Thailand Travel Cost Calculator

How much does a trip to Thailand cost?

Your Thailand trip cost depends on your party, dates and cities. Typical daily bands per person are 2,500–5,000 THB ($75–$150) mid-range or 800–1,800 THB ($24–$54) backpacking, before international flights. These are guide estimates.

Worked example: two adults, 12 nights, mid-range, November, Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Krabi, with the Chiang Mai–Krabi journey routed via Bangkok: about THB 74,000 ($2,220) before international flights. The likely band is THB 53,000–THB 112,000. The result above shows the route assumptions.

International flights are excluded from every total. Fares depend on booking date, travel date, route and seats left; we hold no sourced international airfare ranges.

We do not publish a single luxury figure. Our own sources put a luxury day on Koh Samui at 6,000–9,000 THB and in Krabi at 22,000–35,000 — a three- to fourfold gap caused by two research files using incompatible definitions of the word. Until those are rebuilt from one fixed basket, a national luxury average would be a number with no meaning behind it.

MoTS’s 2024 expenditure file records 1,612.6 billion THB across 35.55 million international arrivals: about 45,400 THB per visitor per trip, by division. That averages every trip length, so use it to check a total, not as a daily budget. Source: MoTS expenditure file, read 4 Aug 2026; the methodology links the file.

A national daily average does not account for your party size, month, cities or journeys between them.

Typical daily bands are guide estimates, not official visitor budgets. MoTS/NSO reports 5,172 THB per visitor per day in 2019 (series read 4 Aug 2026), without these travel-style bands. Guide dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026; individual read dates not recorded.

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

Is Thailand expensive to visit?

A mid-range day is estimated at 2,500–5,000 THB ($75–$150) per person before flights. Backpacking costs less, at 800–1,800 THB ($24–$54). Rooms and the route you choose account for much of the difference.

Which costs are low, and which are high?

Street food and shared local transport cost less than Western restaurants and private transfers. Accommodation is the largest line in the default estimate. Compare the cost categories for your plans.

Sampled guide bands, dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026. Named sources and recorded dates. USD uses the BOT buying rate for 12 October 2026, read 14 Oct 2026.

Do foreigners pay more than Thais in Thailand?

At national parks, yes — and by an exact multiple. Thailand’s national park fee schedule sets the foreign rate at five times the Thai rate at every tier, for adults and children alike. Outside the parks it is inconsistent: some sites waive the fee for Thais entirely, others publish one price for everyone.

The table below is the Royal Gazette’s own four-tier schedule. The 5× ratio is written into the schedule: a rule, not a pattern.

Source: DNP Regulation on national park service fees, B.E. 2564 (2021), Royal Gazette, Schedule 1; in force 7 Jun 2022; read 28 Jul 2026. Newly gazetted parks, forest parks, botanical gardens and arboreta default to Group 1 rates.

Fees at ten parks near the main tourist bases

Corrected: Doi Suthep–Pui is a Group 1 park, 100 THB for a foreign adult, not 300. Doi Inthanon, in the same province, is Group 3 and costs 300 THB.

Source: Royal Gazette fee schedule, located by park name in Schedule 1; read 28 Jul 2026.

The parks department can add a special fee at fragile sites inside a park. The 2022 announcement has not been read; treat the tier fee as a minimum.

How much does dual pricing cost you?

Less than the 5× ratio suggests. Dual pricing applies to park and some attraction entry — and to nothing else. Rooms, food, taxis, trains and domestic flights cost the same whoever you are. Add the five sites below to our default trip for two and the foreigner premium is THB 2,280, or roughly 3.1% of the total.

“Foreigners pay five times as much” applies to these entry fees, not the whole trip. The five sites below are priced both ways.

Sources: Royal Gazette national park fee schedule and attraction websites; read 28 Jul 2026. Jim Thompson House publishes one 250 THB rate with no nationality split; we treat that as the Thai rate. Wat Pho and Wat Arun publish no Thai rate, so they are left out.

The Grand Palace is free for Thai nationals, the largest gap in the table at 500 THB.

Who enters national parks free

Children under three are free. Thai nationals aged 60 and over are exempt — but foreign seniors are not, so there is no over-60 discount for visitors. Monks, novices and ordained clergy resident in Thailand are exempt, as are people with disabilities. The schedule also keys off nationality, not residence: a foreigner holding a Thai work permit still pays the foreigner rate under the letter of the regulation.

How does child pricing work at Thai attractions?

There is no national rule; three conventions apply. National parks define a child by age 3–14 or height under 140 cm, whichever qualifies. The Grand Palace and Wat Pho ignore age and use height alone, free under 120 cm. The Jim Thompson House ignores height and uses age alone.

Either test qualifies: a tall twelve-year-old still qualifies on age, and a short sixteen-year-old still qualifies on height. Thai students pay the child rate whatever their age; there is no foreign-student equivalent.

What do Bangkok’s main attractions charge?

500 THB for the Grand Palace, 300 for Wat Pho, 250 for the Jim Thompson House, 200 for Wat Arun and 100 for Wat Saket. Each figure comes from the attraction’s own official page or a Thai government portal, never from an aggregator.

Sources: royalgrandpalace.th, watpho.com, jimthompsonhouse.org and the Tourism Authority of Thailand; read 28 Jul 2026. Where two official sources disagreed we say so in the notes rather than picking one silently.

What does getting around Bangkok cost?

A BTS Skytrain journey costs 17–62 THB by distance; continuing onto the Gold Line adds a flat 16 THB. Source: BTS fare system, read 28 Jul 2026. The half-price senior fare is for Thai nationals only.

Taxis, tuk-tuks and Grab have no tariff we have read. Guide-based estimates (low confidence): a short taxi ride 60–180 THB, a short tuk-tuk hop 80–300. MRT fares are not yet read from the operator, so not shown.

Taxi and tuk-tuk sources: bangkok-spirit.com (read date not recorded); numbeo.com (read date not recorded); travelguidestip.com (read date not recorded); wise.com (read date not recorded); dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026.

On 28 Jul 2026 the BTS still charged distance fares, not the 20-baht flat fare.

MRT and Grab fares are not published here yet. Taxi and tuk-tuk figures elsewhere on this page are sampled from travel guides, not read from a tariff.

Do you need a visa for Thailand, and what does it cost?

Ordinary passport holders from the six countries below can enter for tourism without a visa for up to 30 days, effective 15 September 2026. As of 14 October 2026, the Royal Thai Embassy in Doha lists all six. Extensions are discretionary. Verify the extension duration and fee before travel; we do not price them here.

Source: Royal Thai Embassy, Doha: exemption list and conditions, read 14 October 2026. Check all conditions with your Thai embassy before booking.

Is the Thailand Digital Arrival Card free?

The TDAC is free. Foreign arrivals submit it online within three days before arrival. It is an arrival form, not a visa. Use the official portal.

Sources: official TDAC portal and Royal Thai Embassy, London; as of 14 October 2026.

What is the Thai baht worth, and which rate should you budget at?

When you change dollars into baht, the bank buys your dollars. Use a buying rate for your budget. On 12 October 2026, the Bank of Thailand published buying rates of 33.2667 (sight bills) and 33.3569 (transfers), against a reference rate of 33.5210 THB per dollar.

Our USD estimate uses the lower buying rate as a planning proxy. It is not a cash-note quote; exchange booths, cards and ATMs use their own rates and fees.

Source: Bank of Thailand, FM_FX_001_S3, read 14 October 2026. Latest observation visible in that table: 12 October 2026. Refresh before travel.

Thailand travel costs by destination

City bands overlap and use different sources, so they do not support a precise ranking. Phuket has no typical daily band. The figures below are per person unless marked per room.

Bangkok

Mid-range per person per day: 3,000–5,000 THB ($90–$150) (typical guide band).

Bangkok street dishes are sampled at 40–100 THB. Mid-range rooms are estimated at 1,000–3,500 a night, worked back from guide budgets. Cocktails are estimated at 150–600, extrapolated from beer prices with no menu cited. Official attraction and rail fares are listed in their own sections.

Chiang Mai

Mid-range per person per day: 2,500–3,800 THB ($75–$114) (typical guide band).

Chiang Mai costs less mainly on rooms and food. Mid-range rooms are estimated at 800–3,000 THB a night, and a street dish starts at 30 THB. A shared songthaew is 20–60 THB and a scooter 150–400 a day. Western mains are sampled at 280–1,200. Some room estimates use monthly rents, which are a weak basis for nightly tourist prices.

Phuket

Mid-range per person per day: 2,700–9,600 THB ($81–$289) (outer span; no typical band).

A short Phuket tuk-tuk hop is sampled at 200–600 THB. Named-attraction fees remain unsourced.

Koh Samui

Mid-range per person per day: 2,500–3,500 THB ($75–$105) (typical guide band).

A short Koh Samui taxi ride is sampled at 150–400 THB; no tuk-tuk price is sourced. See Flights for the costs of reaching the island.

Krabi

Mid-range per person per day: 2,800–4,500 THB ($84–$135) (typical guide band).

Within Krabi, the area matters. Krabi Town and Tonsai cost less than Ao Nang. Railay has no road access and higher room, food and beer prices in the sampled guides. A shared long-tail crossing is 100–200 THB per person.

Per-city daily bands are sampled or estimated from secondary guides; accommodation, the largest line in every one of them, has no high-confidence figure in any city. Luxury bands are not comparable between cities and are deliberately not shown side by side. Phuket has no typical band at any tier because the research published only outer spans. Confidence ratings come from our review of the dataset. Sampled dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026; official park, attraction and BTS fees read 28 Jul 2026.

Flights

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

What does a week, two weeks or a month in Thailand cost?

Multiply the typical daily band by your nights. Per person, before flights and travel between cities: a week is 5,600–12,600 THB as a backpacker or 17,500–35,000 mid-range; a month (30 nights) is 24,000–54,000 or 75,000–150,000.

USD at the BOT buying rate for 12 October 2026, read 14 Oct 2026. This table multiplies daily bands; it does not combine category extremes.

Worked trips from the calculator

A week, two of us, Bangkok and Krabi in November: about THB 42,000. One person backpacking Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Krabi and Koh Samui for 30 nights in May: about THB 38,000. These include the engine’s intercity journeys, seasonal adjustments and contingency; international flights remain excluded.

Longer trips can involve more journeys between cities. The table excludes these; the calculator prices its available routes separately. We apply no long-stay discount because monthly residential rents do not establish nightly tourist prices.

A long trip may span two seasons. See Seasonal prices for the limits of our month adjustments.

Daily bands are sampled, not official. The table excludes international flights, intercity journeys and seasonal adjustments. Guide dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026; individual read dates not recorded.

Seasonal prices

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

Cost breakdown by category

Accommodation is the largest line in most budgets. Food, transport and activities depend on how you travel. The figures below distinguish guide estimates from official fees; daily room rates are per room and meal prices per person.

Accommodation

Mid-range doubles are estimated at 800–3,000 THB a night in Chiang Mai, 1,000–3,500 in Bangkok, 1,200–3,500 on Koh Samui, 1,200–6,000 in Krabi and 1,500–5,000 in Phuket; dorm beds run 120–900. Most room bands were worked back from guide budgets, or from monthly rents in Chiang Mai. The methodology compares these bands with BOT/MoTS room-rate and spending statistics.

Food and drink

Food is the strongest group in the research, although confidence differs by item. A street dish is 30–150 THB, a local restaurant main 50–250, a mid-range meal 150–1,000, a Western main 200–1,200 and bottled water 7–35. Samui’s convenience-meal band includes a fast-food combo; its water price is for 1–1.5 litres, compared with 0.5–0.6 litres elsewhere. These two comparisons use different baskets.

Getting around

Bangkok BTS fares are in Getting around Bangkok. Other local transport prices come from guides: Bangkok’s taxi flagfall is 35 THB, a short taxi ride 60–180, a Phuket tuk-tuk 200–600 and a Samui taxi 150–400. The Airport Rail Link to Phaya Thai is sampled at 45 THB; we have not read its tariff.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Phuket, Krabi and Koh Samui

Guide estimates for Bangkok–Chiang Mai are 350–450 THB in a second-class fan seat, 500–900 by overnight bus and 800–1,200 in an air-conditioned sleeper. Bangkok–Phuket or Krabi is 700–1,100 on an overnight bus. Flight prices and the Samui alternatives have their own section below. No SRT, Transport Co or ferry tariff was retrieved.

Activities and entrance fees

Official park and Bangkok attraction fees are in the fee tables above, including the unresolved Wat Arun conflict. Guide estimates for tours run 400–4,000 THB for a half-day and 800–8,000 for a full day; an hour of Thai massage is 150–900. A bar beer is 70–220 and a cocktail 150–600. Convenience-store beer has no verified shelf price.

Guide dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026; individual read dates not recorded. Official park, attraction and BTS fees were read 28 Jul 2026. No accommodation price is high-confidence. Food evidence is stronger, but it remains secondary research.

Getting around Bangkok

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

How much does it cost to fly to Thailand?

The calculator excludes international flights: we hold no verified fare ranges by origin. Domestic one-way guide estimates are 1,000–3,000 THB from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and 1,000–4,000 to Phuket. Koh Samui’s alternatives are below.

The calculator leaves international flights out of the total. Check fares live for your dates and add them yourself.

Guide-based timing estimates are provisional; check live fares for your dates. We have no measured international airfare discount by month.

Domestic hops are short: Bangkok to Chiang Mai 1h10–1h20, to Phuket or Krabi 1h20–1h30, to Koh Samui 1h05–1h15. Chiang Mai to Phuket is about two hours direct, or four to six via Bangkok. International times are in the table below.

Koh Samui is the exception: the guide research lists Bangkok Airways as Samui Airport’s owner and scheduled operator, with Thai Airways codeshare seats. Bangkok–Samui flights are sampled at 3,500–7,000 THB one way, commonly around 4,500. Alternatives are 700–1,100 by overnight bus and ferry, 1,400–1,450 by VIP bus and high-speed catamaran, or 1,200–2,500 to fly to Surat Thani and continue by bus and ferry.

Domestic fares and durations are guide estimates, not operator tariffs; dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026, individual read dates not recorded. FlightsFrom.com scheduled durations were read 3–4 Aug 2026. No international airfare is included.

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

How long is the flight to Thailand?

From Europe it is a single hop of roughly eleven hours; from Australia seven hours (Perth) to ten (Sydney); from India under five. From the United States there is no nonstop at all — the estimated flight-and-connection time is 19–22 hours from the west coast and 22.5–24 from the east.

Nonstop times are scheduled averages from FlightsFrom.com, read 3–4 August 2026. From Australia, Perth is shortest at about seven hours; Sydney is 9h20–9h50. US totals add two published leg times and an assumed two-hour connection. Check your own flight; schedules change.

Do you need travel insurance for Thailand, and what does it cost?

Not for entry as a tourist. Insurance is not a condition of entry and has not been since Thailand Pass ended in July 2022. Median premiums paid by UK buyers for a fortnight (MoneySuperMarket sales, April–July 2026) run about £28.50 for one adult, £51.60 for a couple and £66.53 for a family, with no pre-existing medical conditions. Read date not recorded; research compiled 4 Aug 2026.

Insurance is mandatory for some long-stay visas. Check the conditions for your visa and your own policy.

US buyers on Squaremouth averaged USD 8 a day, or USD 112 for 14 days by multiplication. Read date not recorded; research compiled 4 Aug 2026. We hold no sourced INR premium.

MoneySuperMarket’s UK sales show a median £66.53 for a family policy against £51.60 for a couple. The source does not define family size, so the roughly 1.3-times ratio is only a guide.

Does travel insurance cover motorbike accidents in Thailand?

Riding without the right licence can invalidate your cover. The UK Foreign Office states plainly that riding without a valid licence “could invalidate your travel insurance and you’ll be unable to claim if you have an accident”, and that policies expect you to hold the correct home licence for that class of vehicle. If you could not legally ride it at home, your insurer may decline in Thailand. One Australian insurer, Budget Direct (read date not recorded; research compiled 4 Aug 2026), limits its optional riding cover to motorcycles up to 250cc and requires a licence and helmet. Check your own policy before hiring.

Thai hospitals generally require a guarantee of payment before treatment. In practice that means you pay and claim back, so a policy you cannot reach at 2am is not much use.

Insurance price sources: MoneySuperMarket — read date not recorded; source date: 2026-06-19 (page 'Updated' date). Squaremouth — read date not recorded; source date: page labelled 2026. HelloSafe — read date not recorded; source date: 2026-07-27 (page 'Last updated'). Research compiled 4 Aug 2026.

Entry requirement verified against the UK FCDO Thailand entry-requirements page (updated 30 June 2026), which lists passport validity, the arrival card, overstay penalties and yellow fever — and mentions insurance nowhere. Premiums are median amounts paid for single-trip Thailand cover with no pre-existing conditions. Age-banded premiums for over-50s are not published anywhere we could verify first-hand, so we do not quote them.

Is Thailand cheaper than Vietnam, Bali or Malaysia?

Mostly no, and that surprises people. On one consistent traveller-budget basis, Thailand is the second most expensive of six Southeast Asian destinations — cheaper only than Malaysia. Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines all come in below it.

Thailand’s reputation as the budget option is a decade out of date at the mid-range end. What it still has over its neighbours is infrastructure: the cheap end is cheap everywhere in the region, but Thailand’s transport, hospitals and English-language tourism industry are considerably more developed than Cambodia’s or the Philippines’. You are paying a premium, and largely getting something for it.

All six figures pulled the same day from the same crowd-sourced traveller-budget platform, via the same endpoint its own travel-style selector uses, with identical style definitions — a comparison assembled from six different methodologies would be worthless. It is secondary data, and single point averages rather than measured ranges. No official body publishes tourist daily costs for these countries.

How to travel Thailand on a budget

Eat where prices are posted, use Bangkok rail, consider an overnight train or bus, and compare areas within a city before booking a room. Check the transport and accommodation prices together: a lower fare may also replace a hotel night.

Eat where the prices are published on a board. A street dish is 30–150 THB across our five cities and a main in a local restaurant 50–250, against 200–1,200 for a Western main. Three street meals a day is 90–450 THB by simple multiplication; one Western dinner can cost more than the day around it.

In Bangkok, use the rail. The sampled Airport Rail Link fare to Phaya Thai is 45 THB, against 350–550 for an airport taxi. Compare the BTS and short taxi fares in Getting around Bangkok.

Go overnight and the fare covers the journey and a place to sleep. Bangkok to Chiang Mai is sampled at 500–900 THB by overnight bus or 800–1,200 in an air-conditioned sleeper, against 1,000–3,000 to fly. The night on board can replace a room.

Compare areas within a city before booking. See By destination for Krabi’s differences and boat access. Only hire a scooter if you hold a motorcycle licence your insurer accepts; see Travel insurance.

Treat the calculator’s month effect as provisional; see Seasonal prices. Food, local transport and park fees receive no seasonal adjustment in the model.

Check the official fee and child-pricing tables above before budgeting for attractions. Do not assume a senior discount: the over-60 national park exemption applies to Thai nationals only.

Food, taxi, tour, ferry and hotel prices are sampled from guides; dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026, individual read dates not recorded. Rail and park evidence is linked in their own sections.

Getting around Bangkok

Named secondary sources and recorded dates.

Does the time of year change what Thailand costs?

Park entry fees stay flat through the year. Room rates vary, but our monthly adjustments come from travel guides. The Bank of Thailand national room-rate series peaks in May and bottoms in September, unlike those guide curves. Treat the calculator’s month effect as provisional.

The Similan and Surin marine parks close roughly mid-May to mid-October. Park-run lodging is 30% off Monday to Thursday outside public holidays.

Royal Gazette fee schedule, read 28 Jul 2026; BOT/MOTS room-rate series, read 4 Aug 2026. The calculator still uses the guide-based seasonal assumptions.

Frequently asked questions

How much money do I need per day in Thailand?

Typical guide bands are 800–1,800 THB ($24–$54) per person backpacking or 2,500–5,000 THB ($75–$150) mid-range. International flights are extra. These national bands do not account for your party, season or route. Use the calculator for a total built from your selected cities and nights.

How much does a week in Thailand cost?

Seven nights cost 5,600–12,600 THB ($168–$379) per person backpacking or 17,500–35,000 THB ($526–$1,052) mid-range, before international flights and travel between cities. This is a daily-band multiplication from guide estimates. The calculator adds available intercity journeys and adjusts rooms for your party and month.

How much does two weeks in Thailand cost?

Fourteen nights at the typical mid-range daily band cost 35,000–70,000 THB ($1,052–$2,104) per person, before international flights and intercity travel. For two people, shared rooms affect the result, so use the calculator instead of simply doubling a per-person allowance. All these bands come from secondary guides.

Is USD 1,000 enough for two weeks in Thailand?

At our dated BOT buying-rate proxy, USD 1,000 is about THB 33,300. That exceeds the 11,200–25,200 THB backpacker band for 14 nights, but falls below the 35,000 THB mid-range low. Flights and journeys between cities are extra; these bands do not guarantee your costs.

Does this estimate include international flights?

No. International airfares are excluded from the headline total, its range and every preset. We hold no sourced international fare ranges. Price flights live for your dates and add them yourself. Domestic journeys between selected cities are included where sourced; any unavailable journey is shown as excluded.

Which exchange rate should you budget at?

When you exchange dollars for baht, the bank buys your dollars. Budget at a buying rate. Our conversion uses the Bank of Thailand buying sight-bill rate of 33.2667 THB/USD for 12 October 2026, read 14 October. It is a planning proxy: cash booths, cards and ATMs apply their own rates and fees.

How we calculate these costs

A Meyer Digital analysis, compiled from the official and secondary sources cited below.

We use official fees, fares and exchange rates where available, and secondary sources for rooms, food, taxis and tours. Sampled figures come from travel guides, price aggregators and other cost calculators. Modelled figures are calculations and assumptions based on those inputs. Missing prices are marked “not published” or excluded with a note. Source dates differ; each section states its evidence and limits.

AI disclosure: AI tools helped research and draft this page. Meyer Digital chose the sources, took each figure from the source named beside it, and tested the calculator’s arithmetic.

Parity tests compare calculations made during the site build with calculations using the browser dataset. They do not verify source prices. Sampled guide prices have not been independently re-verified.

Where the numbers come from

• National park fees — the DNP fee regulation (B.E. 2564), read 28 Jul 2026, published in the Royal Gazette, read tier by tier, plus the Department of National Parks.
• Attraction admission — official attraction or TAT pages, read 28 Jul 2026: Grand Palace & Wat Phra Kaew; Wat Pho (Reclining Buddha); Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn); Jim Thompson House Museum; Wat Saket / Golden Mount;
• Rail fares — the BTS Skytrain operator’s own fare system; read 28 Jul 2026.
• Exchange rates — the Bank of Thailand reference and counter rates for 12 Oct 2026; read 14 Oct 2026.
• Entry requirements — the Royal Thai Embassy, Doha exemption list and the official TDAC portal; visa and TDAC sources read 14 Oct 2026.
• Inflation — we do not age prices forward. Check the source dates before using a figure.

Secondary sources we sample

• FlightsFrom.com — scheduled flight durations, read 3–4 Aug 2026; exact route dates appear in the flight table.
• MoneySuperMarket — insurance prices; read date not recorded. Source date: 2026-06-19 (page 'Updated' date); research compiled 4 Aug 2026.
• Squaremouth — insurance prices; read date not recorded. Source date: page labelled 2026; research compiled 4 Aug 2026.
• HelloSafe — insurance prices; read date not recorded. Source date: 2026-07-27 (page 'Last updated'); research compiled 4 Aug 2026.

Official statistical cross-checks use the World Bank price-level indicators (read 4 Aug 2026) and BOT/MoTS tourism indicators (read 4 Aug 2026). These are primary statistics, not secondary travel guides. Links to the tourism series and expenditure file appear below.

We checked our own weakest number against official statistics

Accommodation is the largest line in almost every budget and it was the part of our data we trusted least, so we tested it against the Bank of Thailand’s tourism indicators (series EC_EI_028_S2, drawn from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ Accommodation Occupancy Survey). The published national average room rate for 2024 is 1,884 THB, and 2,062 THB for the central region including Bangkok.

At first glance that looked like it contradicted us — our mid-range band runs 1,000–3,500 THB, so a national average of 1,884 seemed to put our band too high. It does not. That series is a room-weighted average of all accommodation in all 77 provinces, including sub-500-baht domestic stock, and only 21.5% of the guests it averages are foreign visitors. It is not measuring the kind of room a foreign tourist books. When you instead use the ministry’s own expenditure survey — accommodation is 34.44% of international tourist spending — the room rate international visitors pay works out at roughly 3,000–3,400 THB a night, which sits inside our band, in its upper half. This is a cross-check, not a room-price sample.

The working is about 4,899 THB per visitor-night (2024 MoTS spending of 45,367 THB per trip divided by the MoTS/NSO 2019 stay length of 9.26 nights; both read 4 Aug 2026) × 34.44% lodging share (MoTS 2024 expenditure file, read 4 Aug 2026) × 1.8–2 guests per room (our assumption recorded 4 Aug 2026) ≈ 3,000–3,400 THB per room-night. The 2024 stay length and observed guests per room are unavailable; this is a conditional cross-check, not a measured 2024 room price.

The official monthly series shows the national average room rate peaking in May and bottoming in September, which is not the November-to-February high season our seasonal adjustments assume. Those adjustments came from travel guides, not measurements, and they await revision. Until then, treat the effect of changing the month as provisional.

How the range is combined

We sum typical category costs. For each end of the range, we square each category’s distance from its typical cost, add those squares and take the square root. This assumes categories vary roughly independently. Within a category we add costs for all nights and legs. Contingency scales the resulting range.

Guide dataset compiled 27 Jul 2026. Secondary sources include published travel guides, price aggregators and rival calculators. Flight durations: FlightsFrom.com, read 3–4 Aug 2026. Insurance: MoneySuperMarket, Squaremouth and HelloSafe, compiled 4 Aug 2026.

Room-rate check: BOT/MOTS EC_EI_028_S2, MoTS 2024 expenditure file and MoTS/NSO average-stay series; read 4 Aug 2026.

The 27 Jul 2026 research audit tracked 361 prices: 6.6% high confidence and 58.5% low confidence or missing. It rated 31 of 45 local-transport prices and 27 of 50 intercity fares low confidence. These are the original audit counts, before later corrections.

What we will not do

A figure taken from another cost site is counted as low confidence. These are sampled inputs, not official or directly observed prices. The intercity research has a pooled bibliography, not a citation for each fare, so we do not claim an operator tariff or a source count for those fares.

We also do not publish a precise-looking total we cannot defend. Sections marked as being verified are exactly that: they will carry ranges and provenance when they land, not a tidy single number.