Thailand's cabinet on 16 July 2026 restructured its visa-exemption scheme into three tiers, adding India, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta and the Maldives to the 30-day visa-free list and bringing all 27 EU member states onto the same entitlement1. The tiers run a 30-day exemption for 59 countries and territories, a new 15-day tier for Mauritius and Seychelles, and a visa-on-arrival (VoA) tier, where the traveller obtains the visa at the border rather than in advance, for Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia, 65 in total.
The move extends a rollback that began on 19 May, when the cabinet scrapped the 60-day visa-free window 93 countries had held since 2024. Those implementing announcements were still awaiting publication in the Royal Gazette, Thailand's official legal register, as of 23 June. The cabinet attributed India's promotion from VoA to full exemption to 'economic factors, trade, investment, and international relations', not tourist numbers2.
Every country that held 60-day access lost it in the same May cut, leaving the priced Destination Thailand Visa, at 500,000 baht, as the only untouched long-stay route. For a remote worker used to settling in for two months visa-free, the new terms mean a border run or that priced visa, so who stays longest is sorted by willingness to pay rather than by passport. The five Interior Ministry announcements carrying the tiers still await Gazette publication and take effect 15 days after it lands, with no date set3.
