Changes coming to visa-free entry

[reader]

From Pattaya News

By Adam Judd

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has ordered a comprehensive review of Thailand’s visa-free entry scheme, citing concerns over the rising number of foreign visitors overstaying their permitted duration and engaging in illegal employment, according to government spokesman Jirayu Houngsub on Tuesday.

The visa-free program, which allows citizens of numerous countries to enter Thailand for up to 60 days without a visa, has been a cornerstone of the nation’s tourism-driven economy. In 2024, Thailand welcomed over 35 million foreign visitors, contributing majorly to its GDP. However, authorities have reported a growing trend of visitors exploiting the scheme, with some staying beyond the allowed period and taking up unauthorized work in sectors such as hospitality, construction, and entertainment.

“The Prime Minister has stated the need to balance tourism promotion with national security and legal compliance,” Jirayu said in a press briefing. “The revision will aim to tighten oversight while ensuring Thailand remains a welcoming destination for genuine tourists.”

The move comes amid review of immigration policies following high-profile cases of foreign nationals involved in illegal activities. The government has not yet specified the exact changes to the visa-free scheme but indicated that measures could include stricter entry requirements, enhanced tracking of visitors, and harsher penalties for violators.

Thailand’s visa-free entry currently applies to citizens of 93 countries, including major tourism markets like China, India, and several European nations. The scheme was expanded in recent years to boost post-pandemic tourism recovery, but critics argue it has strained immigration enforcement resources. The Tourism Authority of Thailand reported that Chinese visitors, who benefit from the visa exemption, accounted for the largest share of arrivals in 2024, with over 6 million travelers.

 Details of the revised visa-free scheme are expected to be finalized in the coming weeks and months. Until then, current entry rules remain in effect, and travelers are advised to comply with existing visa regulations to avoid penalties.

https://thepattayanews.com/2025/04/22/thai-prime-minister-orders-comprehensive-review-of-visa-free-entry-program-changes-coming/

[reader]

 

21 minutes ago, reader said:

However, authorities have reported a growing trend of visitors exploiting the scheme, with some staying beyond the allowed period and taking up unauthorized work in sectors such as hospitality, construction, and entertainment.

Thailand already has difficulty attracting enough bodies to fill existing jobs in construction and hospitality.

This mirrors what Trump is doing in the US that has difficulty attracting citizens to fill the jobs in construction and hospitality: blame the immigrants.

[PeterRS]

The government should also look at the semi-private Thailand Privilege scheme - formerly Thailand Elite. It is finally making money after hiking its fees up by around 80%. But according to their staff at BKK, a big majority of those purchasing these visas are Russians and Chinese. Presumably rich ones and presumably also with a few shady characters amongst them.

[Patanawet]

See today's Bangkok Post (Wednesday the 23rd)

[reader]

From The Thaiger

Thailand’s once-booming Chinese tourism stream has turned into a trickle, with industry chiefs warning of a full-blown crisis as daily arrivals plunge to record lows and desperate calls mount for an urgent fix to restore trust.

Chinese tourist arrivals to Thailand have nosedived to their lowest point in 2025, with just 5,833 visitors recorded on April 16, a far cry from the usual 15,000 to 20,000. One top industry figure has dubbed the slump a “crisis,” as the kingdom scrambles to win back its biggest tourism market.

Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, advisory chairman of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, didn’t mince his words.

“This is the worst crisis for the Chinese market in recent years.”

Continues at

https://thethaiger.com/news/business/chinese-tourism-to-thailand-hits-2025-low-with-only-5833-arrivals

 

[Londoner]

An interesting story relating to the Thai/Chinese relationship has just appeared. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/thailand-russian-tourist-viral-video-park-ranger-b2737954.html

[reader]

Deputy PM backs 60-day visa free entry

From The Nation

Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham admits visa-free policy has its costs — may open door to crime, but boosts economy; urges public to avoid spreading harmful rumours.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Phumtham Wechayachai , on April 30, 2025 addressed public concerns over the visa-free policy for tourists, following reports of crimes committed by some Chinese nationals in Thailand.

He emphasised the need to examine the facts carefully and affirmed that if any wrongdoing occurs, it will be dealt with under the law.

“These incidents do not reflect a lack of safety in our country but rather the individual actions of certain visitors,” Phumtham stated. He also dismissed current rumours about organ trafficking involving Chinese tourists, saying there have been no such confirmed cases to date.

Regarding the recent online uproar about a man dressed like a military police officer participating in a Chinese event, Phumtham explained that the incident actually took place in December 2024. Once it surfaced on social media, the matter was promptly investigated.

He confirmed that no military police unit under the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters, or the Royal Thai Army had authorised such a mission. If the individual acted in a personal capacity or impersonated an officer, he would be subject to criminal charges.

Phumtham acknowledged that Thailand’s reputation may be affected by online speculation, both true and false, but stressed that the overall number of tourists remains high. He noted that the decline in Chinese tourists mostly involves “zero-dollar tours,” which have little impact on tourism revenue.

When asked whether Thai authorities had been negligent in allowing Chinese nationals to use Thailand as a base for fraudulent operations, such as posing as officials to scam others, Phumtham reiterated that the government has not ignored the issue and is taking it seriously, especially after it was brought to light on social media.

As for concerns that the visa-free policy might be a loophole exploited by bad actors, Phumtham argued that it is an important economic tool to attract tourism. “No policy brings only positive effects—there are always trade-offs. But crimes committed by a few do not mean all tourists are here with bad intentions,” he said.

https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/news/policy/40049432

[Londoner]

Where are Chinese tourists going to instead of Thailand? or are they staying at home?

[floridarob]

From AI:
Chinese tourists are increasingly choosing Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam over Thailand. Japan's weaker yen, simplified visa policies, and overall appeal have made it a popular destination, even overtaking Thailand in visitor numbers. Southeast Asia, including Thailand, is facing competition from Northeast Asia, particularly Japan, as well as other destinations like Vietnam and Malaysia

[bkkmfj2648]

14 minutes ago, Londoner said:

Where are Chinese tourists going to instead of Thailand?

Well here on the ground in Da Nang there are many Chinese, Indian, Russian, and European tourists.

I asked AI the same question and it gave a different distribution picture.

It states that there are many Koreans, but I don't sense that. When I was in Cebu, Philippines earlier this year, the South Koreans were everywhere, and they were the number 1 tourists in the distribution count. However, there were almost no Chinese in Cebu, because of the ongoing hostilities between China and the Philippines over the disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Ironically, there is a similar hostility between China ad Vietnam over some islands, but yet there are many Chinese tourists here.

Below is what the AI said about tourists in Da Nang:

 

[Matthew285]

There are still plenty of Chinese tourists in Bangkok though.  Saturday night both Fresh Boys and Dreamboys where completely packed.  You could not buy a boy in Fresh Boys a drink as they could not sit next to you, people where so tightly packed in.  At Dreamboys I counted over 90 people in the crowd at 11.30pm only 4 where non asian.  I was told its a Chinese holiday this week so lots of visitors.  Was more quite Sunday but still busy in both bars.

[PeterRS]

May 1 - 5 is always a major holiday in China. The other fixed date one is National Day when everyone has a week off from October 1.

[jason1975]

1 hour ago, Matthew285 said:

There are still plenty of Chinese tourists in Bangkok though.  Saturday night both Fresh Boys and Dreamboys where completely packed.  You could not buy a boy in Fresh Boys a drink as they could not sit next to you, people where so tightly packed in.  At Dreamboys I counted over 90 people in the crowd at 11.30pm only 4 where non asian.  I was told its a Chinese holiday this week so lots of visitors.  Was more quite Sunday but still busy in both bars.

You actually counted the number of customers in Dreamboys instead of watching show or looking at guys on stage! 🤣

[spoon]

6 hours ago, jason1975 said:

You actually counted the number of customers in Dreamboys instead of watching show or looking at guys on stage! 🤣

Many times, the customers are hotter than the guys on stage. 

[jamiebee]

4 hours ago, spoon said:

Many times, the customers are hotter than the guys on stage. 

💯 True. Some even have more defined mouth watering bodies attached to equally head turning unrealistically cute or handsome face. 🤤

[PeterRS]

13 hours ago, Matthew285 said:

There are still plenty of Chinese tourists in Bangkok though.  Saturday night both Fresh Boys and Dreamboys where completely packed.

As mentioned in an earlier post, remember that May 1-5 was the main Chinese Spring holiday. I doubt if you will see anything like that number of Chinese tourists next week-end.

We also have to remember that the Chinese economy is facing huge problems. The real estate market is a total disaster area and the government does not know how to solve this problem. Millions of ordinary Chinese are affected with vast numbers of apartments pre-bought but not completed and the developers are bankrupt. This goes for huge housing estates as well as smaller ones. Consequently a lot of Chinese are spending more on domestic travel than they usd to on overseas travel.

And the real estate crash is not confined to China. The major Chinese developers expanded overseas. One example is the US$100 billion investment in Forest City in the south of Malaysia. Started in 2016 and hailed as the city of the future for 700,000 residents, it had the backing of the then Malaysian government. The developer was Country Garden, one of the top half dozen developers in China. In 2023 it defaulted on $11 billion of its overseas bonds and was declared bankrupt. Its total debts a year ago were estimated as $200 billion. Now Forest City has less than 10,000 residents. Many middle-class buyers, both Chinese and Malaysian, are saddled with unlivable properties and mounting debts. Commercial property sales in the development are all but zero. As all the media have reported, Forest Cty is quite literally a "ghost town". 

This is how Foreest City was advertised

This from the BBC a year ago

https://resident.com/real-estate/2024/12/01/forest-city-malaysia-a-100-billion-ghost-town-what-happened

Youth unemployment is another disaster area, especially for university graduates. The last number quoted by the government was around 21%. Thereafter it has ceased issuing any figures at all. Granted, China is a very big country, but a big majority of Chinese are now worried about their savings.

[10tazione]

Is it true that in China people can only own the buildings but not the ground on which the buildings are erected? The ground is always based on a 100-year-lease or something like that? Anyone knows?

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, 10tazione said:

Is it true that in China people can only own the buildings but not the ground on which the buildings are erected? The ground is always based on a 100-year-lease or something like that? Anyone knows?

Land ownership is different in the cities and the countryside. In the former, ownership of land is not possible. In the latter, special land cooperatives own the land. In effect, though, Chinese can only own the property built on the land. I believe the lease period for residential ownership is 70 years.

Property prices have skyrocketed since the government started to permit private ownership only around 30 years ago. Gradually that set off a boom in home construction, one which spiralled out of control partly due to demand. House prices in some cities are now mega. An 80-square meter apartment near the centre of Shanghai will set you back US$886,000. Down payment requirements can often be s high as 80%. On the outskirts of the city, the price plummets to $200,000. In Beijing, the average price across the whole city is around $310,000.

Perhaps surprisingly, mortagages are not popular in China. Only 18% of buyers tap into the mortgage market. In 2012 whereas the Chinese mortgage to GDP ratio was just 15%, in the USA it was 81.4%. Even though average wages in China are well below western standards, families and other social connections provide the finance to enable home purchase.  Despite their high price, something like 90% of the country own their own homes. One reason is that Chinese are among the highest savers in the world with a savings rate that equates to almost 50% of GDP. This is one target of President Xi's government as it tries to get the economy back on track. Get people out and spend more of their savings! 

 https://breznikar.com/article/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/1781

[Mavica]

On 4/22/2025 at 5:18 PM, reader said:

This mirrors what Trump is doing in the US that has difficulty attracting citizens to fill the jobs in construction and hospitality: blame the immigrants.

I don't object to or think it's wrong for countries to control immigration but there should be an understandable achievable process followed by which those persons interested in immigrating / temporarily working in countries adhere to and have the opportunity.  Immigrants aren't the problem.  Persons entering countries illegally - bypassing a process others do honor - is a problem.  Unfortunately, worldwide ... the migrant issue is highly politicized.

[PeterRS]

It looks like Trump is trying to do almost what Japan has been doing basically since the Meiji Restoration. After the fall of the shoguns, Japan had to open up to trade. This meant accepting some foreigners. This increased as it employed specialist skills from overseas in building up its military forces. The start of the economic boom in the 1960s and 70s also saw a need for foreign labour, most permitted temporary resident status only for five years. But it has almost always been temporary. 

It's hard for many peoople to accept that a country which was closed off for a quarter of a millennium should be concerned about cultural differences. But this is certainly one reason why successive governments have been concerned about balancing its cultural identity with opening its doors to foreign workers. When I worked there in the early 1990s, I was the only foreigner in a company with around 45 Japanese. Even though it was the branch of an American company and all the managers spoke pretty good English, little things were always being put in my way to make it clear that although I was working in a Japanese office, I was not Japanese.

I had a good friend who happened to be the CEO of the UK textile company Courtaulds. One evening I invited him and his wife to dinner. I explained my frustration at these little niggling annoyances. He said I should pay no attention to them as it was just part of Japanese business culture. Even he in his very senior position was subject to the same frustrations!

Japan very quickly has to do something to cope with its very low birth rate and rapidly ageing population. The government cannot sit on its thumbs and hope the situation will just go away.

[Patanawet]

On 5/5/2025 at 10:02 AM, jason1975 said:

You actually counted the number of customers in Dreamboys instead of watching show or looking at guys on stage! 🤣

Me too.
From an old habit, years ago, in Amsterdam.
A friend owned a busy bar and nightly he'd send me around the other bars to count how many customers they had.
If I reported back that others had more, I'd get a sulky frown -- if however, I reported back that he was far the busiest, I'd get a free drink!
As you can imagine, he was ALWAYS the busiest.😂
 

[floridarob]

11 hours ago, Mavica said:

Persons entering countries illegally - bypassing a process others do honor - is a problem

The US immigration system is a mess, if someone wants to come to do work we won't there is no way for them to unless a company or farm sponsors them, restaurants and hotels don't do that....and the people might try to come on another type of visa, not legal to work and almost all get denied. Why else do they risk the dangers/risks of crossing illegally, many with coyotes, which used to be an honorable and safe option but not for the last 20+ years.

We're soon going to find out what it's going to be like in the movie "A day without a Mexican".... political decisions and repercussions aren't always immediately felt, most of Trump's decisions will have a long lasting affect and will take a long time to reverse/repair and it's not going to be cheap.

[vinapu]

21 hours ago, Mavica said:

Persons entering countries illegally - bypassing a process others do honor - is a problem.  

yes and no.

In most of rich world  a lot of work is done by illegals for simple reason - locals, thanks to relatively generous  welfare system and family support at hand are not interested in certain jobs or if they are they expect remuneration which may not be economically viable to employer. In days of old, slavery did the trick. Hungarians are washing dishes in Germany, Ukrainians in Hungary , Azeris in Ukraine, Iranians in Azerbaijan and Afghans in Iran. One wonders who washes dishes in Kabul but guess is , years of wars created local underclass willing to do the job 

[Keithambrose]

7 hours ago, vinapu said:

yes and no.

In most of rich world  a lot of work is done by illegals for simple reason - locals, thanks to relatively generous  welfare system and family support at hand are not interested in certain jobs or if they are they expect remuneration which may not be economically viable to employer. In days of old, slavery did the trick. Hungarians are washing dishes in Germany, Ukrainians in Hungary , Azeris in Ukraine, Iranians in Azerbaijan and Afghans in Iran. One wonders who washes dishes in Kabul but guess is , years of wars created local underclass willing to do the job 

We used to have many good Polish builders in the UK, but alas, post Brexit, they have mostly  disappeared. Of course, they were not illegal, but a good example of workers doing a good job, for a reasonable price, in which our local builders were not interested. It's a generalisation, I know, with exceptions, but English builders have a reputation  for being second  rate, workshy, and expensive!

[PeterRS]

12 minutes ago, Keithambrose said:

We used to have many good Polish builders in the UK, but alas, post Brexit, they have mostly  disappeared. Of course, they were not illegal, but a good example of workers doing a good job, for a reasonable price, in which our local builders were not interested

I do think that may not be wholly accurate. There are approximately 680,000 people born in Poland presently living in the UK. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in the country. According to wikipedia, the Polish population in the UK has increased more than than tenfold since 2001. Polish is the second most spoken language in England! Last year a study reported that the average age of Polish immigrants to the UK now is from 18-35. 

Although London was a primary base for overseas Poles, Scotland has a significant Polish population, especially in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Many settled in Scotland during WWII.