Koh Samet is inside Khao Laem Ya – Mu Ko Samet National Park, so essentially every visitor pays a park fee: 200 baht for a foreign adult, 100 for a foreign child, 40 and 20 for Thai visitors. The outer islands – Koh Thalu, Koh Kudi and Koh Kham–Koh Kruai – carry their own higher fee: a foreign adult arriving via Koh Samet pays 400 baht there, not 300; a foreign child pays 200 baht. Land is a Treasury Department lease zone, not title, and the park has halted construction and seized a parcel behind Ao Wong Duean. Registered residents: 1,040. The wet season is the southwest monsoon, mid-May to mid-October.
The fee at the gate
The first thing to understand about Koh Samet is that the charge collected on arrival is not a pier fee or a local levy. It is the national park entry fee, because the island lies inside a national park. The rate is set by the Department of National Parks regulation of 9 December 2021, published in the Royal Gazette and in force since 7 June 2022, which places every park in the country in one of four bands. Khao Laem Ya – Mu Ko Samet is named in band 2.
| Who or what | Rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign adult | 200 baht | Band 2, DNP regulation B.E. 2564 |
| Foreign child | 100 baht | Band 2 |
| Thai adult | 40 baht | Band 2 |
| Thai child | 20 baht | Band 2 |
| Foreign adult, Koh Thalu / Koh Kudi / Koh Kham-Koh Kruai (via Koh Samet) | 400 baht | 300-baht area fee + 100-baht via-Samet surcharge, DNP notice 18 Jan 2022 |
| Foreign child, same area (via Koh Samet) | 200 baht | 150-baht area fee + 50-baht via-Samet surcharge, DNP notice 18 Jan 2022 |
| Car (four wheels) | 30 baht | National vehicle rate |
| Motorcycle | 20 baht | National vehicle rate |
| Six-wheel / above six wheels | 100 / 200 baht | National vehicle rate |
The outer-island fee is the part that catches people out, and it is higher than most guides print. A DNP notice of 18 January 2022, issued in response to reports that the new National Park Act had tripled fees, sets a separate service rate for the Koh Thalu, Koh Kudi and Koh Kham–Koh Kruai area at 300 baht for a foreign adult and 150 baht for a foreign child— not the standard band-2 rate. On top of that, the department adds 100 baht (adult) and 50 baht (child) for visitors who arrive there via Koh Samet, which is how almost everyone does it. A foreign adult who lands on Koh Samet and then takes a boat out to those islands is therefore looking at 400 baht there, not 300, and a foreign child at 200 baht. A January 2023 statement from the department’s Protected Area Regional Office 2 director — previously the only source this page cited for this fee — describes the same 100-baht via-Samet addition as current practice but without repeating the underlying 300-baht base, which is the likeliest reason the lower combined total has circulated. We have not been able to read the ministerial regulation the department cites for the power to charge specially designated sites, so we report the figures as the department’s own published notice and stated practice, not as a rate we have independently verified against the regulation itself.
Where band 2 sits against the rest of the country:
| Band | Thai child / adult | Foreign child / adult |
|---|---|---|
| Band 1 (67 parks) | Thai 10 / 20 | Foreign 50 / 100 |
| Band 2 (55 parks) - includes Koh Samet, Khao Yai, Khao Sok, Mu Ko Chang | Thai 20 / 40 | Foreign 100 / 200 |
| Band 3 | Thai 30 / 60 | Foreign 150 / 300 |
| Band 4 (Similan and Surin only) | Thai 50 / 100 | Foreign 250 / 500 |
Fee collection is moving to electronic ticketing. In March 2023 the department met the boat operators’ association and the Koh Samet tourism business association at Nuan Thip pier in Ban Phe to discuss selling entry tickets through an e-ticket system, its stated aims being transparency and less handling by staff and pier operators.
Getting there, honestly
The mainland departure point is Ban Phe, in Rayong, and the island pier is Na Dan. Beyond that, this is the weakest section on the page and we would rather say so than fill it with numbers from a booking site.
What we can source: Nuan Thip pier at Ban Phe is a real departure pier, named by the Department of National Parks itself in the e-ticket meeting record, and there is a formal boat operators’ association, a Koh Samet tourism business association and a park advisory committee. Administratively the island is Moo 4, Ban Koh Samet, in Tambon Phe, Mueang Rayong district, and the Phe sub-district administration’s southern boundary is described as the Gulf including the Samet islands.
What we are not printing. Crossing time to Na Dan, the ferry-versus-speedboat fares, any timetable, the road distance from Bangkok, and whether vehicles can be taken across. Every figure we found for these came from a booking platform or a blog. If you need them, ask at the pier or the operator, and expect the park fee to be collected separately from the boat ticket.
Land: a Treasury lease, and a park that stops building work
This is the section that matters if you are looking at Koh Samet commercially, and it is unusually well documented because the park publishes its own inspection reports.
Start with the founding instrument. The royal decree that created the park is titled as declaring the forest land of Khao Laem Thian, Khao Plet, Khao Laem Ya, Koh Samet and neighbouring islands, in Tambon Phe of Mueang Rayong and Tambon Klaeng of Klaeng district, to be a national park. Land that was state forest before it became park was never alienable private land. That is the structural reason private title here is contested, and it is visible in the decree’s own title rather than being something anyone has to infer.
What exists on the ground instead is a Treasury Department lease zone. In February 2023 the park chief inspected it and recorded three things in one visit: that several operators had problems with their structures; that he had asked them to halt construction until permission was granted under the relevant regulations and law; and that the park had seized a parcel behind Ao Wong Duean, one of the island’s principal resort beaches, which was by then being used to dump waste.
The same visit produced the nuance that keeps this honest: at Ao Klang, where a wastewater treatment pond was being prepared, the site was found to be outside the park boundary. So “virtually the whole island is park” is right and “the entire island is park” is not. There are excluded pockets, and they are where the infrastructure goes.
One more piece of context, reported as what it is. In January 2023 the department recorded complaints from island operators about charges being demanded — on vehicles, on rental and hire motorcycles, and allegedly ten per cent of construction budget from anyone building or extending on the island. The Protected Area Regional Office 2 formed a fact-finding committee and said that if clear evidence implicated park staff, there would certainly be disciplinary action. These are allegations under investigation, not findings. The verified fact is that they were made and investigated — which itself tells you what the regulatory environment on this island is like to operate in.
Off-season, and who actually lives here
Koh Samet is on the eastern seaboard, so its wet season runs with the southwest monsoon, which the Thai Meteorological Department places over Thailand from about mid-May to mid-October, bringing humid air off the Indian Ocean and general cloud and rain. The dry counterpart is the northeast monsoon from about mid-October to mid-February, which the same source describes as clear, cool and dry. That is the reverse of Koh Samui and the Surat Thani Gulf islands, which take their heaviest rain in the last months of the year.
Off-season here is not empty. Pollution Control Department field officers working on the island in early April 2022 recorded Thai and foreign visitors swimming at Hat Mae Ramphueng and on Koh Samet, scattered through the day, mostly arriving in the evening and at weekends. Being ninety minutes off the Bangkok–Rayong road gives Samet a weekend rhythm that the far-flung islands do not have.
As for who lives there, the Phe sub-district administration publishes the village roll. Koh Samet is Moo 4, Ban Koh Samet: 515 male and 525 female, 1,040 registered residents in 850 households. That is 57 per cent of the entire sub-district administration’s registered population of 1,839. It is also, plainly, registered population and not resident population — the island’s daily headcount is dominated by visitors and by workers who are registered elsewhere, and no official source we could reach counts them.
A number you will see misused. The Phe sub-district administration covers 134.28 sq km, of which about 13.28 sq km is land — and that land figure is the whole authority across four villages, including mainland ones. It is not the area of Koh Samet. We could not find an official figure for the island’s own land area, so this page does not give one.
Healthcare, and the two spills people mix up
The island’s public health facility is Ban Koh Samet Sub-district Health Promoting Hospital, which appears on the Rayong Provincial Administrative Organisation’s register of health centres transferred to the PAO. That transfer is worth knowing: the facility is no longer run by the provincial health office, and the PAO is who funds and administers it. A sub-district health promoting hospital is the bottom tier of the Thai system — primary care, no admissions, no surgery. We could not obtain its staffing, hours or capability, or any bed count for Rayong Hospital on the mainland, so no numbers appear here.
On the environment, the important service this page can do is separate two events that are constantly merged. There was a crude oil spill affecting Ao Phrao in 2013, and a separate spill in January 2022. A great deal of what circulates online as 2013 remediation data is in fact 2022 monitoring, including on pages that look official. We could not verify a single 2013 figure from a source we could actually read, so this page prints none.
What is documented is 2022. The Pollution Control Department’s regional office sampled fourteen points on the Rayong coast between 31 March and 2 April 2022, two of them on Koh Samet at Ao Phrao and Hat Sai Kaeo, testing four heavy metals plus total petroleum hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water and four parameters in sediment. Its preliminary result was that baseline seawater quality was within normal criteria, with tarballs found on the mainland at the IRPC beach and Camp Maha Surasinghanat rather than at the island points.
Separately, in February 2022 national park staff dived Ao Phrao and Ao Pla Tom on the island’s western side with the Royal Thai Navy and reported seagrass, coral and marine life free of oil and in normal condition, attributing the black marks visible on the sand to soot from the many vessels used in the clean-up. The park confirmed at the time that visitors could travel there as normal.
What we could not confirm
- The park’s declaration date and total area. Widely repeated figures exist; none from a source we could open. The Royal Gazette, the department’s park portal and the Parliament Library record were all unreachable. The only area figure we could source officially is about 680 rai for the Khao Laem Ya headland alone, which is a different thing.
- Whether the park publishes a seasonal closure. The department issues an annual closure announcement — the 2569 one is dated 18 December 2568 — but the park-by-park list is in an attachment we could not read. We are not saying the park is open year-round, because we do not know.
- Boat operators, crossing times and fares from Ban Phe. No operator publishes them on a site that meets our sourcing standard.
- Any 2013 oil-spill figure — date, volume, operator, extent, remediation, court outcome or compensation. The one apparently official page returned contradictory content on two reads.
- The island’s own land area, and any numeric visitor cap or carrying-capacity limit for the park.
- The island health centre’s capability and any bed count for Rayong Hospital; the ministry’s facility registry was unreachable.
- The nearest recompression chamber. It appears to be at Queen Sirikit Naval Hospital in Sattahip — note, Chonburi, not Rayong — but the hospital’s site was unreachable and we cannot say whether it takes civilian dive casualties.
- Immigration and schools. Rayong Immigration’s site refused us, and we found no official listing of a school on the island, which is not the same as there being none.
- The claim that Samet sits in a rain shadow and is drier than the surrounding coast. It is repeated everywhere and we found no meteorological source for it, so it is not on this page.
- The exact mechanism linking the 300/150-baht outer-island base fee to the 100/50-baht via-Samet addition — whether they are always charged together, or whether the base fee alone applies to an arrival that does not pass through Koh Samet. Both figures come from the department’s own notices, but we have not found a single document that states the combined total explicitly.
Frequently asked questions
Two hundred baht for a foreign adult and one hundred for a foreign child, against forty and twenty for Thai visitors. This is not an island tax or a pier charge - it is the national park entry fee, because Koh Samet lies inside Khao Laem Ya - Mu Ko Samet National Park. The rate comes from the Department of National Parks regulation of 9 December 2021, published in the Royal Gazette and in force since 7 June 2022, which sorts every park in the country into four bands. Khao Laem Ya - Mu Ko Samet is named in band 2, alongside Khao Yai, Khao Sok and Mu Ko Chang. Vehicles are charged on top: 30 baht for a car, 20 for a motorcycle. There is a separate, higher fee for the outer islands that almost nobody publishes correctly - see the next question.
Yes, and it is higher than most guides print. A DNP notice of 18 January 2022 - issued after reports that the new National Park Act had tripled fees generally - sets a separate service rate for the Koh Thalu, Koh Kudi and Koh Kham-Koh Kruai area at 300 baht for a foreign adult and 150 baht for a foreign child, not the standard band-2 rate. The same notice adds a further 100 baht (adult) and 50 baht (child) for visitors who reach those areas via Koh Samet, which is how nearly everyone does it. So a foreign adult who lands on Koh Samet and then takes a boat out to those islands is looking at 400 baht for the outer-island leg, not 300, and a foreign child at 200 baht. A January 2023 statement from the department's Protected Area Regional Office 2 director describes the 100-baht via-Samet addition as current practice but does not restate the 300-baht base fee on its own, which is the likeliest reason the lower combined total has circulated. We have not been able to read the ministerial regulation the department cites for the power to charge specially designated sites, so we report the figures as the department's own published notice and stated practice, not as independently verified against the underlying regulation.
Not in the way most people mean. The island's land sits inside a national park declared by royal decree, and the decree's own title describes what it converted: the forest land of Khao Laem Thian, Khao Plet, Khao Laem Ya, Koh Samet and neighbouring islands. Land that was state forest before it became park was never alienable private land to begin with. What actually exists on the ground is a Treasury Department lease zone: in February 2023 the park chief inspected it, found that several operators had problems with their structures, and asked them to halt construction until permission was granted through the proper process. The same inspection recorded a parcel the park had seized behind Ao Wong Duean, one of the island's main resort beaches. So the accurate framing is state leasehold subject to national park consent, with an active record of the park stopping building work - not title you can buy. Anyone shown a document purporting to be freehold on Koh Samet should have it checked at the Rayong Land Office before anything else happens.
Virtually all of it, but not quite all, and the exception is documented. The same February 2023 inspection looked at a site at Ao Klang where a wastewater treatment pond was being prepared, and recorded that it was found to lie outside the park boundary. That is a small but important correction to the usual claim that the entire island is park: there are excluded pockets, and infrastructure tends to end up on them. It also tells you something about how constrained the island is, when a sewage plant has to be sited by finding one of the few parcels that is not park.
Careful here, because two different spills get conflated constantly. The 2013 spill at Ao Phrao and the January 2022 spill are separate events with different operators, and a great deal of what circulates as 2013 remediation data is actually 2022 monitoring. We could not verify any 2013 figure from an official source we could read, so this page carries none. What is officially documented is 2022. The Pollution Control Department's regional office sampled fourteen points on the Rayong coast between 31 March and 2 April 2022, two of them on Koh Samet at Ao Phrao and Hat Sai Kaeo, testing four heavy metals plus total petroleum hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and reported baseline seawater quality within normal criteria, with tarballs found on the mainland rather than at the island points. Separately, in February 2022 national park staff dived Ao Phrao and Ao Pla Tom with the Royal Thai Navy and reported the seagrass, coral and marine life free of oil and in normal condition, attributing black marks on the sand to soot from the clean-up vessels.
Primary care only. The island's public facility is Ban Koh Samet Sub-district Health Promoting Hospital, which appears on the Rayong Provincial Administrative Organisation's register of health centres transferred to the PAO - a governance point worth knowing, because it means the facility is no longer run by the provincial health office and the PAO is who funds it. A sub-district health promoting hospital is the bottom tier of the Thai public system: primary care, no admissions, no surgery. We could not obtain its staffing, hours or capability from any official page, and we could not reach the Ministry of Public Health's registry entry for it or for Rayong Hospital, so this page gives no bed counts. On a related point, the nearest recompression chamber appears to be at Queen Sirikit Naval Hospital in Sattahip - which is in Chonburi, not Rayong - but the hospital's own site was unreachable, so we cannot confirm it or say whether it accepts civilian dive casualties.
Related guides
- Rayong — the mainland province Koh Samet belongs to, and where the referral hospital is.
- Rayong rental market — what renting actually costs on the mainland side.
- Koh Kood and Koh Mak — the same coast, four hours further east, and a very different set of trade-offs.
- Koh Chang — the other eastern-seaboard island with a national park over most of it.
- National parks in Thailand — the four fee bands, the 2019 Act and the rules that carry a fine.
- Lease registration checklist — what has to be registered before a long lease means anything.
- Island living in Thailand — how the islands differ on the things that decide a move.
- Explore Thailand — the section this guide sits in.
The island is park land. The mainland is where you buy.
If Koh Samet is the reason you are looking at this coast, the property question belongs on the Rayong side of the water. Start there.
Sources & References
- Department of National Parks - the national park fee bands under the DNP regulation of 9 December 2021, published in the Royal Gazette and in force 7 June 2022. Khao Laem Ya - Mu Ko Samet National Park, Rayong, is named in band 2: Thai child 20 and adult 40, foreign child 100 and adult 200 baht, with vehicle charges of 30 baht for a four-wheel car, 100 for six wheels, 200 above six wheels, 20 for a motorcycle and 2,500 for a helicopter
- Department of National Parks - notice of 18 January 2022, issued in response to reports that the new National Park Act had tripled fees: sets a separate service rate for the Koh Thalu, Koh Kudi and Koh Kham-Koh Kruai area at 300 baht for a foreign adult and 150 baht for a foreign child, with a further 100 baht (adult) and 50 baht (child) added for visitors arriving there via Koh Samet
- Department of National Parks - the Protected Area Regional Office 2 director on Koh Samet, 29 January 2023: describes the same 100-baht (adult) special fee for visitors reaching the Koh Thalu, Koh Kudi and Koh Kham - Koh Kruai areas via Koh Samet as current practice, without restating the underlying 300/150-baht base rate; and the complaints made by island operators about charges, including an alleged levy of 10 per cent of construction budget, which the office formed a committee to investigate
- Department of National Parks - the park chief's site inspection of 15 February 2023: the Treasury Department lease zone on Koh Samet, where several operators had problems with their structures and were asked to halt construction until permission was granted; a park-seized parcel behind Ao Wong Duean now being used for dumping; and a wastewater treatment pond planned at Ao Klang on land found to be outside the park boundary
- Department of National Parks - the joint dive survey of Ao Phrao and Ao Pla Tom on Koh Samet's west side with the Royal Thai Navy, 2 February 2022, after the Star Petroleum Refining spill: seagrass, coral and marine life found free of oil and in normal condition, with the black marks on the sand attributed to soot from the clean-up vessels
- Pollution Control Department, Regional Environmental Office 13 - seawater monitoring of 31 March to 2 April 2022 at fourteen points on the Rayong coast, including two on Koh Samet at Ao Phrao and Hat Sai Kaeo, testing four heavy metals plus total petroleum hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: baseline seawater quality within normal criteria, with tarballs found on the mainland at the IRPC beach and Camp Maha Surasinghanat
- Pollution Control Department, Regional Environmental Office 13 - the tarball survey at Hat Mae Ramphueng of February 2022 following the Star Petroleum Refining spill, with samples sent for oil fingerprint analysis
- Phe Subdistrict Administrative Organisation (อบต.เพ) - general information: Koh Samet is Moo 4, Ban Koh Samet, the only one of the authority's four villages lying wholly outside Ban Phe municipality; its registered population is 515 male and 525 female, 1,040 in total, in 850 households, against 1,839 for the whole sub-district administration; the authority covers 134.28 sq km of which only about 13.28 sq km is land
- Rayong Provincial Administrative Organisation - the park's contact details as published from the Department of National Parks: Khao Laem Ya - Mu Ko Samet National Park, 79 Moo 1, Ban Kon Ao, Hat Mae Ramphueng - Phe Road, Tambon Phe, Mueang Rayong, Rayong 21160, telephone and fax 0 3865 3034; and the Khao Laem Ya headland itself at about 680 rai
- Rayong Provincial Administrative Organisation - the register of sub-district health promoting hospitals transferred to the provincial administrative organisation, which includes Ban Koh Samet Sub-district Health Promoting Hospital
- Parliament Digital Library - the founding royal decree, titled as declaring the forest land of Khao Laem Thian, Khao Plet, Khao Laem Ya, Koh Samet and neighbouring islands, in Tambon Phe of Mueang Rayong district and Tambon Klaeng of Klaeng district, Rayong, to be a national park
- Department of National Parks - the closure power, exercised under section 20 of the National Park Act B.E. 2562 together with the DNP regulation on entering national parks B.E. 2563
- Department of National Parks - the meeting on collecting park fees and selling entry tickets through an electronic ticketing system, held with the boat operators' association and the Koh Samet tourism business association at Nuan Thip pier, 17 March 2023
- Thailand government portal, citing the Thai Meteorological Department - the southwest monsoon covers Thailand from about mid-May to mid-October, bringing humid air from the Indian Ocean and general cloud and rain; the northeast monsoon runs from about mid-October to mid-February, bringing clear skies, cool air and dry conditions
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
