A vape carried for personal use is not exempt from Thailand's ban, and the ban does not only target shops. The import ban covers the devices, the sale ban covers devices and liquids sold by any business, and none of the official sources read for this guide carves out an allowance for personal use.
The ban dates from 2014. The Royal Thai Embassy in London says it "was introduced in 2014 by the Thai Government for health reasons", and it has been reinforced since, most recently by a 2024 sale-ban order and crackdowns in 2025 and 2026. All sources here are Thai government pages and gazette texts, read on 23 September 2026.
What the ban actually covers
There is no single "vape law" in Thailand. The prohibition is built from four separate instruments from three agencies, and together they cover import, transit, sale and the handling of smuggled goods.
The first is the import ban. The Ministry of Commerce's public service centre, citing the Department of Foreign Trade on 20 January 2025, says importing e-cigarettes is an offence under the ministry's notification of B.E. 2557 (2014) that makes บารากู่ (baraku), บารากู่ไฟฟ้า (electronic baraku) and บุหรี่ไฟฟ้า (e-cigarettes) goods prohibited from import, issued under the Export and Import of Goods Act of 1979.
The second is the transit ban. A Ministry of Commerce notification signed on 9 February 2016 and published in the Royal Gazette on 11 February 2016 lists "บารากู่และบารากู่ไฟฟ้า หรือบุหรี่ไฟฟ้า" as goods prohibited from passing through the Kingdom, with their tariff codes, on the same list as counterfeit-brand goods, pirated media, gaming machines and caffeine.
The third is the sale ban. Order 24/2567 of the Product Safety Committee, published on 18 July 2024, bans any business from producing for sale, selling or providing baraku, e-baraku or e-cigarettes, or the substances and liquids used to refill them, with effect "ตั้งแต่บัดนี้" (from now on).
The fourth is the Customs Act of 2017, which sets penalties for goods that enter without passing customs or in breach of a ban, and for anyone who buys or receives such goods. That is the part most relevant to a visitor who buys a device after arrival, and it is covered in the next section.
The transit list matters for anyone connecting through Suvarnabhumi or Don Mueang. It was issued under section 5/1 of the Export and Import of Goods Act, as amended in 2015, and took effect on the day after its publication; the other goods on it range from elephants and Buddha images to antiques originating abroad.
The tariff codes printed next to the entry are 9614.00.90, 2403.11.00 and 8543.70.90, the customs tariff classifications the list uses for these products.
The Royal Thai Embassy in Stockholm publishes almost the same advice as London, saying the ban "has been in place since 2014" and asking travel agents and tour operators to make sure their clients know about it.
The 2024 order's definitions are broad. An e-cigarette is any electrically powered device that produces smoke, aerosol or vapour in a way similar to cigarette smoke, and the definition expressly includes component parts; the liquid category covers any substance or extract used to produce the smoke or vapour.
The committee gave its reasons in the order itself. It says tests by the Department of Science Service and the Department of Disease Control found harmful chemicals in the products, naming benzyl alcohol, ethyl di-isopropylacetamide, nicotine and propylene glycol. The order was issued under section 29/9 of the Consumer Protection Act, after a 2019 amendment (No. 4) added a part on consumer protection for product safety.
Penalties, from the airport to the street
The penalties differ depending on which rule you break, and the official figures are not all the same. The Ministry of Commerce page gives the import penalty as imprisonment of up to 10 years, a fine of five times the price of the goods, or both, and says the e-cigarettes, their packaging and any vehicle used to carry them are forfeited.
The Customs Act, in the Customs Department's unofficial English translation, sets its own scale. Section 242, on bringing in goods without passing customs formalities, allows up to 10 years in prison, a fine of four times the price of the goods including duty, or both, and says the goods "shall be forfeited".
Section 244 covers bringing goods in, or through in transit, "to avoid restrictions or prohibitions of such goods". It allows up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to 500,000 baht, or both.
Section 246 is the one that reaches buyers. It applies to anyone who assists in concealing, disposing of, taking away, purchasing, accepting in pledge or "receiving by any means" goods "when he should have known" they were linked to a smuggling offence, with up to five years in prison and a fine of four times the goods' price, or both.
The director-general of Customs said in March 2025 that e-cigarettes are not produced in Thailand, so those on sale there come from abroad. None of the government sources read for this guide states a separate fixed fine for simply holding or using a vape.
Sellers face the Consumer Protection Act as well. The warning attached to the 2024 order cites section 56/4, under which a business that fails to comply with a safety order faces up to three years in prison, a fine of up to 600,000 baht, or both.
The Office of the Consumer Protection Board described the same exposure for sellers in June 2024, before the new order: it said illegal sale of e-cigarettes and e-liquids was an offence carrying up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 600,000 baht, or both.
The embassies describe what that means for travellers in plainer words. The Royal Thai Embassy in London says anyone found vaping "could be arrested and face jail time, or a fine several times the value of the illegal item(s)", that this applies to foreigners and Thais alike, and that foreign travellers unaware of the ban have faced on-the-spot fines or arrest.
| Rule | Who it targets | Maximum penalty in the source |
|---|---|---|
| Import ban, Commerce notification B.E. 2557 | Anyone bringing the devices in | Up to 10 years, fine of 5x value, or both; goods forfeited |
| Customs Act s.242 | Goods brought in without passing customs | Up to 10 years, fine of 4x value with duty, or both |
| Customs Act s.244 | Import or transit to evade a ban | Up to 10 years, fine up to 500,000 baht, or both |
| Customs Act s.246 | Buying or receiving goods you should have known were smuggled | Up to 5 years, fine of 4x value, or both |
| Consumer Protection Act s.56/4 | Businesses selling or providing vapes | Up to 3 years, fine up to 600,000 baht, or both |
How hard the rules are enforced
Enforcement is not theoretical. The Government Public Relations Department reported on 19 March 2025 that, after a prime ministerial order on 25 February 2025, officials recorded 1,741 cases and 1,789 suspects between 26 February and 18 March 2025, and seized 1,285,024 items worth 231,881,074 baht.
The same briefing gave context from the year before. A police assistant commissioner said that in 2024 there were more than 1,400 arrests and more than 1.6 million items seized, and the Anti-Money Laundering Office said it treats e-cigarette smuggling as a predicate offence so that it can seize offenders' assets.
The crackdown continued into 2026. The Royal Thai Police public relations division reported that a raid on 7 August 2026 at Khlong Thom market in Bangkok seized about 20,000 items worth more than 8 million baht in five cases, with two people arrested, after warehouse raids on 7 and 9 July 2026 had seized more than 50,000 items and about 5 million baht in cash.
The 2025 campaign was not limited to Bangkok. At the same March 2025 briefing, an adviser to the Ministry of Interior said orders had gone to all 76 provinces and all 887 districts, and the Office of the Consumer Protection Board said the government's Thang Rat (ทางรัฐ) app now has a channel for reporting e-cigarette sales, checked by the police.
The police now run a dedicated unit for this, the ศปบย.ตร., a centre for preventing and suppressing e-cigarette and tobacco offences. At the August 2026 briefing, the minister attached to the Prime Minister's Office, Supamas Isarabhakdi, said e-cigarettes are illegal goods in Thailand and that sellers commit offences under consumer protection law.
Members of the public are invited to report sellers. The police page lists the police hotline 1599, the consumer protection hotline 1166 and the Police Care app, all available 24 hours a day.
The enforcement reports read describe raids on markets, warehouses and sellers. The official reports read for this guide do not give figures for tourists fined for personal devices, so there is no official basis for the fine amounts quoted on travel blogs.
Cannabis after the 2025 rule change
Cannabis is the other item where rules changed recently, and open recreational sales are not what the current rules describe. The change came in a Ministry of Public Health announcement signed by the then public health minister, Somsak Thepsutin, and reported by the Government Public Relations Department on 24 June 2025.
The 2025 text replaced an announcement dated 11 November 2022, which had made cannabis a controlled herb because of its value for study or research or its economic importance. The new version limits the controlled part to the flower and adds conditions on who may buy it.
That announcement, on สมุนไพรควบคุม (กัญชา) พ.ศ. 2568, makes only the ช่อดอก, the flower buds, of plants in the genus Cannabis a controlled herb. Anyone studying, exporting, selling or processing it for trade needs a licence under section 46 of the Thai traditional medicine law.
The effect on visitors is in the conditions. A licensed seller may sell to another licence holder, or to an individual who has a prescription from a physician, a Thai traditional or applied Thai traditional medicine practitioner, a folk healer, a Chinese medicine practitioner or a dentist, and the prescription may cover no more than 30 days of treatment.
The announcement also bans selling cannabis flower for smoking on the premises, except by those practitioners for their own patients; selling through vending machines, electronic channels or computer networks; advertising in any channel; and selling at temples, dormitories, public parks, zoos and amusement parks. A 2026 Government Public Relations Department explainer adds schools to the no-sale places.
The same explainer, dated 20 August 2026, sets out the penalties. Selling, processing or exporting without a licence carries up to one year in prison, a fine of up to 20,000 baht, or both, and a licensed shop that sells without a prescription faces suspension for 30 to 90 days.
Smoking can also cause trouble outside a shop. The explainer says cannabis smoke that bothers other people counts as a เหตุรำคาญ (nuisance) under the Public Health Act, with up to three months or a 25,000 baht fine for ignoring an official's order to stop, and that driving while intoxicated by cannabis carries up to one year in prison or a fine of 5,000 to 20,000 baht.
No official source read for this guide deals with travellers bringing cannabis into or out of Thailand, so the safe course is not to carry it across any border.
Duty-free limits and the Customs box
The last category is ordinary: cigarettes and alcohol that are legal but limited. Thai Customs' guidelines for airport passengers allow, free of duty, "No more than 200 cigarettes or 250g of tobacco or 250g of all types combined" and "No more than 1 litre of alcoholic beverage".
The consequence of going over is spelled out. Customs says the excess "must be dropped in the box provided by Customs, otherwise prosecution will be carried out", so the extra has to go in the box.
Other personal belongings are duty-free up to a total value of 20,000 baht, provided they are not prohibited or restricted goods or food. Passengers with nothing above those limits use the Nothing to Declare (green) channel; those with goods to declare use the red channel, where Customs says prosecutions are carried out in cases involving prohibited or restricted goods.
Customs' own page on restricted and prohibited items, last updated on 27 February 2025, gives only examples. The prohibited examples are narcotics, pornographic materials, counterfeit or copyright-infringing goods, fake notes or coins and protected wildlife, and cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol appear as restricted goods under the Excise Department.
E-cigarettes are not among those examples. The page presents its lists as examples only, and the Commerce notifications and Customs Act penalties described above are separate legal texts that do not depend on it. The rules on buying alcohol once you are in the country are covered separately in the guide to alcohol sale hours.
| Name | Local name | What it is | Price range |
|---|---|---|---|
| E-cigarette or vape | บุหรี่ไฟฟ้า | Electrically powered device producing cigarette-like vapour, including parts | Import: up to 5x value fine per Commerce |
| Electronic baraku | บารากู่ไฟฟ้า | Listed with e-cigarettes in the import and transit bans | Same as e-cigarettes |
| Baraku | บารากู่ | Listed with e-cigarettes in the import, transit and sale bans | Same as e-cigarettes |
| E-liquid | น้ำยาสำหรับเติมบุหรี่ไฟฟ้า | Liquid or extract used to make vapour | Sale banned for businesses |
| Cannabis flower | ช่อดอกกัญชา | The controlled part of the plant since 2025 | Unlicensed sale: up to 20,000 baht fine |
| Controlled herb | สมุนไพรควบคุม | Legal category requiring a licence to trade | No fee stated |
| Duty-free cigarettes | บุหรี่ | 200 cigarettes or 250 g tobacco in total | Excess surrendered in the Customs box |
| Customs box | Not given in the source | Box at arrivals for excess tobacco or alcohol | No fee stated |
A packing check before you fly
Most of the risk can be removed before you leave home. The checklist below follows the official texts rather than anecdote, and it applies whether Bangkok is your destination or a transit stop.
No official source read here says what happens to a traveller who declares a vape at Customs, so the only step the texts support is not packing one. The broader arrival checklist is in the guide to arranging things before you fly.
Buying a device in Thailand does not solve the problem. The 2024 order bans every business from selling it, and section 246 of the Customs Act reaches anyone who buys goods they should have known were smuggled, so a vape bought from a market stall also carries legal risk.
What this guide does not cover
The 2014 Ministry of Commerce import notification is described here only through the ministry's own 2025 summary and the 2016 transit list, because the Department of Foreign Trade pages that host the original text failed a security certificate check and were not opened. The guide gives no fixed fine for tourists caught using a vape, because no official source read states one; figures on travel blogs were not confirmed.
It does not cover heated tobacco devices, which were not checked against the definitions, or rules for bringing cannabis into or out of Thailand, which no official source read here addresses. It does not give the gazette publication date of the 2025 cannabis announcement, because the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine pages could not be reached; the Government Public Relations Department's report of its signing is used instead.
It also does not describe airport screening practice, reward schemes for informants or website takedown figures that appear in secondary sources, because none of them was found in an official source. For getting into the city once you are through customs, see the guide to Suvarnabhumi Airport transfers.