Twenty-One Nationalities Lose Thailand on Tuesday

On Tuesday 15 September, Thailand’s visa-exemption scheme shrinks in two directions at once. The permitted visa-free stay drops from 60 days to 30, a change that has been trailed for months and will be felt by almost everyone who visits. Less widely reported is the second cut: the list of eligible nationalities falls from 93 to 60. Twenty-one nationalities that can currently walk up to a Thai immigration desk with nothing but a passport will need a visa arranged before they travel.

The countries losing visa-free access are Albania, Andorra, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, the 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 alternative is Thailand’s e-Visa system, which has been available worldwide since the start of 2025 and is applied for online before departure. It works, but it is a step that has to be completed in advance, and it turns a spontaneous booking into a planned one.

The 60 nationalities that remain on the list include the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and most of the European Union, so the majority of long-haul visitors keep visa-free entry – just for half as long as before. A separate set of bilateral agreements sits alongside the exemption scheme and keeps visa-free travel open for nationals of China, Hong Kong, Macao, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Russia and Vietnam, which is why some headline lists of affected countries disagree with each other.

There is a grandfathering detail worth knowing. Travellers who enter Thailand on or before 14 September are admitted under the existing rules, which means the current 60-day exemption applies to that stay rather than the new 30-day limit. Anyone arriving from the 15th onward is under the new regime from the moment they are stamped in. For affected nationalities already holding flights, the practical question is whether the e-Visa can be obtained in time; for everyone else, it is whether a trip built around a two-month stay still works at thirty days.

Sources: LoyaltyLobby, Siam Legal