Thailand is rolling back the generous 60-day visa-free entry it introduced in 2024. We re-verified the change against official Thai sources and corrected the per-nationality maximum-stay figures on our Thailand, Singapore and Maldives tourist pages, where a machine-generated layer had scrambled the numbers. The headline for travellers: the cut applies to the free visa-exemption stamp — not to the Tourist Visa you apply for in advance.
What the Cabinet approved
On 19 May 2026 the Thai Cabinet approved a revision of the visa-exemption scheme, reducing the visa-free stay from 60 days to 30 days for most eligible nationalities. Under the revised framework, nationals of around 54 countries and territories qualify for a 30-day exemption, and a small group of three qualify for 15 days. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU member states, Australia, Japan and South Korea are all on the 30-day list.
It is approved — but not yet in force
As of late June 2026 the change has not taken effect. The revision is pending publication in the Royal Gazette and is expected to come into force 15 days after it is published; no publication date had been announced. Until then, the current 60-day visa exemption remains technically valid. Anyone booking travel right now should re-check the in-force date before they fly, because the rule could flip during the booking window.
The key distinction: visa-exemption vs the Tourist Visa (TR)
These are two different things, and only one is changing. The visa exemption is the free stamp you get on arrival if your passport is on the eligible list — that is what is being cut from 60 to 30 days. The Tourist Visa (TR) is a visa you apply for in advance at a Thai embassy or via the Thai e-Visa portal; the single-entry TR grants 60 days per entry, extendable once by 30 days at a Thai immigration office (90 days total), and that has not changed. So once the exemption drops to 30 days, travellers who want a longer single trip can still get 60 days by applying for the TR visa before they go.
What we corrected on our Thailand pages
Our Thailand Tourist Visa (TR) page had inherited a generated per-nationality layer that showed a flat 30-day maximum on the TR visa for many nationalities, and an artefact 90-day figure for others — neither correct for that visa. We fixed it at the source so the TR visa now correctly shows its verified 60-day per-entry stay for nationalities who use it (for example the United States and Germany), while genuine visa-on-arrival nationalities such as China and India correctly keep their 15-day visa-on-arrival figure.
The same pass fixed Singapore and the Maldives too
The identical machine artefact had spread to other tourist pages, so we re-verified those against official sources. For Singapore, the visit pass genuinely varies by nationality: the US, UK, EU member states, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and South Korea are granted up to 90 days, while everyone else visa-free — including ASEAN and Gulf nationals, Canada, China and Japan — gets 30. Our US-to-Singapore page was wrongly showing 30; it now reads 90. For the Maldives, the free visa on arrival is a flat 30 days for every nationality (the 90-day figure that had appeared for some passports is only reachable by paying for an in-country extension in Malé, never on arrival), so all nationalities now correctly read 30 days.
How we verify this
The Thailand figures come from the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s newsroom and Thai immigration references; the Singapore split from Singapore’s ICA visa policy; and the Maldives rule from the Maldives Immigration portal — each cross-checked and dated to today. Our full process is in our Editorial & Data Standards; start from the Thailand destination hub. If you are comparing how long different passports can stay around the world, see our longest visa-free stays data set.