DLT to submit foreign car regulations for Thai Cabinet approval

[webfact]

DLT to submit foreign car regulations for Cabinet approval

BANGKOK, 05 April 2016 (NNT) – The Department of Land Transport (DLT) has finalized its requirements for bringing foreign vehicles into Thailand on holiday. The regulations were prompted by several road accidents involving vehicles brought in from China.

DLT Director-General Sanit Promwong reported on the progress made to draft regulations for foreign vehicles crossing the border into Thailand. The department will submit its proposed regulations for Cabinet approval this week and subsequent promulgation in the Government Gazette. The DLT chief expects the new rules to take effect in June.

According to the proposed regulations, motor vehicles entering the Kingdom on a temporary basis must not have more than nine seats, including the driver, or exceed a total weight of 3.5 metric tons. The rules would not apply to vans, RVs, or motorcycles, which are only permitted within the customs checkpoint area.

Foreign vehicles traveling in Thailand would also be limited to a 30-day stay, for a total of 60 days a year. Permit applications would have to be filed through registered tour companies to the DLT office belonging to the province of entry. The applications must also be filed at least 10 business days in advance.

At the customs checkpoint, the driver must produce his or her passport, the appropriate vehicle permit with at least six months before its expiration date, the vehicle's registration, photos of the vehicle, safety inspection documents, travel details, and proof of at least Level 3 car insurance.

-- NNT 2016-04-05

[khwaibah]

Why not just aim this at the Chines as it is it will only cripple any cross border traffic between Lao, Cambodian, Vietnam, and Thai registered vehicles.

Edited April 5, 2016 by khwaibah

[bangkokfrog]

Welcome to "free movement" between AEC countries. To get back at China, they are effectively making touring by private car almost impossible from all neighboring countries. As usual, a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

[gandalf12]

How about adding a certificate certifying that the driver can actually drive and not just aim a vehicle in a general direction?

Edited April 5, 2016 by gandalf12

[CHRISTIANa9]

This not tonight work at the Malaysia Thai border. 60 days ain't enuff

[Tomtomtom69]

Why not just aim this at the Chines as it is it will only cripple any cross border traffic between Lao, Cambodian, Vietnam, and Thai registered vehicles.

I am quite sure you have read the previous news stories on this topic.

As previously stated, these new rules will NOT apply to Lao, Malaysian and Singaporean plates, which have an existing pact with Thailand.

Thai vehicles will also continue to be allowed to enter those countries.

​Cambodian and Burmese vehicles will continue to be allowed in, but only near the border as is currently the case - I suspect however that enforcement on Cambodian vehicles, to make sure they don't leave the border province will be intensified. As there are plenty of military and/or police checkpoints on some of the roads away from the Cambodian border anyway (particularly in Trat province, where there's 4 checkpoints altogether, one being at the provincial boundary and the other three on the Trat-Hat Lek road) that shouldn't be especially difficult to enforce.

Vietnamese vehicles have never been allowed into Thailand and according to the previous news story, there will be stricter enforcement to make sure Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Burmese vehicles (the latter two as just mentioned will only be permitted near the border) can't enter Thailand without permission anymore.

Nothing will really change for Burmese vehicles though - they have never been allowed to leave the border town entered. Currently they can only drive around Mae Sai if coming through that border or Mae Sot if coming through there. It is forbidden for them to drive even to Chiang Rai or Tak, respectively, so these new rules won't change anything for them.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Tomtomtom69

[Tomtomtom69]

Welcome to "free movement" between AEC countries. To get back at China, they are effectively making touring by private car almost impossible from all neighboring countries. As usual, a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

No. They are only enforcing these regulations on vehicles from countries with which Thailand does not have a pact on international motor vehicle usage.

​Currently Thailand and Laos, Malaysia and Singapore have pacts for private vehicles.

Myanmar and Cambodia don't although some borders allow limited distance travel from the border, with an additional requirement at the Mae Sot/Myawady crossing where Thai vehicles can only remain in Myanmar during the day (and is reciprocated by the Thais for Burmese vehicles coming to Mae Sot).

Thailand has official agreements for trucks entering Vietnam and for buses and trucks entering Cambodia, which will also remain unaffected.

This ruling will mainly affect Chinese cars. As you can tell, campervans and motorcycles will no longer be allowed to enter the country, though funnily this news story now has campervans being allowed to drive to the Thai side, but must be parked in the customs area. That's quite unusual, because if you want to take a motor vehicle via say Laos or Cambodia to Vietnam, usually the customs officials of those countries won't let your vehicle leave if they know you can't meet Vietnamese customs entry requirements. This means for Thai vehicles for example, if you haven't made pre-arrangements, then they won't let your vehicle enter the country.

[Tomtomtom69]

This not tonight work at the Malaysia Thai border. 60 days ain't enuff

Nothing will change for Malaysian cars since they will be exempted from these new rules.

I would have liked to link the Bangkok Post news story here but since that isn't allowed, I'll tell you how to find it.

Go to the "business" section, then under "travel and tourism" find the article entitled "Foreign tourists to face strict curbs driving into Thailand" from March 15.

You'll see it mentions that Malaysian and Singaporean vehicles, as well as those from Laos will be exempted. If you can read Thai, plenty of articles in Thai also confirm this.

[bangkokfrog]

Welcome to "free movement" between AEC countries. To get back at China, they are effectively making touring by private car almost impossible from all neighboring countries. As usual, a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

No. They are only enforcing these regulations on vehicles from countries with which Thailand does not have a pact on international motor vehicle usage.

​Currently Thailand and Laos, Malaysia and Singapore have pacts for private vehicles.

Myanmar and Cambodia don't although some borders allow limited distance travel from the border, with an additional requirement at the Mae Sot/Myawady crossing where Thai vehicles can only remain in Myanmar during the day (and is reciprocated by the Thais for Burmese vehicles coming to Mae Sot).

Thailand has official agreements for trucks entering Vietnam and for buses and trucks entering Cambodia, which will also remain unaffected.

This ruling will mainly affect Chinese cars. As you can tell, campervans and motorcycles will no longer be allowed to enter the country, though funnily this news story now has campervans being allowed to drive to the Thai side, but must be parked in the customs area. That's quite unusual, because if you want to take a motor vehicle via say Laos or Cambodia to Vietnam, usually the customs officials of those countries won't let your vehicle leave if they know you can't meet Vietnamese customs entry requirements. This means for Thai vehicles for example, if you haven't made pre-arrangements, then they won't let your vehicle enter the country.

Thank you... point taken. Misleading headline as usual.

[Tomtomtom69]

Sorry that should be the "Transport and tourism" section of the business section of Bangkok Post.

[Tomtomtom69]

Welcome to "free movement" between AEC countries. To get back at China, they are effectively making touring by private car almost impossible from all neighboring countries. As usual, a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

No. They are only enforcing these regulations on vehicles from countries with which Thailand does not have a pact on international motor vehicle usage.

​Currently Thailand and Laos, Malaysia and Singapore have pacts for private vehicles.

Myanmar and Cambodia don't although some borders allow limited distance travel from the border, with an additional requirement at the Mae Sot/Myawady crossing where Thai vehicles can only remain in Myanmar during the day (and is reciprocated by the Thais for Burmese vehicles coming to Mae Sot).

Thailand has official agreements for trucks entering Vietnam and for buses and trucks entering Cambodia, which will also remain unaffected.

This ruling will mainly affect Chinese cars. As you can tell, campervans and motorcycles will no longer be allowed to enter the country, though funnily this news story now has campervans being allowed to drive to the Thai side, but must be parked in the customs area. That's quite unusual, because if you want to take a motor vehicle via say Laos or Cambodia to Vietnam, usually the customs officials of those countries won't let your vehicle leave if they know you can't meet Vietnamese customs entry requirements. This means for Thai vehicles for example, if you haven't made pre-arrangements, then they won't let your vehicle enter the country.

Thank you... point taken. Misleading headline as usual.

This story has run a few times already and I basically know all the details off by heart. It's typical for different news outlets to "forget" certain critical information. This seems to be one of these cases.

I think the reason for this update is that we now have cabinet approval pending and an approximate date for implementation. Previous updates never gave us a timetrame as to when the new rules would go into effect - now we have June as the likely date.

[SpaceKadet]

So what now? No more Phuket Bike Week where there are bikers from all over the world. Many ship their bikes to Malaysia and enter through there.

Now they will only get to "customs checkpoint area", whatever that is, and get stuck there?

[nong38]

They should look at home first and put their own house in order, make sure all the items that are on the road in Thailand are fit to be on the road which we all know they are not. So long as it starts, no need for a brake test, and any fumes are coming out the back then its fit to go! I think that is the mindset, now I know it makes work for people to enforce the law but until people start to do the job they are paid to do, from the top to the bottom the roads here are going to continue to a death trap and for a country where tourism is 10% GDP this needs to dealt with yesterday, last year.

[Tomtomtom69]

So what now? No more Phuket Bike Week where there are bikers from all over the world. Many ship their bikes to Malaysia and enter through there.

Now they will only get to "customs checkpoint area", whatever that is, and get stuck there?

Oh boo hoo.

A couple of bikers who've spent more money on shipping their motorcycles halfway around the world than the bikes are worth will be inconvenienced.

Here's a friendly suggestion - they could look into buying a bike in Thailand and showing it off at the Bike Week, or perhaps renting one.

Or they could still ride a Malaysian plated bike to the show.

There you go, problem solved.

[Tomtomtom69]

Just read an article posted today (in Thai) which suggests the new rules will come into force May 23rd. Yesterday they were saying beginning of June but now May 23rd seems to be the date of implementation.

​Strangely though, according to the article motorcycles may now be allowed to enter after all, upon payment of a 200 Baht entry fee and 1000 Baht for a special plate. However, they would still be restricted from driving further than the border province entered (for example Songkhla) unless contact is made through a tour operator. Also, convoys will not be permitted to ride independently. They will require a tour guide and police escort and before they are allowed to enter the country and proceed beyond the border province entered, itineraries need to be submitted as well as going through a Thai tourism operator.

Not that much different to Burmese, Chinese and Vietnamese requirements.