Starting September 15, 2026, Thailand is replacing its 60-day visa exemption with a shorter, tiered system. Most passport holders who currently enter visa-free will drop to 30 days, while a couple of nationalities move to a 15-day allowance. The change covers roughly 60 countries and territories, and it applies to entries on or after the cutoff date — not retroactively.
Some nationalities lose visa-free entry altogether under the new framework and will need to arrange a visa in advance instead of showing up and getting a stamp on arrival. That said, a handful of countries — including China, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, and a few others — keep visa-free access through separate bilateral agreements that sit outside this reform, so the picture isn't uniform across the board.
If you're already planning a trip around the transition date, the key detail is timing: anyone who enters under the old rules before September 15 keeps the full 60 days they were granted, even if part of that stay falls after the cutoff. The shorter limit only applies to people entering Thailand on or after the 15th. If your itinerary straddles that date, when you land — not when you leave — is what determines your allowance.
This also changes the math for the classic 'visa run' strategy of stacking back-to-back visa-exempt entries to stay long-term without a formal visa. With the exemption shrinking, that approach gets a lot less practical. Anyone thinking in terms of months rather than weeks should be looking at an actual visa category — a DTV, retirement visa, or education visa — instead of planning around border runs.
The specific list of affected nationalities and any last-minute adjustments are the kind of detail that can shift right up to the effective date, so this is worth double-checking against an official source before you book flights around it, not after.