Thailand cuts visa-free stays to 30 days for 59 countries

From 60 days to 30, pending the Gazette clock

Thailand's Cabinet has approved a tiered visa framework that will cut the current 60-day visa-free stay to 30 days, 15 days or Visa on Arrival for 65 countries and territories, the Tourism Authority of Thailand said. The new rules aren't yet in force. They take effect 15 days after five Ministry of Interior announcements are published in the Royal Gazette and no publication date has been set.

Until that clock starts and runs out, the existing 60-day visa exemption keeps applying to the 93 nationalities in the current "Form 60" group. Anyone entering under the old regime before the cutoff gets their full 60 days on that entry.

Who lands in which bucket

The revised structure assigns each nationality to a single entry category under a "one country, one category" principle:

• 30-day visa exemption: 59 countries and territories, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, UAE, EU member states and newly added India, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta and the Maldives.
• 15-day visa exemption: Mauritius and Seychelles.
• Visa on Arrival: Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia, typically capped at 15 days.

The Cabinet cited misuse of long tourist stays for unauthorized work as the reason for pulling back from 60 days, per Ministry of Foreign Affairs summaries. Extensions at local Immigration offices are expected to remain available for many nationalities, but they'll now extend from a 30-day base rather than 60.

Who has to change plans

The people caught hardest are digital nomads and quasi-residents who've been chaining 60-day visa-exempt entries with 30-day extensions to run 90-day stints on tourist status. That math collapses once the Gazette publishes: a 30-day entry plus a 30-day extension caps the same route at 60 days and border officers are expected to scrutinize repeat tourist entries more closely given the stated enforcement rationale.

Formal long-stay categories aren't touched by this decision. Nomads relying on tourist exemptions should price in either more frequent visa runs or a switch to the DTV or another long-stay track before the new limits activate. Anyone with a trip already booked should check the Royal Gazette status close to departure, since the 15-day countdown can start at any point. Full context on entry routes sits in the Thailand guide.

Holders of Non-Immigrant, work, retirement and long-term resident visas are unaffected by the tiered framework itself.