The 15 September 2026 visa change does not put every visa-exempt nationality on 30 days. The Ministry of Interior notifications published in the Royal Gazette on 31 August 2026 rebuild the exemption around a 30-day group, a 15-day group and Visa on Arrival — but they leave separate bilateral and related entry arrangements standing, and those run at 90, 30 or 14 days depending on the agreement. For an agency selling Latin America or Korea into Thailand, that difference is the whole itinerary. This guide from a Thailand DMC for travel agents sets out what is confirmed, what is not, and how to quote around the gap.
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What the notifications actually say about bilateral arrangements
The headline change is easy to summarise and easy to over-summarise. From 15 September 2026 the 60-day visa exemption is gone. In its place: a 30-day exemption for holders of passports and travel documents from 60 countries and territories, for tourism; a 15-day exemption for Seychelles and Mauritius; and Visa on Arrival for Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia.
Then comes the sentence most coverage compressed out of existence. The Tourism Authority of Thailand's own announcement states that separate bilateral and related entry arrangements continue to apply where relevant, providing visa exemption periods of 90, 30 or 14 days depending on the applicable agreement or arrangement.
Read plainly, that means the new notifications are not a single ceiling applied to everyone. They are one scheme sitting alongside a set of country-to-country agreements that were never part of the scheme being replaced. A traveller can hold an entitlement that is longer than 30 days on 15 September, and nothing in the change removes it.
Why 90 days changes an itinerary and 30 does not
Thirty days is a holiday. Ninety days is a different product. The clients who use the longer entitlement are not doing the same trip more slowly — they are doing a trip that cannot be built inside a month:
- Long-haul, multi-country South America and Korea departures where Thailand is the anchor rather than a stop, and the client wants Bangkok, the north and an island stretch without compressing any of them.
- Repeat and seasonal visitors who come for a full green season or a full high season, and whose accommodation and domestic transport you would block very differently across three months than across four weeks.
- Extended-family and multi-generational groups travelling once and travelling long, where the itinerary is built around one arrival and one departure rather than a tight return.
If your file assumed 30 days for one of these because the headline said 30, the client either loses a third of the trip or ends up in an extension queue that did not need to exist. Both are avoidable, and both land on the agency rather than on the traveller.
Which nationalities — what is confirmed and what is not
This is where the honest answer matters more than the convenient one. The Tourism Authority of Thailand's September announcement confirms that bilateral arrangements survive and names the three durations. It does not publish the list of which country sits at which duration.
The nationalities long associated with a 90-day bilateral entitlement — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and South Korea — come from Thailand's standing summary of visa exemption and Visa on Arrival entitlements, which predates the new notifications. We have not seen that list restated inside the 31 August notifications, and we are not going to present it as though we had.
So treat it as two separate facts with two separate confidence levels:
- Confirmed: bilateral and related arrangements continue after 15 September 2026, at 90, 30 or 14 days.
- Not confirmed in the new notifications: which specific nationalities hold which duration.
The practical consequence is a single line in your process: for any client who might hold a bilateral entitlement, the duration is confirmed with the Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate for that nationality before it goes in writing — not inferred from a news summary, and not inferred from this post.
The land-border cap sits on top of all of it
A second condition rides alongside the durations, and it is easy to miss because it applies to a mode of entry rather than to a nationality. Travellers entering through land-border immigration checkpoints under the 30-day exemption may generally do so no more than twice per calendar year. The same limit applies to the 15-day exemption.
The stated exceptions are nationals of Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Singapore, plus any other nationalities the Minister designates. That carve-out tells you what the cap is aimed at, and it is not your long-haul client — but a border run built into a Southeast Asia circuit can still collide with it.
Where a client is combining Thailand with Laos, Cambodia or Malaysia by land, count the Thai entries in the calendar year before you fix the routing. Our Thailand DMC transport team can rebuild a crossing as an air sector where the count is tight, which is a cheaper fix at quoting stage than at the border.
How to quote it without getting caught out
Four habits cover almost every case:
- Ask for the passport nationality before you quote the duration, not after. The exemption group, the bilateral group and Visa on Arrival are three different answers to the same question.
- Write the entitlement into the file with its source and its date. "30 days, exemption scheme, per 31 August 2026 notifications" is auditable. "30 days" is not.
- Put the reconfirmation before the deposit, not before departure. A duration problem found at booking is a routing change; found at check-in it is a cancellation.
- Do not let a longer entitlement drive an itinerary you have not costed. Ninety days of entitlement is not ninety days of ground arrangements, and the client should hear the difference from you first.
Agencies working with a Thailand DMC on the ground get the second half of this for free: the entitlement is one question, and what the client can actually do with the time is the question we answer alongside it. See our full Thailand DMC services for travel agents for how that is structured.
What to reconfirm, and with whom
Reconfirm the duration with the Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate accredited to the client's nationality. That is the authority that can state what agreement applies to that passport, and it is the only source that can resolve the gap this post is about. Airline desks and third-party visa sites can be right, but they are summarising the same public material we are.
Reconfirm entry conditions again if the trip moves across the 15 September boundary — a departure booked in August under the old scheme and travelling in October sits under the new one. And keep the land-border count separate from the duration question; they fail independently.
Once the entitlement is settled, the itinerary is the easy part. Talk to us about pacing a long stay across Thailand's regions, about licensed guides for the culture-led stretches, and about how we work with agents in your source market. Reach the trade desk with dates, pax and nationalities and a client-ready quote comes back fast.
Frequently asked questions
Does the 15 September change cancel bilateral visa agreements?
No. The Tourism Authority of Thailand's announcement states that separate bilateral and related entry arrangements continue to apply where relevant, at 90, 30 or 14 days depending on the agreement. The new notifications replace the 60-day exemption scheme; they do not replace country-to-country agreements.
Which countries get 90 days after 15 September?
We are not able to confirm the list from the new notifications, and we will not publish one as though we could. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and South Korea are long associated with a 90-day bilateral entitlement in Thailand's standing summary of entitlements, but that summary predates the 31 August 2026 notifications. Confirm the duration for a specific nationality with the Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate before it goes in writing.
What exactly changes on 15 September 2026?
The 60-day visa exemption ends. In its place there is a 30-day exemption for 60 countries and territories for tourism, a 15-day exemption for Seychelles and Mauritius, and Visa on Arrival for Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia. The Ministry of Interior notifications were published in the Royal Gazette on 31 August 2026.
How does the land-border limit interact with all this?
It is a separate condition on a mode of entry. Travellers entering by land under the 30-day or 15-day exemption may generally do so no more than twice in a calendar year, with nationals of Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Singapore excepted, plus others the Minister designates. It applies regardless of how long the entitlement itself runs.
What should we tell a client who already booked a long stay?
Confirm the nationality's entitlement now rather than at departure. If the client sits in the exemption group and the trip was built on 60 days, the itinerary needs rebuilding or an appropriate visa needs applying for. If the client may hold a bilateral entitlement, get it confirmed by the embassy and record the confirmation in the file — that record is what protects the agency if conditions are questioned at the counter.
