Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the fact that yes, the Cabinet has officially altered the Visa-free or Visa Exemption status or I should say system; I'll get into the details of that here in a moment. Understand though, this has to be published in the Royal Gazette, and then upon publication, this will come into effect within 15 days of that. What does that mean as a practical matter? Presume that this will be coming into effect this summer, so sometime over the course of - we are standing here in mid-July, and arguably the end of August - I think we will see this in effect, the exact timing of which remains a little bit to be seen as it's going through the end phases of legislative due process we see this promulgated in the Royal Gazette, and then upon its publication, we will have to wait the 15 days and then it will come into effect. So I expect it will happen sometime in the next six weeks as a practical matter for people flying in.

And I'll get into in other videos made contemporaneously with this one the consequences of that, but I think it's important to simply point out what's going on with this video ALERT. And it is an ALERT; this is a major change to the Thai Immigration System. We have been under this current setup since around about 2023. I made videos at the time talking about that. That government made a lot of changes to Immigration. We are seeing a lot of this being rolled back, so let's just jump in here. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Visa-free period halved, many countries dropped. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Cabinet on Tuesday halved the Tourist Visa Free period, dropping many countries from the scheme and approved new privileges for other nationalities - including Indian tourists, whose numbers have plunged. Deputy Government Spokeswoman Ploytalay Laksameesaengchan said Ministers resolved to revoke the 60-day visa-free period for all 93 countries. Cabinet Ministers agreed it was being abused in ways that violated the law and jeopardized national security. Under the new arrangement, the Visa-free period will apply to visitors from 59 countries and will last 30 days. The change will increase visa privileges for six countries -- Bulgaria, Croatia, Cypress, Malta and the Maldives -- and gives equal visa privileges to all 27 member countries of the EU. Ms. Ploytalay said the 30-day Visa free period will replace the Visa-on-arrival policy for Indian visitors." 

So in the past, they could not just get on a plane and be presume Visa exempt travelling in a Thailand. They actually had to go through a kiosk at the airport, be issued with a visa after arriving, and then admitted into the country. Quoting further: "Indian tourists stay in Thailand, on average for only 7.2 days per visit. Under Tuesday's resolution, a 15-day Visa-free stay will be available to visitors from the Seychelles and Mauritius. Visa-on-arrival will extend to nationals of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia." 

So that's sort of the current state of play. Essentially with a few tweaks, we are back to what the system was prior to roughly 2023, basically when the last government changed this. So this is what we are going to be dealing with moving forward. There are some nuances associated with this. I am going to be making other videos and putting them out in coming days to go over some of the detailed nuance of how this will play out. That being said, we will certainly be keeping folks updated on all matters pertaining to Thai Immigration as the situation evolves.