Vietnamese Passports Get 30 Days in Thailand from Today, the Week the King Came to Hanoi

If your client, your tour leader or your escort carries an ordinary Vietnamese passport, Thailand lets them in for 30 days from today. Until yesterday it was 60.

Two things happened in the same week and it is worth keeping them apart. The visa cut is a rule, published in the Royal Gazette on 31 August and in force from 15 September. The King's visit to Hanoi is a signal, and a large one, but it changes nothing at the immigration desk. This page covers both, for partners planning across our two core destinations. It is guidance, not immigration advice. Check each passport against the official sources before you ticket.

What changed for a Vietnamese passport, and why

Thailand runs two visa-free mechanisms at once. The first is the general exemption scheme, a list of countries whose citizens enter without a visa. The second is a set of bilateral treaties, signed one country at a time. A passport can sit in both, and Vietnam did.

Vietnam was item 93 on the general exemption list dated 15 July 2024, which gave 60 days. Vietnam also has a bilateral treaty with Thailand, dated in the Consular Department's table of 12 December 2025, which gives 30. Whichever instrument is more generous is the one that counts. For just over two years that was the 60-day exemption.

On 15 September the 93-country list is revoked. The 60-country list that replaces it does not include Vietnam. So the exemption falls away and the treaty is what is left. Thirty days.

Nobody amended the treaty. Nobody had to. That is the part the trade keeps getting backwards: a treaty is only a shelter where it is the more generous instrument, and for a Vietnamese passport it never was. Our 30-day exemption guide walks through the same logic for China, Russia, Hong Kong and Cambodia, which lose the same way.

Who this actually touches

For most European partners the client is not Vietnamese. The escort might be.

A Vietnamese tour leader who accompanies a group from Hanoi into Thailand, a Vietnamese ground colleague sent to Bangkok for a site inspection, a Vietnamese chef or performer on an incentive programme: all of them now hold 30 days, not 60. A back-to-back series where the same leader stays in Thailand across several departures is the file to open first. Thirty days covers one long departure. It no longer covers a season.

Mixed groups are the second file. A family with one Vietnamese passport and three European ones used to share a 60-day ceiling. Today the Vietnamese passport is the shortest one in the group, and the itinerary length is set by the shortest passport.

For Vietnamese travel companies buying the Thailand leg from us, the change is simpler. Almost every Vietnamese leisure programme in Thailand runs 4 to 10 days. Thirty days is not a constraint on any of them. It is a constraint on the leader, the escort and the long-stay client, and those are the three lines to re-check.

The extension, in one paragraph

A visa-exempt visitor can apply once at a Thai immigration office for an extension of up to 30 days, on form TM.7, for 1,900 baht. It is granted at the officer's discretion. It is a ceiling, not an entitlement. And it is governed by an immigration order separate from the announcements that just published, so nothing official confirms how it applies from today. Treat it as a possibility a traveller may be granted. Never sell a leg that depends on it.

Two things the reform did not change

Every visitor still files the Thailand Digital Arrival Card before arrival. It is free. The window opens three days before arrival, counting the arrival date itself, which is shorter than the 72 hours people assume.

And the passport should be valid for at least six months on the day the traveller arrives, with a blank page for the stamp. That rule is older than the reform and it is the one that still catches people at the counter.

The King in Hanoi, and what to read into it

King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida landed at Noi Bai on the afternoon of 14 September for a three-day state visit, at the invitation of General Secretary and President To Lam. The official welcome was on the morning of the 15th. It is the King's first visit to Vietnam as monarch. He came twice as Crown Prince, in 1992 and 1997.

The timing is not accidental. Vietnam and Thailand established diplomatic relations on 6 August 1976, so this is the 50th year, and the two countries raised their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in May 2025. The Thai ambassador told Nhan Dan that bilateral trade has "a strong possibility of reaching the target of 25 billion USD" this year.

Read it for what it is. No visa measure, air-services agreement or tourism target was announced alongside the visit in the coverage we have read. The rules that apply at the desk today are the ones above. What the visit does say is that the Bangkok to Hanoi corridor is a political priority on both sides, in a year when Thailand tightened entry for Vietnamese passports at the same time. Those two facts sit side by side, and a partner selling both countries should hold both.

What to do this week

Pull every Thailand file with a Vietnamese passport on it, client or crew, and check the arrival date against 15 September. Anything entered on or before the 14th is protected for its full 60 days. Anything entering from today gets 30.

For a tour leader on a long series, plan the exit. A run back to Vietnam or across to Laos and a fresh entry is a routing question, and it needs a ground operator on both sides so nobody is stranded at a border with a group behind them. Our note on travelling between Thailand and Vietnam covers the flights, and our entry rules guide covers the rest of the nationalities in the group. The wider picture for both countries is in the entry requirements overview.

For a Vietnamese travel company: nothing in a 5-night Bangkok or a 6-night Chiang Mai programme changes. Brief the leader, file the TDAC, and carry on.