Indian holiday-makers and long-stay professionals eyeing Thailand will soon need a deeper wallet. The Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi has formally notified travel agents and VFS centres that visa, legalisation and other consular fees for Indian applicants will rise across the board on 27 April 2026. A single-entry tourist visa will now cost ₹3,000 (up from ₹2,500) and a multiple-entry tourist visa jumps to ₹13,500. Transit visas increase to ₹2,500, while non-immigrant categories—which cover business, study and dependent stays—begin at ₹7,000 for a single entry and can reach ₹30,000 for three-year multiple-entry permissions. The steepest surcharges are reserved for the investment-oriented SMART visa band (₹30,000–₹1.2 lakh depending on validity) and the Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa, which rises to ₹1.4 lakh. Legalisation of commercial documents now carries a flat ₹1,400 fee and routine passport or notarial services have also become dearer. Thai authorities say the revision aligns consular charges with the baht’s depreciation against the rupee and funds extended opening hours at visa centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Crucially, the popular 60-day visa-waiver scheme for Indian tourists remains untouched. Indians who stay under two months and enter once continue to pay nothing, provided they hold a confirmed return ticket and proof of THB 10,000 (≈ ₹23,000) in funds. Travel companies therefore see limited impact on short breaks to Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi but predict higher costs for digital nomads, consultants on project work and retirees who favour year-long or multi-entry options. For corporates rotating staff into Thailand, the advice is to budget for the higher government fee in addition to VFS service charges, factor in the longer processing queues expected in the first fortnight after 27 April, and file well-documented applications early—particularly for SMART and LTR categories that require multiple approvals. Travellers already holding an approved e-visa or sticker visa issued before 27 April are unaffected, but any in-process cases that are returned for additional documents will attract the new tariff if re-submitted after the effective date. The move follows similar price increases announced by Vietnam and Indonesia earlier this year, reinforcing a regional trend of post-pandemic revenue recoupment through consular fees. Indian companies with sizeable Southeast-Asia footprints may wish to review their mobility budgets and consider visa-free destinations such as Malaysia or Sri Lanka for short strategy off-sites to contain costs.
Source: The Economic Times
