Photo: Unsplash
Cover Photo: Unsplash

If you are flying into Thailand, you only need to apply for a Thailand Pass from May 2022 onwards

This story was first published on July 1, 2021, and updated on April 27, 2022.


From May 1, Thailand will remove its requirement for vaccinated travellers arriving in the country to undergo a test and brief quarantine, according to an official on April 22. This is among the latest in a slew of measures Thailand has announced to revive its battered tourism industry which it relied upon heavily before the pandemic. 

Instead, visitors are encouraged to perform antigen self-tests on themselves during their stay. This is vastly different from Thailand's current “Test & Go” scheme which requires arrivals to isolate in a hotel while awaiting the result of a Covid-19 test that they have to take on arrival.

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The news comes on the heels of Thailand's announcement that it will remove the pre-departure test requirement last month. 

“Adjusting measures has an impact on drawing in tourism receipts,” said Taweesin Visanuyothin, a spokesperson for the coronavirus task force at a news conference.

True enough, while Thailand has been seeing an increase in the number of tourists, numbers still remain low with 210,800 arrivals in March, up from 6,700 in the same period last year. This is a drastic difference from Thailand's monthly average of 3.3 million visitors in 2019. 

Other rules that have been eased recently include reducing the required insurance coverage to US$10,000 and granting entry to unvaccinated visitors, providing they show a negative pre-departure polymerase chain reaction (PCR) result. This applies to travellers from any country. 

That said, visitors are still required to do the online travel clearance (also known as the Thailand Pass) which will prove that they are vaccinated and have the appropriate insurance. Currently, the registration site is open and accepting new applications for the Test and Go, Sandbox, and Quarantine entry programs.

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