Thailand's 2026 Airport Changes: A Higher Departure Fee, a New Arrival App, and a Tourist Fee That Is Not Live Yet

Thailand's airport admin is changing in 2026, in three separate directions, and for a trade partner the useful thing is to keep them apart. One change is already live and sitting invisibly inside ticket prices. One is an announced app that will change how clients complete their arrival card, once its rollout is complete. And one that gets talked about the most has not actually happened at all. Get those three straight and you can brief a client cleanly instead of repeating a rumour. What follows is a practical read for partners building Thailand itineraries and combined trips across our two core destinations, and it pairs with our overview of Thailand and Vietnam entry requirements. It is guidance, not legal or immigration advice, so confirm the current position on the official sources we link before you quote or book.

The departure fee just went up 53 percent

Airports of Thailand raised the international Passenger Service Charge from 730 to 1,120 baht per departing passenger, effective 20 June 2026. That is a 53 percent increase. The charge is embedded in the airfare at the moment a ticket is issued, so any ticket issued on or after 20 June already carries the higher rate. Tickets issued before that date stay at 730 baht. It applies to Thai and foreign passengers alike, on international flights from all six AOT airports: Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Mae Fah Luang Chiang Rai and Hat Yai. The domestic charge is unchanged at 130 baht. The per-person increase is 390 baht, roughly 11 US dollars. On one ticket that is easy to miss. At group scale it is not: a 20-passenger group departs about 7,800 baht more expensive than the same group ticketed a day earlier, a 30-passenger group about 11,700 baht, and a 40-passenger group about 15,600 baht. It sits inside the fare, not on a separate line, so it only surprises the buyer who did not plan for it. Confirm the current figure on the TAT Newsroom announcement before you build a departure cost line.

The arrival app, THIM, and where its rollout stands

Thailand's Immigration Bureau has introduced a new immigration app called THIM, short for Thailand Immigration Management, and announced a full launch for August 2026. When we last checked it was still a voluntary pilot, already downloadable to test. It replaces nothing. It is the mobile front door to the existing Thailand Digital Arrival Card, letting a traveller photograph a passport and enter accommodation and travel details to generate the same TDAC, in a process the Immigration Bureau puts at under three minutes per person and which supports group entries of up to ten people. At launch it carries English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. The nuance that matters for planning is that the TDAC was still the requirement when we last checked, and the official guidance is that travellers should keep completing the arrival card through the current channel until the app is fully rolled out. So the brief to a client is a heads-up, not an alarm. An app is set to become the standard way to submit the arrival card. Until that rollout is done the existing channel still works, and this page cannot tell you whether it is done today. Check it on the day you brief. Confirm the live status on the TAT Newsroom note on THIM and the official Digital Arrival Card portal, and our Thailand and Vietnam entry rules guide keeps the arrival-card detail in one place.

The tourist fee you have heard about is not live, and the number has changed

The fee that generates the most questions is the one that has not happened, and in August 2026 it changed shape. Thailand's proposed tourist entry charge, known locally as ka yiab phaen din, roughly a fee for stepping on Thai soil, is no longer 300 baht for air arrivals and 150 baht by land or sea. The National Tourism Policy Committee approved a flat 450 baht for every foreign visitor on 14 August 2026, whatever the mode of arrival, and sent the draft to public consultation. That is still a long way from law. It has to return to the committee, gain Cabinet approval, and be published in the Royal Gazette, and collection is designed to begin 180 days after that publication. None of it is live. The instruction is unchanged: do not price the fee into programmes yet, and do not let it be confused with the departure charge above, which is the change that has actually taken effect. Our full note on the 450 baht tourist fee covers the stages, the contractual exposure for European operators, and what is still undecided.

What this means for programmes you are selling now

Three quick actions cover it. First, update your Thailand departure cost line for any ticket issued from 20 June 2026, because the higher passenger service charge is already inside those fares whether or not the client noticed. Second, check where the THIM rollout stands before you brief clients, because the current Digital Arrival Card process applies until the app fully takes over, and nobody should arrive expecting a step that is not yet live or skipping one that is. Third, leave the tourist fee out of your costings until it is formally in force. There is a quiet knock-on for two-country pricing too. The Thai departure leg now carries a heavier charge than it did in May, so a combined Thailand and Vietnam quote built earlier in the year has one line that needs re-checking, and it is the Thai one. The trip itself has not changed. Only the paperwork and the fees around it have, and the partner who keeps those straight looks like the one who runs the ground. For a refresher on reading a quote line by line, our guide to how to read a DMC quote sits alongside this one, and our note on the restored Bangkok to Amsterdam nonstop covers the access side of the same picture.