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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what has been kind of out there been discussed a lot here recently the so called Thailand Pass.

Just for some background, let's go to Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand Pass Set to Replace CoE (CoE being Certificate of Entry). Quoting directly: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Digital Government Development Agency are developing a new system to replace the Certificate of Entry (COE) for Thais and foreigners who wish to enter the country through an airport." Let's be clear on that - through an Airport. We will get back to that in a minute. Quoting further: "Tanee Sangrat Spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Thursday, a new web-based application called the Thailand Pass System, where people can gather information and upload documents is being developed for the Kingdom's November 1 re-opening." We will get back to that in a minute but it kind of sounds familiar. Quoting further: "Mr. Tanee said the Thailand Pass will replace the CoE system and facilitate the filing of an Immigration form known as the TM6". Get back to that in a minute. Quoting further: "and a Health Declaration Form known as T8." 

Well this all sounds pretty familiar because it sounds like the Certificate of Entry okay. "The Thailand Pass System, people can gather information and upload documents", well it has basically been the CoE interface at this point. Then also "facilitate filing with Immigration known as a TM6." Well that is given out at entry, that is issued by Immigration when you arrive, so you could say that anything that leads up to that moment, facilities the issuance of a TM6. Then you have got the T8 which we have discussed. It has been a while now but yeah it is a Health Declaration Form. We discussed it some time ago. All being part and parcel with the entry procedures post Emergency Decree promulgation back in March of 2020. I am not laughing because I am trying to be funny or anything. It is just throughout the last 18 months it seems like there has been a lot of just renaming things or coming up with new slogans, sort of repackage. Now let's be clear, it does appear there are going to be some changes to this. Certain things are going to be streamlined but it does appear to be something of a packaging of an already existing process. Hopefully, I am hoping for the best. Hopefully this results in more streamlined processing, people can get into Thailand faster.

But long story short, the notion that the CoE the Certificate of Entry is just entirely gone I think is not a good way to view things especially for managing one's own expectations when trying to go through the process of getting into Thailand. But yeah it does appear they have made some changes. As we have noted, credit where credit is due, things like the "fit to fly" documentation were redacted throughout this process. "Fit to fly" documentation was a real sticking point on getting folks into Thailand going back a few months ago and it really was kind of a redundant document and it was scrapped; it was no longer required. So I mean it is an evolving process. I think people are trying their best to balance all the interests at play here.

Long story short, Thailand Pass is the new word, the new phrase for what I would call the Certificate of Entry. Yes it is a little bit different. Is it fundamentally different? Well define "fundamentally different" insofar as prior to March 2020 the Certificate of Entry didn't exist at all and Thailand Pass didn't exist at all. It's hard for me to say that it is a fundamentally different thing. That said, one man's opinion. It looks like this is what we are going to be dealing with here moving forward into the foreseeable future.