Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing yet again the ongoing discussion which appears to be happening, but now it has sort of percolated up throughout the internet, everybody is sort of talking about it, yeah, they are changing over from the 60-day Visa exemption down to the 30 days, and I've talked about this a lot. This looks like it's a foregone conclusion, but I think there is a real story here, or I think that it goes deeper. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that's khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Thailand to revert visa-free list to 57 countries, scrap 60-day scheme for 93 Nations. Quoting directly: "Thailand plans to roll back its visa-free free policy to a list of 57 eligible countries and territories, replacing the expanded 60-day exemption for 93 countries introduced in 2024, as part of efforts to tighten visitor screening and shift toward quality tourism. Tourism and Sports Minister Surasak Phancharoenworakul said the Ministry is proposing to cancel the 60-day visa-free scheme introduced during the previous Government in July 2024 and return to the earlier framework. Under the proposal, Thailand would reinstate the original list of 57 countries and territories eligible for visa exemption. Any future editions would be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on suitability and travel behaviour." Now I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in more detail. 

The point I'm trying to make in this video is more than the issue of going from 60 to 30 days in terms of duration of lawful status provided by the Visa-exemption stamp, it's going from 93 countries back down to 57 countries that can even utilize the visa exemption. That was a major shift going back into 2024, where they said not only was it going up to 60 days, they were going to expand the list of countries that could utilize the visa exemption stamp. I expect the fact, look I talked about this in another video, I think it's negligible the difference between 30 and 60 days and they said, "oh we're going after people who are working illegally and things", and it didn't make a lot of sense to me. Now that I see it in the context of nearly cutting in half the number of countries that can even avail themselves of Visa exemption, it starts to make a little bit more sense, because there are going to be folks from different jurisdictions that are going to have different priorities when coming to Thailand, and frankly, they are coming from jurisdictions that are of varying degrees of standard of living; they have varying degrees of standard of living, and some folks want to leave that country, come to Thailand live and work here, which would be fine if they came through the proper channels, but there seems to be a great deal of fraud. Folks that are coming in, they're supposedly coming as tourists, but they are actually staying here to live and work. Again, by cutting in half the list of countries, not just the amount of time in Thailand, I suspect that will have a bigger impact than darn near anything. 

Now it remains to be seen whether or not this is actually put into place as well as the ramifications associated therewith, so we'll certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.