Importing From India to Thailand

Every December, the gem town of Chanthaburi in eastern Thailand holds its festival, and in 2025 the three countries with the most people there were India, China and Guinea (Gem Spectrum, December 2025 (opens in a new tab), Reported). That's the Thai-Indian trade in one picture. Stones move between Jaipur and Chanthaburi, and gems and jewellery are the biggest thing Thailand buys from India.

This page is for Thai importers of Indian goods, and it covers only what's specific to Thailand. The shared AITIGA rules, the origin test and the review are on the ASEAN bloc page. The caveat - Thailand has a second, older route through an early-harvest list, and we couldn't read that list line by line.

Last researched 28 September 2026 · Next review 24 November 2026 · Written by SourcingFrom

The decision in brief is in the playbook: Exporting and trade → /india/#trade. The shared rules are on the ASEAN bloc page.

1. Two Routes, and One Is Narrow

Thailand is the one ASEAN member with an extra bilateral scheme. The India-Thailand Early Harvest Scheme sits in Article 7 of the 2003 Framework Agreement, with a protocol signed on 1 September 2004 that phased duty on the listed lines to zero over three years (Framework Agreement with Thailand, commerce.gov.in (opens in a new tab)). DGFT still lists it as operational, with preference only for goods that meet the interim origin rules the Indian revenue department notified (DGFT Appendix 2A (opens in a new tab), read 25 September 2026).

The list is short, and India's listing shows no fuller India-Thailand agreement in force. So for almost everything you buy, AITIGA is the route, and the early harvest only matters if your line happens to be on it. Ask your broker to check both, and ask the supplier which certificate it has issued for Thailand before, because an exporter who has never filed the early-harvest certificate isn't going to get it right first time.

2. VAT Is the Number You Can Count On

Whatever the tariff, Thailand collects 7% VAT at import, charged by Customs on the CIF price plus duty, excise and other taxes, whether or not you're VAT-registered (Thai Revenue Department, VAT (opens in a new tab), read 25 September 2026). The Thai Customs Department (opens in a new tab) runs the entry, and Laem Chabang is the main port.

3. What Thailand Buys From India

Gems and jewellery were 22.3% of Thailand's imports from India in 2025, with machinery at 15.1% and fish at 5.8%, out of US$6,002.5 million in all. India is Thailand's second fish supplier with 8.9%, and India's share of Thailand's total imports slipped from 2.04% in 2019 to 1.75% (our analysis of UN Comtrade, queried 23 September 2026).

If you're in the stone trade, you already know Jaipur. What's worth adding is that cut-and-polished stones are a trade where the same parcel can be cut in one country and set in another, so origin under AITIGA turns on where the last real processing happened, not where the stone was mined. Ask your supplier what it did to the parcel in India and keep that answer with the invoice.

4. Back to Chanthaburi

The Indian traders at the festival aren't there for the tariff. They're there because the two gem trades need each other. That's the right way to think about Thailand and India more widely - a close market with a long history, where the paperwork matters more than the margin. If you'd like the certificate and the shipment handled from India, SourcingSync (opens in a new tab) does that.

Next Step

Every Indian agreement is on India's trade agreements.