Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "fake news" circulating apparently regarding visa-free entry to Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that's khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Thai Ministry Warns of Fake News on Visa-free Entry Rules. Quoting directly: “17 January 2026, Thailand's Ministry of Digital Economy and Society has warned the public about a false claim circulating online that new rules limit visa-free entry for foreign nationals to twice a year." I urge those who are watching this video maybe go check out that article because they do go into some detail about how this was monitored and what exactly they're doing to counter sort of "fake news". It's rather interesting. That said, quoting further: "Wetang Puangsup, spokesman for the Ministry, said the warning followed monitoring and reports handled by the Anti-Fake News Centre of Thailand, in line with Government policy to prevent and address security and social threats. The Ministry has prioritized raising public awareness of technology-related crime, fake news, and disinformation." Quoting further: "The most prominent fake story claimed that a new regulation allows foreigners to enter Thailand visa-free only twice a year. The Ministry said it had coordinated with the Immigration Bureau which confirmed the claim was false. No announcement has been made to amend the law to impose such a limit, nor has any clear legal framework been set." 

Yeah, there's a lot of sort of misinformation and there is a lot of conflation regarding what exactly is going on with visa-free entry. If I'm not mistaken, there was a Decree pertaining to this issue in I believe 2018, although it might have been a little later; I think it was 2018 though and it pertained to passport holders from countries that are accorded visa-free status upon entry in Thailand. 

To understand what this means is there's a difference between a Visa, a visa-on-arrival, and exemption status. Exemption status is when someone arrives, they are granted, in fact going back a year and a half and more ago, you only got 30 days upon entering. Now it's 60 days and you'll just stamped in: it's visa exempt. There's no Visa but you're in lawful status with exemption from need for a visa; that's the underlying policy. If you go back to 2018, a Decree was issued that said anyone coming to Thailand that has a visa-free nationality, a visa-free passport, can avail themselves of that twice a year. What they were doing was setting a minimum. They were setting a floor if you will of yeah you can always get in two entries per year; they were not saying you can only get two entries per year. Now as discussed in many other videos, different folks and depending on the facts in their case, may be able to continue to avail themselves of visa free-entry to Thailand more than two times a year, but it depends on that particular person's fact pattern in that particular person's case. If you come into Thailand under current rules and you come in once, do a full 60 days, extend by another 30 then leave, come in again and do it all over again, yeah they are going to look askance at that once you hit over half a calendar year of being in Thailand without a visa basically, just in visa-free status. This is the equivalent mindset that US Customs and Border Protection has in the US regarding what we call “Carousel” Tourist Visas. Basically, somebody comes in on a Tourist Visa; they stay six months; they try to do a Border Run come back in for another 6 months and CBP says, "hey you're trying to live here on a Tourist Visa, that's not the purpose of that visa." Very similar to the overall paradigm regarding visa-free entry in Thailand. No, there is not a hard and fast maximum of two entries per year you can get visa free. That's the base line; that's the minimum you can utilize in coming to Thailand in one calendar year. 

That said, I know tons of folks and I've had a number especially of folks that do business in Singapore and Hong Kong and they may have family or they may like to come to Thailand periodically, they'll tell you, "hey, I come in and out of Thailand in a given year multiple times", but again in their fact pattern, they may spend a couple of days or a week and then they leave, and then they come back. Immigration sees that and they tend to be okay with it. If you're a genuine tourist, short-term user of visa exempt status, you're probably not going to have much of a problem. It's when you start utilizing those types of visas to try and live in Thailand, that’s where it is going to be an issue. But that said, I think it's important to clarify, no, there is no hard and fast cap of two entries per year in Visa free status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.