Thailand is having its biggest year on record. In the first half of 2026, 302 foreign productions applied to film here, declaring 4.025 billion baht of investment — more than half of what the entire previous year produced, with six months still to run.
That is worth understanding properly if you are planning a shoot. A record year is good news for a country and a mixed blessing for a production: the crews get better and deeper, and they also get booked. Below is what actually filmed here this year, who is spending, and the practical read on what it means for your schedule.
1. The numbers
Thailand's Film Office reported 162 international productions shot between January and March alone, representing more than USD 36 million. By the halfway mark that had grown to 302 productions and 4.025 billion baht. For comparison, 2025 was itself an all-time high at 546 foreign productions and more than 7 billion baht.
| Period | Foreign productions | Declared investment |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | 162 | USD 36 million+ |
| H1 2026 | 302 | THB 4.025 billion |
| Full year 2025 | 546 | THB 7 billion+ |
The split between volume and value is the interesting part. Japan sent the most productions in Q1 with 24, followed by India with 17 and South Korea with 16. But on money spent, the United States led at USD 9.5 million, ahead of India at 3.6 million and France at 2.8 million.
2. What shot here
International features
Send Help, Sam Raimi's survival thriller with Rachel McAdams, took its island exteriors across southern Thailand — Phuket, Railay in Krabi, Khao Phing Kan, Maya Bay in the Phi Phi group, and the Trang islands of Ko Ngai, Ko Kradan and Ko Muk. Studio work was based at Disney Studios Australia in Sydney, with the location unit coming here for everything that had to be real.
The Devil's Mouth, Jeff Wadlow's cave-and-shark horror for Prime Video, released in July. It shot across Bangkok, Krabi, Mae Hong Son and Samut Prakan, with the underwater unit completed in Australia.
Both are worth reading closely, because they made the same structural decision: shoot the environment in Thailand, take the tank work somewhere else. That is a defensible call and also a beatable one — the marine capability here has moved on considerably, and the split adds unit moves, schedule and a second crew to any budget.
International unscripted
A 2026 season of Temptation Island filmed in Phuket for Amazon Prime, built around two villas and separated couples. Formats like it have made the Thai islands a fixture of European reality television, and the reason is infrastructure rather than scenery — resort properties that will take over a building for six weeks, marine access, and a crew base deep enough to run two units, all in one place.
And the several hundred you will not have heard of
Those are the titles that have been publicly reported. They are a small fraction of 302.
The overwhelming majority of foreign productions shooting here are commercials, branded content, stills campaigns and unscripted formats that carry no location credit and never appear in a trade announcement. It is worth holding that in mind when you read the investment figures: the money is not concentrated in a few features, it is spread across hundreds of shoots that leave no public trace. The crew competing for your dates is mostly working on productions you will never be able to name.
3. What a record year means for your shoot
This is the part the statistics releases leave out. More productions competing for the same finite resources changes the operational picture in four specific ways.
Crew books earlier
The senior end — first ADs, gaffers, key grips, art directors with international credits — is a much smaller pool than the headline numbers suggest. In a normal year you could hold a crew four to six weeks out. In a year running at this volume, the people you actually want are being asked about two to three months ahead, particularly around the November to February window.
Peak season is genuinely full
Dry season on the Andaman coast draws commercials, reality formats and stills campaigns into the same twelve weeks. Phuket and Krabi in January are not a place to arrive with an unbooked plan.
Permits take the time they take
Volume does not slow the Film Office down significantly, but it removes your margin for error. A rejected or amended application that would have cost you a week in a quiet month can cost you a location in a busy one.
Allow six to eight weeks to prep a film permit. That is not the minimum processing time — a straightforward application can move faster — it is the realistic window to assemble the paperwork, confirm the locations, clear the specific authorities involved, and still have room to fix something. Productions that budget two weeks are budgeting for the version where nothing needs changing.
Equipment is the quiet constraint
Camera packages, specialist support and the better lighting inventory are finite in-country. Most of it can be brought in or sourced regionally, but that is a planning decision made at budget stage, not a problem solved in prep.
4. If you are planning 2027
The pipeline suggests no slowdown. The Thailand Film Office confirmed a further wave of US-led projects following the European Film Market in February, with combined announced slate budgets across 2026 and 2027 running past 2.4 billion baht.
Practically, that means three things for a producer with a shoot in the next twelve months:
- Lock dates before you lock creative. In a market this busy, availability shapes what is achievable more than budget does.
- Decide early whether you are shooting peak or shoulder season. The difference in crew rates, availability and permit turnaround between February and September is significant, and the weather difference is smaller than most first-time visitors expect.
- Work back six to eight weeks from your first shoot day for permits. Not because approval takes that long, but because that is how long it takes to have the application right first time.
- Get a fixer or line producer engaged at budget stage, not prep. The costs that surprise people — unit moves, marine access, permit amendments, equipment brought in — are all decided long before the shoot.
Alchemist Productions has been producing and servicing international shoots across Thailand and Southeast Asia for over fifteen years. If you are looking at a 2026 or 2027 shoot here, we will tell you honestly what is achievable in your window.
Sources: Thailand Film Office and Department of Tourism figures as reported by the Government Public Relations Department, Pattaya Mail and The Nation Thailand; Netflix Thailand 2026 slate announcement; C21Media and Screen Daily. Figures are as reported at time of writing, August 2026.