Thailand 30 Day Visa Exemption: 60 Countries, in Force 15 September 2026

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อัปเดตล่าสุดเมื่อ 5 กันยายน 2569

The Thailand 30 day visa exemption is now law. On 31 August 2026, the Royal Gazette published the four Ministry of Interior announcements that end the 60 day visa exemption for 93 countries and replace it with a 30 day exemption for 60 countries and territories. Each instrument comes into force when fifteen days from publication have elapsed, so the new rules apply at every Thai checkpoint from 15 กันยายน พ.ศ. 2569. Travelers admitted before that date keep the 60 day stay stamped in their passport. This page reads the published instruments themselves, corrects the country counts that circulated all year, and explains what business visitors lose that no travel site has mentioned.

What the Royal Gazette published on 31 August 2026

Four Ministry of Interior announcements appeared together in the Royal Gazette (Volume 143, Special Part 207 Ngor), each dated 26 August 2026 and signed by Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. Read them yourself; no summary replaces the source:

1. The repeal instrument: revokes the 60 day visa exemption measure of 15 July 2024 that covered 93 countries and territories, and formally repeals the earlier announcements of 4 March 2019 and 21 June 2022 (No. 2).
2. The 30 day exemption list: 60 countries and territories, tourism only, 30 days per entry.
3. The Visa on Arrival instrument: cuts the Visa on Arrival list to Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia.
4. The 15 day exemption: a shorter visa free stay for Mauritius and Seychelles.

The announcements rest on the visa exemption power under the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979), the same framework that carried the 2024 scheme. Section 12(1) of the Act requires a visa for entry except as prescribed, and these instruments are the prescription.

When does the 30 day rule start? The 15 day clock explained

Each announcement closes with the same clause: “ประกาศนี้ให้ใช้บังคับเมื่อพ้นกำหนดสิบห้าวันนับแต่วันประกาศในราชกิจจานุเบกษาเป็นต้นไป”, in force when fifteen days from the date of Gazette publication have elapsed. That wording matters, and most reports have rounded it off. Publication was 31 August 2026, and the instruments name no date. The agencies that run the scheme answered the question themselves. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a summary of the 2026 visa exemption and Visa on Arrival schemes through its Department of Consular Affairs on 1 September 2026, and it states in Thai and in English on the same sheet that the measures are effective from 15 September 2026. The Tourism Authority of Thailand published the same date on the same day and added that the 60 day exemption ends on it. แผนวันที่ 15 กันยายน 2569. Arriving on the 15th expecting the old 60 day stay is the mistake that costs a traveller a month. The strict count runs one day later: under section 193/3 of the Civil and Commercial Code the day of publication is not counted, so the fifteen days run from 1 to 15 September and are complete at the end of the 15th, which read alone would put commencement on 16 September. Thai agencies do not count that way in practice, and the administering agency is the one whose date officers apply at the counter. The Ministry of Labour did the same thing two months earlier on an unrelated announcement, printing an effective date of 14 September 2026 on an instrument whose ninety day period, counted strictly, ends on that day and would commence on the 15th. This commencement mechanism explains why nothing changed for months after the Cabinet first approved the policy on 19 May 2026 and settled the details on 14 July 2026. Cabinet approval starts no clock in Thai law. Only Gazette publication does. We tracked that gap publicly for more than one hundred days in our legal news series while other sites reported the cut as if it were already in force.

The transition rule protects arrivals, and the logic is simple: the stamp fixes the right at entry. A traveler admitted on 14 September 2026 receives 60 days and keeps all of them. The repeal instrument contains no provision shortening a stay already granted; it has only two clauses, the repeal and the commencement. A traveler landing on 15 September 2026 receives 30 days. What counts is the date of admission, not the date of booking or departure.

The full 30 day visa exemption list: 60 countries and territories

Numbers between 54 and 93 circulated all year because briefings changed between May and July. The published list settles it at exactly 60. This is the final list from the Gazette text, in the official order:

1. Australia	21. Iceland	41. Oman
2. Austria	22. Indonesia	42. Philippines
3. Bahrain	23. India	43. Poland
4. Belgium	24. Ireland	44. Portugal
5. Bulgaria	25. Israel	45. Qatar
6. Bhutan	26. Italy	46. Romania
7. Brunei Darussalam	27. Japan	47. Saudi Arabia
8. Canada	28. Jordan	48. Singapore
9. Croatia	29. Kuwait	49. Slovakia
10. Cyprus	30. Kyrgyzstan	50. Slovenia
11. Czech Republic	31. Latvia	51. South Africa
12. Denmark	32. Liechtenstein	52. Spain
13. Estonia	33. Lithuania	53. Sweden
14. Fiji	34. Luxembourg	54. Switzerland
15. Finland	35. Malta	55. Taiwan
16. France	36. Malaysia	56. Türkiye
17. Georgia	37. Maldives	57. Ukraine
18. Germany	38. Netherlands	58. United Arab Emirates
19. Greece	39. New Zealand	59. United Kingdom
20. Hungary	40. Norway	60. United States

The list covers all 27 EU member states plus the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta and the Maldives joined compared with earlier drafts.

India moved up, not down

India’s position changed three times during the drafting cycle and the final answer surprised the aggregators. Early briefings proposed moving Indian passport holders to Visa on Arrival only. The published instruments do the opposite: India sits on the 30 day exemption list, off the Visa on Arrival track entirely. An Indian tourist from 15 September 2026 enters visa free for 30 days, extendable once at Immigration. Indian nationals planning longer stays or non tourism trips should read our guide to the ข้อกำหนดวีซ่าประเทศไทยสำหรับชาวอินเดีย.

Who lost visa free access, and what to do instead

Roughly a third of the old 93 country list did not survive, including China, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Mexico and the South American countries added in 2024. Being dropped does not automatically mean a visa is required, because bilateral agreements are untouched by the reform. South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru keep 90 days by treaty. China and Russia keep 30 days under their agreements, as do Hong Kong, Macau, Laos, Vietnam and Mongolia under theirs, and Cambodia and Myanmar keep 14 days (Myanmar by air only). The architecture is one country, one entitlement: check the exemption list first, then the treaty, then apply for a visa.

Nationals of a dropped country with no bilateral agreement must apply through the Thai e-Visa system, normally for the 60 day tourist visa (TR). Our ค้นหาวีซ่าไทย answers the question for your nationality on the day you travel, and our Thailand tourist visa guide walks through the TR application.

Visa on Arrival is now three countries only

The Visa on Arrival list shrinks from a long roster to exactly three nationalities: Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia. Everyone else who used the VoA counter, including the 17 nationalities added in 2024, now needs either a bilateral entitlement or an e-Visa before boarding.

The 15 day exemption: Mauritius and Seychelles

A separate announcement gives Mauritius and Seychelles a 15 day visa free stay, a tier of their own below the 60 country list. Both countries sat on the general exemption list before the reform.

Land borders: the twice per calendar year cap returns

Visa exempt entries through land border checkpoints are capped at two per calendar year, and the count resets on 1 January. Nationals of Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Singapore are exempt from the cap, and the Interior Minister may designate more countries later. Arrivals at international airports are not capped by this rule. The cap restores the pre 2024 position and ends the border run as a residence strategy for everyone else; we cover the practical effect in our article on border run limits in Thailand. Remember that overstay carries fines, detention and blacklisting, explained in our guide to visa overstay in Thailand.

Tourism only: why business visitors can no longer use the exemption

Here is the change the travel sites skipped. The 2024 scheme expressly covered tourism plus certain urgent business and short term work activities. The new 30 day exemption states its purpose as tourism. A consultant flying in for client meetings, a director attending a board session, a buyer inspecting a factory: each of them relied on the old wording, and that wording is gone.

The practical consequence from 15 September 2026: a business visitor from an exempt country still enters without a visa, but the entry is for tourism, and conducting business activities on it sits outside the stated purpose of the stay. The clean routes are the วีซ่าธุรกิจประเภทที่ไม่ใช่ B for work and extended business activity, or a tourist visa entry for a genuine holiday with an incidental meeting kept to what immigration practice tolerates. Companies bringing in staff or frequent visitors should treat 15 September as a compliance date, not a travel news item. Our office advises on the right category before the trip, which costs less than arguing at the airport.

How to stay longer than 30 days

The one time extension survives the reform. A visa exempt entry can be extended once, for up to 30 additional days, at a local immigration office for 1,900 THB. The extension rests on the standing extension framework under section 35 of the Immigration Act, and it remains discretionary. Do the arithmetic: 30 days at entry plus 30 days extended equals roughly the same 60 days the old scheme gave, at the cost of 1,900 THB and a morning at Immigration. A determined tourist loses convenience, not time in the country.

For anything longer, the established routes are unchanged: the 60 day tourist visa (TR) extendable by 30 days, the วีซ่า DTV for remote workers and soft power activities, non immigrant visas followed by extensions based on retirement or marriage, and the วีซ่า LTR for long term residents. Our ค้นหาวีซ่าไทย matches your situation to the right route, and our page on the 2026 visa changes tracks how the DTV fits the new landscape.

History: the 60 day scheme (15 July 2024 to 14 September 2026)

For the record, this is the scheme the 30 day rule replaces. From 15 July 2024, Thailand allowed citizens of 93 countries and territories to enter visa free for 60 days, a jump from the previous 30 days for 57 nationalities, designed to push tourism recovery. An Electronic Travel Authorization was announced alongside it for December 2024, postponed repeatedly, and never launched. The arrival formality actually in use is the บัตรเข้าประเทศแบบดิจิทัลของประเทศไทย (TDAC), mandatory since 1 May 2025. That chapter closes on 14 September 2026. Our immigration updates page logs each change as it lands, and the visa reform overview places this reform in the longer arc.

คำถามที่พบบ่อย

บทสรุป

The 30 day visa exemption is published law with a fixed start date. Tourists from the 60 listed countries lose little beyond convenience: half the stay at entry, recoverable by one extension. The real changes hide in the details the aggregators skipped: the tourism only purpose that removes business visitors from the exemption, the land border cap that ends serial border runs, and a Visa on Arrival list reduced to three flags. If your travel, your stay or your business in Thailand touches any of those edges, จองคิวปรึกษา and get the category right before 15 September.