BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand has expanded access to automated immigration gates at Suvarnabhumi Airport to 33 foreign nationalities, with 31 additional countries gaining access to the electronic facilities, provided the traveller has previously visited Thailand on the same passport and has provided biometric data at an immigration counter. Authorities have stressed that if a passport has been changed, the traveller must complete the biometric registration process again.

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The nationalities now eligible for the autogate system include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

Citizens of the United States remain ineligible for the facility and must continue to use the manual counter, though they can utilise the priority counter with a First or Business Class ticket or an APEC Business Travel Card if they hold one. Questions remain over whether travellers with an actual visa or e-visa can use the electronic gates, as while the Thailand Digital Arrival Card is mandatory and requires entrants to enter their existing visa number, immigration officers have so far had to manually scan e-visas for processing on each entry.

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The expansion is part of Thailand’s broader effort to streamline immigration procedures and reduce congestion at its busiest international gateway, which has long faced criticism over lengthy queues during peak travel periods. By allowing more nationalities to use the automated gates, authorities hope to speed up processing times while maintaining security standards through biometric verification, though the requirement for prior visits and biometric enrolment means first-time visitors from the newly eligible countries will still need to use manual counters until their data is registered in the system.

-Thailand News (TN)