Thailand and Vietnam Entry Rules 2026: Arrival Forms and Visas

Vietnam has a pre-arrival declaration. Thailand requires the TDAC.

Vietnam's arrival-form guidance still differed when we checked on 6 October 2026. Vietnam Airlines requires declarations for foreign arrivals at Noi Bai, Da Nang, Cam Ranh and Tan Son Nhat, with an exception for eligible visa-exempt passengers connecting through Tan Son Nhat to Phu Quoc. The US State Department says non-Vietnamese passport holders arriving by air must file, no earlier than three days before arrival. GOV.UK, updated on 21 September 2026, still describes Tan Son Nhat's form as voluntary.

Complete the official pre-arrival form before flying, and confirm your carrier's instructions for your passport, arrival airport and routing. This is separate from Vietnam's conditional health declaration.

The Thailand visa rules, the TDAC window and Vietnam's health-declaration status below were checked against official sources on 6 October 2026. This page is guidance, not legal or immigration advice, so confirm each traveller's nationality and purpose of travel against the sources we link before booking. For the evergreen version without the dated specifics, see our entry and visa requirements overview.

Thailand: the Digital Arrival Card is mandatory

Every non-Thai arrival must complete the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, the TDAC, online before reaching the country. Air, land or sea. Visa holder or visa-exempt, it makes no difference.

It has been mandatory since 1 May 2025. It is free. It replaced the paper TM6 outright.

The exemptions are narrow and worth knowing precisely: transit passengers who never clear Thai immigration, airline and vessel crew on duty, and Border Pass holders crossing under bilateral agreements. Diplomatic passport holders are not exempt, which surprises people.

Submit it within the three days before arrival, and no earlier. That makes it one of the last steps before a trip, not something to do at booking. The form is filed at tdac.immigration.go.th and includes a mandatory health-status section. Extra fields, such as proof of yellow fever vaccination, appear automatically only when a traveller's departure country, travel history or nationality matches a list set by Thailand's Ministry of Public Health.

We found no verified instruction requiring every traveller to install THIM, the Thai immigration app, or saying it replaces the arrival-card requirement. The app can be downloaded from the official RoyalThaiPolice app listing, updated on 25 September 2026, and the official TDAC website remains available. Our note on departure fees, THIM and the proposed tourist fee has the detail.

One thing not to conflate: the proposed Thailand tourist fee. A national committee approved the principle of a flat 450 baht on 14 August 2026, and the consultation window on it ended on 28 September 2026. It is a proposal, not law, and it is not being collected. No final collection notice or start date had been verified in the sources checked on 4 October 2026, so do not quote it as an active charge without checking the final rules. It has nothing to do with the TDAC, which is free. Our 450-baht fee explainer tracks where it stands.

The "new Thailand health app" story, cleared up

Partners keep asking about a mandatory Thailand health application said to have gone live on 1 July 2026. There is no such thing.

We checked the Thai government sources. The only Thai development in this space is THIM, which is a submission app, not a health declaration, and is not tied to 1 July.

The decree the story describes is Vietnam's. Decree 165/2026/ND-CP did take effect on 1 July 2026. But it is conditional, so "mandatory for all travellers" was overstated as well as pointed at the wrong country. A real framework, attributed to the wrong government, and inflated on the way.

Operationally this matters. A client flying into Bangkok needs the TDAC. A client entering Vietnam meets an actual health declaration only if the Ministry of Health requires one for a particular disease.

Thailand visas since 15 September 2026

Since 15 September 2026, nationals of the EU and Schengen area, the United Kingdom, the United States and all six Gulf Cooperation Council states can enter Thailand without a visa for up to 30 days, for tourism only. Business meetings, site inspections, fam trips and work of any kind need the appropriate visa, applied for through the official Thai e-Visa site. A visitor on the exemption can apply once at an immigration office for up to 30 days more, granted at the officer's discretion and never as a right.

Until 14 September 2026 these passports had 60 days under a 93-country exemption, and travellers admitted before 15 September keep the stay shown on their entry stamp.

If a programme enters Thailand overland, note one more limit. Travellers on the 30-day exemption may generally enter through land-border checkpoints no more than twice per calendar year. Nationals of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore are exempt from it.

The same 30-day exemption covers Australia, Canada, Japan, India and the rest of the 60 countries and territories on Thailand's list. Passports off that list follow other routes. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Korea and Peru have 90 days under bilateral agreements. China, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Laos, Macao, Mongolia, Russia, Timor-Leste and Vietnam have 30 days by agreement, Cambodia 14, and Myanmar 14 at international airports only. Whether the extension and the land-border limit apply to entries under these agreements has not been confirmed. Mauritius and Seychelles get 15 days, visa on arrival is limited to Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia, and an ordinary passport that is neither on the 60-country exemption list nor covered by one of these routes needs a visa. Our Thailand 30-day exemption guide lists all 60 countries and territories on the exemption and explains who fell back to a bilateral agreement.

Treat the allowance as a live value and confirm it at booking, especially on any quote a client will hold for months.

The Destination Thailand Visa is a separate route, and most summaries of it go wrong. It is a five-year, multiple-entry visa allowing up to 180 days per stay, applied for through the official e-Visa portal. Eligibility runs on three tracks, not one: remote workers and freelancers employed outside Thailand; participants in Thai soft-power activities such as Muay Thai training, culinary courses, sports training or medical treatment, with a letter of acceptance; and dependants of either. All applicants must show evidence of 500,000 baht or equivalent in funds. That financial test is the part clients are most often not told about.

Vietnam: the health declaration is not routine for ordinary arrivals

This was the headline change of the year, and the practical impact is far smaller than the first reports suggested.

Decree 165/2026/ND-CP took effect on 1 July 2026 alongside Vietnam's new Law on Disease Prevention. It establishes a health-declaration mechanism for travellers crossing the border by air, land or sea.

The day before, on 30 June 2026, the Ministry of Health said what that means in practice. The declaration is not compulsory or routine for all arrivals. It is carried out under the Minister of Health's guidance for each infectious disease, according to the epidemic situation.

We found no Ministry of Health instruction requiring it of ordinary arrivals when we checked on 6 October 2026. The position can change with the epidemic situation, so confirm it on the official channels for your client's own dates.

If it is required, the standardised template sits in Appendix V of the decree, in Vietnamese and English, and travellers complete it within seven days before entry, exit or transit, on paper or electronically. Check this separately from the pre-arrival form.

Vietnam visas: two exemption lists, and they are not the same

This is where a nationality check earns its keep, because the European Union is not one rule and neither are Vietnam's own exemptions.

Two resolutions currently grant 45 days visa-free. They cover different countries and different purposes, and that second difference is the one that catches people out.

Resolution 44/NQ-CP, effective 15 March 2025 to 14 March 2028, covers Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. It applies to all entry purposes.

Resolution 229/NQ-CP, effective 15 August 2025 to 14 August 2028, covers Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. It applies to tourism only.

Read that again if you book business travel. A Dutch or Polish client entering Vietnam for meetings is not covered by the 45-day exemption. They need an e-visa. A French client doing exactly the same trip is covered, because Resolution 44 carries no purpose restriction. Same 45 days, different conditions attached.

Neither resolution expires soon, which is the good news. Both run to 2028.

Plenty of nationalities sit on neither list and need an e-visa, including Portugal, Austria, Ireland and Greece among EU states, along with the United States and all six GCC countries. The e-visa is valid for up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, and is applied for at evisa.gov.vn. The government fee is 25 US dollars for single entry and 50 for multiple entry, set by Circular 28/2026/TT-BTC and in force since 1 April 2026. That fee is per visa, per applicant, charged in dollars, and it is not refunded if the application is refused.

Official processing is three working days from a complete application with the fee paid. Allow more in peak season, or if the authorities come back asking for corrections.

Two details cause avoidable rejections. Enter the applicant's name exactly as it appears on the passport, in the same order and spelling: Vietnamese law treats false or inconsistent information as grounds to void an application. And confirm the accepted ports of entry on the portal, because Vietnam keeps adding checkpoints and the e-visa is tied to the gates declared on it.

Passport validity and the details that trip people up

Two requirements cause more refusals than visas do.

The first is passport validity. Both countries want at least six months. The blank-page rule differs though: Thailand expects at least one blank page, Vietnam at least two. On a combined trip that asymmetry is easy to miss.

The second is proof of onward or return travel. For Vietnam it is not a general statutory entry condition, and the guidance we link treats it as a carrier and border-officer check rather than a documented visa condition. For Thailand it is written down, as a condition of the visa-exemption regulation, even though it does not appear in the Immigration Act itself. Either way airline staff and border officers check it, so treat it as a booking requirement.

Beyond those: build a buffer for e-visa processing, check each traveller's nationality individually instead of assuming a group is uniform, and note the declared ports of entry. If a document goes missing mid-trip, our lost passport guide sets out the steps.

How we keep partners current

Keeping these rules straight per booking is part of what a destination management company in both countries does. We check each traveller's nationality against the right list, including the purpose restriction on Resolution 229. We flag the TDAC, watch for any Vietnamese health-declaration requirement, build e-visa lead time into the schedule, and track the Thailand allowance so nobody is briefed on a stale number.

Partner agencies keep their client relationship, and the quotation states which documents we prepare and who contacts the travellers on tour.

Send us a group's nationalities, travel purposes and routing through our trade enquiry form. Agencies receive net rates on registration. Our how many days and seasonal risk guides help shape the trip around the rules.