Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, well, we are discussing the 45-day Thai Visa Exemption stamp. I have been hesitant to make a video on this because I was hoping there would be a further announcement that perhaps we would see an extension on this. That does not look like it is the case. Quoting directly from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Visa exempt 45 days is back to 30 days at Thai airports and border crossings. I really urge folks who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail. 

The other thing is with Pattaya Mail, hey tip of the hat down there to you guys. You are always putting out really great content, really up-to-date stuff especially with respect to Thai Immigration. There is a donation function on Pattaya Mail's website. I donate there, not as often as I should quite honestly because I forget, but when I do remember I do donate. If you are watching this video, maybe go down, throw a few bucks, a few Baht if you will to Pattaya Mail if you are a regular reader because they really do put out a lot of great information. I read it all the time for various reasons. I go to Pattaya fairly frequently and I kind of like to know what is going on down there, but yeah great publication and they do take donations to kind of keep that going so I urge folks who are watching this video to maybe have a look at that, maybe donate if you can. 

Again, title is Visa Exempt 45 days is back to 30 days at Thai Airports and Border Crossings, pattayamail.com. Quoting directly: "Notwithstanding intense lobbying by the Tourist Authority of Thailand, citizens of the 60 or so visa-exempt countries will no longer receive 45 days on Entry. Tourists from Mainland Europe, the UK, the US, Australia, Saudi Arabia etc will receive from April 1 only 30 days if they choose to arrive without a prior Visa. However, they will be able to extend for a further 30 days just once at Thai Immigration. This is a return to the situation prior to October 1, 2022 when the 45 days rule was brought in as a temporary measure to boost tourism until March 31, 2023."

I would go a little bit further than this article and say I would even argue that's an extension of the underlying Emergency Decree that existed from March of 2020 until October of '22 when it was fully repealed but sort of during that emergency powers, I believe they used their power under those auspices to go ahead and take the 30-day stamp temporarily out to 45 days. There has been no announcement at this point from the Thai Immigration Authorities that 45 day exemption stamps will continue. I don't think there is any reason to believe that they will; it now looks like this is locked in and it was always a temporary measure. The thinking was "hey we want to go ahead and sort of "goose" the tourism sector going into the high season, especially coming off two and a half years of virtually no tourism activity here in Thailand”. Completely understood the thinking on policy maker's part insofar as they decided hey we are going to do this to try and increase the demand for tourism coming to Thailand, bring more tourists in and that has ended. High season so-called basically kind of ends somewhere around February in my mind and we kind of trail off into what you call low season. We are coming up on Thai New Year which oftentimes sees a bit of a spike in terms of tourism but that usually fades away about a week or so after Songkran has ended. Long story short, we are definitely going into low season and it looks like we have reverted back to the status quo ante regarding Immigration in the Kingdom of Thailand.