconfirmed.
- We added the tourism-only condition, the London embassy’s looser wording of the twice-a-year limit and TAT’s July figures for visa-exempt entry, which differ from the embassy’s 20,000 baht.
- The dollar figure for 20,000 baht said roughly 550. At the ECB reference rate for 6 October it is about 600.
- The 93 and the derived 34 are carried from our 10 September check, because the 2024 sheet is no longer linked.