Guide · This year
What actually changed in Phuket this year
Hotels and rules — each one dated and sourced
2 min read · 4 sources
This page covers only the changes we can date and attribute: the visa rules and hotels, not restaurants. It used to list restaurants as new openings without a single opening date between them.
If you want somewhere to eat, the Michelin and halal guides are the honest answer. Those lists are checked against Michelin’s own selection and against Google’s place records.
At a glance
- Visa-free stay
- 30 days, down from 60, since 15 September 2026
- Entered earlier
- Before 15 September? Keep the stay on your stamp
- New hotels
- No confirmed opening dates — check before you plan around one
- Michelin
- No change — 19 Bib Gourmand, one with halal options
The visa-free stay is now 30 days
Since 15 September 2026 Thailand gives most nationalities, including all six GCC passports, 30 days without a visa instead of 60. The rule was published in the Royal Gazette on 31 August 2026.
Entered before 15 September? You keep the stay on your stamp. For a longer trip, apply for a tourist visa online before you travel.
The hotel pipeline
No confirmed opening dates. Several large hotels have been announced for Phuket in 2026, none with a confirmed public opening date at the time of writing. Treat them as announced rather than open, and check before you build a trip around one.
Bang Tao, Rawai and the north are where they are going, rather than Patong. That is the same shift the halal and prayer guides describe from a different angle — the money is moving off the strip.
- Riu Palace Phuket would be RIU’s first hotel in Thailand, running its 24-hour all-inclusive format.
- Chatrium Rawai Resort is planned for the quieter southern coast.
- MGallery has announced two: Kamaliss MontAzure and Navera Phuket.
- A luxury tented camp has been announced for Bang Tao, billed as the island’s first.
Michelin, unchanged
No change to the Bib list this year: Phuket holds 19 Bib Gourmand restaurants in the 2026 guide plus one star. Nine of the nineteen are Southern Thai and thirteen are cash only — both figures are Michelin’s own filters rather than our count.
Exactly one of the nineteen records halal options. If that matters to you, the halal guide is the page you want, not this one.
Sources
4 sources, each linked in the section it supports.
Photography is licensed stock, credited to Maksim Romashkin on Pexels. Some images show the named place; where no photograph of a venue exists, the picture shows Thailand rather than that venue. Pictures marked as AI illustrations are drawn, not photographed.
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