The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Thailand has just announced that they will replace the Certificate of Entry (COE) system for international air travelers from November 1, 2021 and replace it with a digital solution called “Thailand Pass”.
Travelers will fill in particulars through an application that is going to be available at a later point this month for their travel to the Kingdom although the COE system will remain in place for certain categories of travel.
Those who travel as part of of group arrivals, by sea (yacht & cruise ships) as well as Alternative Hospital Quarantine (AHQ) stays will continue to use the established COE system for the time being.
This was presented during a press conference that’s available online where the following chart was produced:
Required information for the app to produce an entry code as per this chart will be:
- Passport Information
- Vaccination Certificate
- Covid-19 Health Insurance Coverage
- SHA+/AQ Hotel Booking
What’s obviously missing from this list is the requirement of pre-paid COVID-19 PCR tests which have previously been mandatory.
As there has always been the talk of “opening the country” on November 1st it’s still somewhat unclear what this will entail and under what framework. The last part of required information for this suggests that SHA+ hotel bookings are still required even for those who have a residence in Thailand such as a house or an apartment.
Here is the official summary:
In related news, media has reported the CCSA meeting which was chaired by the Prime Minister today (Thursday) has NOT revealed any additional list of countries eligible to travel to Thailand under eased condition per November 1st.
As I wrote a couple days ago when this was first announced, originally the list was supposed to include ten countries but so far it only includes five: United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, China and the United States.
Meanwhile the the CCSA meeting has given the green light to reduce the curfew time to 11pm-3am to help the people and prepare for the re-opening of the country, effective 16th October. This considerably improves life in the areas where the curfew was actively enforced such as Bangkok. To have everything close as early as 8pm in order for people to get home on time was rather inconvenient and unusual.
Conclusion
The Certificate of Entry System as we know it will soon be history soon for most travelers which will make the organization of trips slightly easier, not that I had much trouble getting mine in advance.
It’s certainly going to take a lot of work load off the MFA that was tasked to process these COE’s and was working extended hours to get them issued after checking (and often refusing) the applications.
For some reason it’s still not possible for the various agencies to come out with a clear policy and list of who will eventually be allowed to travel back to Thailand under some construct of freedom again as of November 1st and every week they keep this in limbo will cost them in bookings.
