Visa Run From Chiang Mai

This is the run nearly everyone in Chiang Mai does. You leave Thailand at the Chiang Khong checkpoint, ride the shuttle bus across Friendship Bridge IV, enter Laos at Huay Xai on a Lao visa, then turn around and come back over the bridge for a new 30-day Thai stamp. Agency pages give the border's hours as 06:00 to 22:00.

On your own, the bus to take is the GreenBus Express Combo from Chiang Mai's Arcade terminal at 08:30, due in Chiang Khong at 14:10 for ฿434 on 12Go, or ฿663 in VIP. A 09:30 Express arrives at 16:25, and minivans leave at 09:00 for ฿700–850. One traveler who made the 08:30 trip says the bus reached the bridge turnoff around 14:30, a tuk-tuk to the checkpoint cost ฿50, and the whole crossing, out and back, took under an hour.

At the border you get your Thai exit stamp, buy a ticket for the bridge bus, which agencies list at ฿20 in normal hours, ฿25 off-hours and ฿40 after 18:00, and pay for the Lao visa on the far side. Then you walk back through Lao exit, take the bus back over and queue at Thai immigration with a new TDAC on your phone.

Coming back the same day depends on two afternoon vans, at 15:45 and 16:00, which reach Chiang Mai at 20:15 and 20:30 for ฿700–750. With the 08:30 bus on time that leaves about 90 minutes for the crossing, and 12Go doesn't say whether the vans board in town or at the bridge. I wouldn't count on it. Book a room in Chiang Khong from about ฿250 and take the morning GreenBus back, at 09:30 or 10:30, arriving around 16:10 to 16:35.

The agency version is a minibus that picks you up between 06:30 and 07:30, drives about five hours to Chiang Khong, waits while you cross and has you back in Chiang Mai between about 17:00 and 19:00. The appeal is the timing, since the van waits for you and the public vans don't.

Prices depend on what's in your passport. Two agency pages list ฿5,300 for travelers on the visa exemption, ฿4,300 for visa holders and ฿2,000 for transport only, which they sell to visa holders alone, and both leave the Lao visa out, at ฿2,000 paid at the border. A Chiang Mai expat guide reviewed in September 2026 quotes ฿2,500–4,500 with the visa included. Ask what the price covers before you pay, and ask how many land entries you've used this year, because a good agency will ask you the same thing.

Some agencies also arrange Chiang Saen, where a boat crosses the Mekong to Ton Pheung in Laos near the Golden Triangle. It's quoted case by case rather than sold as a regular trip, and it counts as a land entry like the bridge.

Mae Sai, the old favorite into Tachileik in Myanmar, has been closed to foreigners since mid-2024 according to Chiang Mai guides updated in September 2026, with no reopening date. I couldn't find an official Thai notice either way. The UK Foreign Office also advises against all but essential travel to the part of Shan State that Tachileik sits in, which can matter for your insurance. Some agency pages still carry Mae Sai in their titles, so read what they actually sell.

Huay Kon, in Nan province, is an international crossing into Laos, but it's far from Chiang Mai and Laos stopped issuing visas on arrival there in 2019, according to the Laotian Times. I found nothing newer, so it isn't a practical run. Mae Sot to Myawaddy is out entirely, since the UK advises against all travel to Kayin State.

Chiang Mai's airport has nonstop flights to three useful places. AirAsia flies to Kuala Lumpur every day at 09:10, with a second flight at about 15:40 on most days, about three hours in the air. Scoot flies to Singapore daily at 12:05, landing at 16:20. Lao Airlines flies to Luang Prabang once a day in the afternoon, about 50 minutes, and the airport there takes the Lao e-visa. Coming back by air doesn't use a land entry, but the November 2025 screening still applies, so a few days away reads better at the desk than a same-day return.

There's no nonstop to Vientiane. You'd connect in Bangkok, or fly to Udon Thani, which Thai AirAsia serves from Chiang Mai a few times a week, and cross at Nong Khai, which counts as a land entry. Penang has no nonstop from Chiang Mai either.

If what you need is a proper visa rather than a new stamp, the Royal Thai Embassy in Vientiane is the nearest consulate, and it works differently now. Foreigners in Vientiane and the northern Lao provinces, Bokeo and Luang Prabang included, apply online through thaievisa.go.th, and the embassy says processing takes about 5 to 10 working days after the fee is paid. You pay in cash, in baht, at the Consular Section on Bourichan Road between 09:00 and 12:00 on weekdays, and you don't hand in your passport.

That makes it a trip of a week or more, not the two or three days older guides describe. And since 31 August 2026 the embassy only takes Destination Thailand Visa applications from Lao nationals or permanent residents of Laos, so a DTV is no longer something you go to Vientiane for.

Since 15 September 2026 the exemption is 30 days, and visa-exempt entries over a land border are capped at two per calendar year, with Malaysian, Bruneian, Indonesian and Singaporean passports exempt. Since November 2025, immigration at airports and borders can refuse entry to anyone who has done more than two runs without a reason they can explain. Thai authorities haven't said whether land entries earlier in 2026 count toward this year's two, though one Chiang Mai agency tells customers the count restarted on 15 September. I wouldn't rely on that. The full rules, with the official sources, are in our visa run guide.