Departure day: the last chance to change, duty-free currency, and what to keep
Article updated: 2026-09-17
Best rate USD · Bangkok: 33.24 — Superrich Thailand — Headquarter Rajdamri 1 · Sep 20, 08:58 → Details
The last day of a Thailand trip has a predictable failure mode. Somebody has either changed everything the night before and finds themselves buying an expensive airport sandwich on a card, or is standing at the gate with four thousand baht they will never use again, looking at a buy-back rate that makes them wince.
Both are avoidable with about ten minutes of planning the evening before.
Work out what the last day actually costs
Write down the remaining spend before you decide what to change back. For most people it is a short list.
- Transport to the airport. From central Bangkok, the Airport Rail Link is under 50 baht to Suvarnabhumi; a taxi is roughly 350–500 baht with the 50-baht airport surcharge and tolls. For Don Mueang, the A1 bus is about 30 baht. Details in getting from the airport to the city.
- Hotel extras. Anything not prepaid, a late checkout, the minibar.
- A meal and a drink, in town or airside.
- Tips, if you are leaving any, which need small notes.
- A margin for the thing you did not think of.
Add it up, keep that much in baht, and treat everything above it as convertible. The margin is worth being slightly generous with, because the cost of holding a few hundred baht too many is small and the cost of being short is a card transaction at an airport price.
Where to change leftover baht, in order of preference
A city exchange counter, the day before you fly. The best rates are in the city, not the airport, and the same spread logic that applied on arrival applies in reverse. Today’s ranking is on the Bangkok rates page and in the shop list, with the underlying arithmetic in airport versus city rates.
A landside counter at the airport, before security, which is usually better than the airside ones.
An airside counter, which is the convenience option and priced as one.
Not the hotel front desk, which is consistently among the worst rates you will be offered.
The reason to prefer the city counter is not sentiment about rates. Changing back means paying a second spread on money that already paid one on the way in. Doing that at the airport pays a wide spread twice, and on a few thousand baht it is a genuine loss. The fuller treatment of what to do with money left over is in leftover baht.
What the counters will and will not take back
Coins are not convertible. No counter buys back Thai coins. Spend them, leave them, or keep one as a souvenir.
Small notes may be refused or discounted. Many counters only buy back larger denominations, or will take 20s at a worse rate. If you know you will be changing money back, try to accumulate 500s and 1,000s in the last days.
Damaged notes are a problem in both directions. A torn or heavily marked note may be refused. See banknotes Thai booths refuse.
Your passport will usually be asked for. Have it out, which you will anyway.
Duty free and foreign currency
Airside shops at Thai airports generally accept major foreign currencies as well as baht, and cards. This creates a small trap and a small opportunity.
The trap: paying in a foreign currency at a shop means the shop sets the exchange rate, and shop rates are not competitive rates. Change for a shop is often given in baht, at the shop’s rate, which is how people end up with new baht on their way out of the country.
The opportunity: if you are holding awkward leftover baht, spending it at duty free is a clean way to use it at face value, which is better than converting it at a poor buy-back rate. Buying something you actually want with baht you cannot use is a better outcome than exchanging it twice.
The usual card advice applies at every airside till: if the terminal offers to charge you in your home currency, decline and pay in baht. See dynamic currency conversion.
The VAT refund, if you bought something substantial
Thailand operates a VAT refund scheme for tourists on goods taken out of the country. It is worth knowing about before you shop rather than at the airport.
The mechanics: you must ask for the refund form at the shop at the time of purchase, with your passport, at a participating store. There are minimum spends per shop per day and a minimum total across the trip — commonly cited as 2,000 baht per store per day and 5,000 baht in total, though the thresholds and the participating-store rules can change, so confirm the current figures at the shop or with the Revenue Department. At the airport you may need to present the goods for inspection before check-in if they are going into hold baggage, then claim at the refund counter after security.
It is only worth the queue if you spent meaningfully. For one shirt, skip it.
Taking money out of Thailand
Two separate limits, worth checking rather than guessing.
Thai baht in cash. There is a cap on the amount of baht notes a traveller may take out, with a higher allowance for land departures to neighbouring countries. The figure most often quoted is 50,000 baht per person, but this is a regulation that has been revised before — confirm the current limit with Thai Customs if you are carrying a large amount of baht out.
Foreign currency. Amounts above the equivalent of a set threshold must be declared on departure; the commonly cited figure is the equivalent of twenty thousand US dollars. Again, check the current threshold if it is close.
Neither limit affects an ordinary traveller with a few thousand baht in a pocket. Both matter if you are moving real money, and the penalty for not declaring is worse than the inconvenience of declaring.
A sensible departure-day plan
- The evening before: total the remaining spend, change the surplus at a city counter, keep the rest in small notes.
- Check out with enough baht for transport plus a margin.
- Landside at the airport: eat, spend the last coins, use any remaining notes at the shops before security if you have them.
- Airside: pay in baht, decline any home-currency conversion offer, and spend awkward remaining notes at duty free rather than converting them badly.
- Keep a small amount of baht if you are coming back within a year. A few hundred baht in a drawer at home is the cheapest airport transport money you will ever have on your next arrival.
When not to bother with any of this
Skip the optimisation in these cases.
- You have under a thousand baht left. The difference between a good and a bad rate on that is small change. Spend it airside and stop thinking about it.
- You are coming back. Baht keeps. Take it home and use it on the next arrival instead of paying two spreads to convert it twice.
- You are connecting through to another country and will be back through Thailand. Keep what you need for the return leg.
- Your flight is early and the city counters are shut. Do not build a stressful morning around a small rate difference. Change it airside and go.
- You only have coins. Nothing will convert them. Leave them in a donation box or keep them.
The single biggest saving on departure day is not the rate you get on the leftover baht. It is not having much leftover baht in the first place, which is decided several days earlier by not changing more than the trip needs.