Thailand's 60-day Visa-free entry remained in force at every border as of 23 June 2026, despite the cabinet's 19 May decision to cut most arrivals to 30 days . The reduction takes effect only once the Royal Gazette (Thailand's official legal register) publishes the three required Interior Ministry announcements, and only 15 days after that. The Tourism Authority of Thailand confirmed the announcements have not yet appeared, so the longer allowance still governs every arrival until they do.
18JUL
Thailand's 60-day visa window still open
1 min read
13:12UTC
Thailand's 60-day visa-free entry remained in force at every border on 23 June; the cabinet's 30-day cut still awaits Royal Gazette publication before its 15-day clock can start.
SocietyDeveloping
Key takeaway
Thailand's 60-day visa-free entry holds until the Royal Gazette publishes the cut, then waits a further 15 days.
Deep Analysis
In plain English
Thailand has let visitors from 93 countries enter without a visa for 60 days since July 2024. The Thai cabinet voted to cut this to 30 days in May 2026. But Thai law requires the change to be officially published in the Royal Gazette, Thailand's government register, before it becomes binding. Three separate announcements from the Interior Ministry need to appear in the Gazette, and none has been published yet. Once those announcements appear, there is an additional 15-day delay before the shorter allowance takes effect. So anyone travelling to Thailand now gets the full 60 days, and there will be visible public notice before the cut lands. For nomads who want to stay longer, Thailand's Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) remains unchanged. The DTV provides 180 days and requires proof of 500,000 baht in savings (roughly 13,000 euros). It sits outside the visa-exemption framework and is unaffected by the cabinet decision.
Root Causes
Thailand's cabinet voted to cut the 60-day window in response to Q1 2026 tourism-arrivals data showing a 3.4% year-on-year decline alongside documented grey-capital networks and nominee-owned businesses operating under the visa-exemption scheme. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's stated goal is to shift the visitor mix toward higher-spending tourists who use the priced Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) rather than the free exemption.
The gazette-dependent activation mechanism is standard in Thai administrative law under Section 5 of the Thai Constitution, which requires all binding regulations to be published in the Royal Gazette. The three-announcement requirement for Interior Ministry changes creates a structural delay between cabinet decision and legal effect.
What could happen next?
- Risk
The Royal Gazette publication may arrive without widely noticed advance warning; a traveller who books a 45-day trip to Thailand after the Gazette publishes but before the 15-day effective date could arrive in the 60-day window and depart after the 30-day regime is live.
- Consequence
Nomads who currently use Thailand as a 60-day visa-free base between other stays will face a 30-day limit once the cut takes effect. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) stated it will provide updates once publication is confirmed; monitoring TAT Newsroom for the Gazette publication date is the actionable step.
Sources:TAT Newsroom
First Reported In
Update #8 · Mexico City short-let cap freezes mid-cup
TAT Newsroom· 23 Jun 2026
Read original →Causes and effects
This Event
Thailand's 60-day visa window still open
An approved policy that has not been gazetted has no legal force, so the longer allowance still governs every arrival.
Different Perspectives
Thailand's cabinet
Thailand's cabinet restructured entry terms into three tiers on 16 July, attributing India's promotion from visa-on-arrival to full exemption to trade and investment factors rather than tourist numbers. It kept the 500,000-baht Destination Thailand Visa untouched, running two parallel tracks for volume tourism and priced long-stay residency.
STEK (Association of Cyprus Tourist Enterprises)
STEK asked Cyprus's government on 15 July for an annual short-let rental cap, inspections, fines and a compulsory overnight levy, framing the ask as following models other European countries have adopted. The package would also close the cost gap between licensed hotels and largely unregulated short-lets, protecting STEK's own members' market share.
Canarias Se Agota
Canarias Se Agota, the platform behind the April 2024 overtourism protests, argues the 8 July law's bed-per-resident thresholds measure accommodation capacity, not the housing prices, water use and congestion that put islanders on the streets. It wants resident-facing metrics written into the excelencia duties before Adeje and Arona are formally classified.
Remote workers and long-stay visitors
Thailand's 16 July restructuring leaves the 500,000-baht Destination Thailand Visa as the only untouched long-stay route once the 60-day exemption disappears. Long-stay visitors now sort by ability to pay rather than by passport, the same effect a bed-threshold law or a short-let cap has on where they can actually live.
Mobile nomad cohort
Long-stay remote workers face a diverging map this fortnight: Korea widens its door, Greece and Spain narrow theirs by locality and contract type, and Portugal's citizenship timeline still hinges on a regulation not yet published. None of the four moves resolves the temporada loophole nomads have used to sidestep rent caps.
Portugal government / AIMA
Assistant secretary of state Rui Armindo Freitas said on 1 July that AIMA has cut its inherited caseload of roughly one million to 30,000 complex cases, with no visa-type breakdown or new deadline given. The nationality regulation implementing Lei Organica 1/2026 remains unpublished ahead of its mid-August drafting deadline.