Thailand has drawn international media attention over two separate traveller-fee proposals under consideration: a flat 450-baht "tourism fee" (known in Thai as ค่าเหยียบแผ่นดิน, literally a "land-treading fee") to be charged to foreign visitors on arrival, and a 1,000-baht "departure tax" that would initially apply to air travellers of all nationalities leaving the country. Both remain under review and public consultation; neither has been approved by the Cabinet, and neither is currently being collected.

It is worth noting that many reports, including some Chinese-language coverage, have described these two charges together as a single "two-way fee" policy aimed at foreign tourists. In fact, they are two distinct proposals driven by different ministries, with different purposes and different groups of people subject to them. The 450-baht arrival fee is led by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and applies only to incoming foreign visitors; it has drawn relatively strong support in public consultation. The 1,000-baht departure tax, by contrast, is led by the Revenue Department under the Ministry of Finance and would apply to travellers of all nationalities, including Thai citizens, departing by air. Its stated purpose is less about generating tourism revenue and more about curbing capital outflow linked to Thais travelling abroad, and it has already drawn formal objection from the Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA). Conflating the two risks giving readers the false impression that this is a single new policy aimed solely at foreign tourists, when the real picture is more complicated.

The idea of charging foreign visitors a "land-treading fee" on arrival is not new. As far back as 2022, the Thai government planned to charge 300 baht for air arrivals (150 baht for land and sea arrivals) starting that April, with funds earmarked for maintaining and upgrading tourist attractions, improving infrastructure, and providing accident coverage for foreign visitors whose personal travel insurance did not cover incidents in Thailand — officials at the Tourism Authority of Thailand said at the time that the government often ended up bearing the cost when tourists' insurance fell short. The plan was repeatedly postponed, first to 2023 amid a slow pandemic recovery, and again, according to a July 2025 report, to mid-2026, as visitor growth remained sluggish and the economic outlook stayed uncertain.

In 2026 the proposal returned at a higher, unified rate of 450 baht, applied equally regardless of whether a visitor arrives by air, land or sea — up from the earlier two-tier 300/150-baht structure. A public consultation ran from August 24 to September 28, drawing 5,954 responses; 80.5% of participants supported the fee in principle and 78.3% backed the 450-baht rate specifically, though opinion was more divided on applying a single uniform rate across all three modes of entry. On October 6, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports held a meeting to review the proposal; the following day, the Finance Ministry opened consultation on the separate departure-tax draft (detailed below). On October 9, Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Suphajee Suthumpun — who also chairs the National Tourism Policy Committee — ordered relevant agencies to draw up clear, transparent collection and spending procedures, and to hold a further round of public consultation, before submitting the plan to the Cabinet. Under the current timeline, air arrivals would be the first charged, roughly 180 days after publication in the Royal Gazette, with a target start in the first quarter of 2027; collection from land and sea arrivals would follow about 360 days later.

Officials and industry estimates suggest the fee could generate roughly 8 billion baht a year in dedicated revenue (ATTA has put the figure as high as 10 billion baht). This money would sit outside the general government budget, flowing instead into a tourism development fund earmarked for maintaining and developing tourist sites, destination management, and basic accident insurance for foreign visitors — an echo of the insurance rationale behind the original 2022 proposal. Transit passengers, diplomatic passport holders, airline crew, and holders of work permits or border passes would be exempt.

The separate, and more contentious, 1,000-baht departure tax is an entirely new proposal drafted by the Revenue Department under a planned Departure Tax Act, intended to replace a framework dating back to 1983. Under the draft, anyone departing Thailand by air, regardless of nationality, would pay the tax, starting at 1,000 baht with a statutory ceiling of up to 5,000 baht per departure; land and sea departures would be exempt for now. Public consultation on the draft opened on September 30 and runs through October 29. Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas has publicly defended the proposal, saying its main purpose is not to boost tourism revenue but to curb the outflow of money associated with Thais travelling abroad, encourage spending that stays within local communities, and help improve Thailand's balance of payments. In other words, this tax is designed with a different goal, and a much broader group of people in mind, than the foreign-visitor arrival fee.

Reaction from Thailand's travel industry has split along these lines. The 450-baht arrival fee drew majority support in public consultation, along with backing from some industry representatives who see the dedicated fund as a way to address years of under-investment in tourism infrastructure. The 1,000-baht departure tax, however, was formally opposed by the Association of Thai Travel Agents on October 7, which warned that stacking it on top of the arrival fee and the existing airport service charge would burden travellers with excessive cumulative costs, erode Thailand's price competitiveness, and potentially hurt an inbound tourism market already facing intensifying regional competition.

It bears emphasizing that the only charge actually in effect today is the Airports of Thailand (AOT) international passenger service charge, which was raised from 730 baht to 1,120 baht per person on June 20, 2026 — a change unrelated to either of the two proposals discussed above. Several international outlets, including Malaysia's The Star, have added all three figures together to arrive at a hypothetical combined total of about 2,570 baht per foreign air traveller (1,120 baht airport charge plus 450 baht arrival fee plus 1,000 baht departure tax). That figure is purely illustrative: it depends entirely on both pending proposals clearing the Cabinet and, for the departure tax, Parliament, and is not a sum currently payable by anyone.

Running alongside the fee proposals, Thailand has also been tightening immigration controls. On May 19, the Cabinet approved in principle revisions to the visa-exemption and visa-on-arrival schemes; as a result, from September 15, visa-free stays for nationals of a large number of countries and territories were cut from 60 days to 30 days (media reports vary on the exact number affected, ranging from 54 to 93, so travellers should check the official Royal Gazette notice for their nationality). Land-border entries are now generally capped at two per calendar year, and visa-free visitors may extend their stay only once, at an immigration officer's discretion. Officials cited concerns over misuse of the visa-exempt and visa-on-arrival systems — including overstaying, illegal work, and involvement in cross-border crime — as the rationale. Against this backdrop, foreign arrivals fell about 3.3% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, prompting the government to lower its full-year 2026 forecast to around 32 million visitors, down from roughly 33 million the previous year.

Charging visitors specific fees on arrival or departure to fund tourism development or state revenue has become a regional trend in recent years. Japan, for instance, has raised its International Tourist Tax (often called a "departure tax") from 1,000 yen to 3,000 yen per person, with the higher rate taking effect from July 1, 2026. Measured purely by amount, Thailand's two proposed charges are not unusually high by regional standards. But because they touch both the "entry" and "exit" sides of a trip, and are advancing almost simultaneously with the airport-charge increase and the immigration tightening, they have been simplified — and in some cases conflated — in social media and parts of the Chinese-language press into a single "two-way fee" policy, which risks misleading readers about what is actually happening.

As of this writing, neither proposal has received final Cabinet approval. Both still face further public consultation and committee review, and the departure tax would additionally require parliamentary legislation, meaning actual implementation — if it happens at all — remains some way off and far from certain. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Ministry of Finance have each said they will continue gathering industry and public input before finalizing their respective plans. For travellers currently planning a trip to Thailand, the only fee actually being collected today is the 1,120-baht international passenger service charge; whether, when, and how the 450-baht arrival fee and the 1,000-baht departure tax will ultimately be implemented awaits further official announcements from the Thai government.