The best sea of the year and the highest prices of the year, with the peak fortnight taking the last two weeks.
Dataset checked 2026-09-08: 39 entries covering September 2026 to December 2027, of which 17 carry an approximate date. Weather and crowd figures on this page are medians from our climate and tourism datasets.
Source: Open-Meteo (ERA5), 2015–2026; Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Thailand · All sources
Thai public holiday
December 5, 2026
A domestic long weekend on top of an already busy international week. Government counters close; the airport, the Chalong road and the Patong tunnel run at their December worst. Rates are already at high-season level and do not move for the holiday itself.
Thai public holiday
December 10, 2026
No effect on rates or crowds beyond a possible Thai long weekend. Practical only: close visa, licence and banking business before it, because December counters get busier every week afterwards.
Thai public holiday
Dec 31, 2026 – Jan 1, 2027
Maximum prices and maximum crowds. Compulsory gala dinners are added to the room rate at most beach hotels for 31 December; transfer and taxi prices roughly double on the night; a booked car with a driver is worth more than usual.
Source-market holiday
Dec 31, 2026 – Jan 8, 2027 · approximate · Russia
Stretches the peak fortnight to 8 January instead of 2 January. Long-stay villa inventory in Bang Tao, Layan and Rawai is committed by the previous spring; the January arrivals wave is what keeps January rates level with December's.
Source-market holiday
November 20 – December 31, 2027 · approximate · Malaysia
Steady short-stay demand through the ramp into the peak fortnight, concentrated on weekends. It is one of the reasons December rates rise before the European and Russian holiday traffic actually arrives.
Sport
November 28 – December 6, 2026 · approximate · Kata
Kata and Karon beachfront hotels run near capacity for the regatta week and the marinas at Ao Po and Boat Lagoon fill with visiting boats. Everywhere else on the island the effect is invisible; the rate pressure comes from the season, not the racing.
Dec 20, 2026 – Jan 5, 2027 · approximate
The clearest price signal in the index. Everything is at its annual maximum — hotels, villas, transfers, boat charters, restaurants with set menus. Booked six to twelve months ahead for villas, three to six for hotels; late cancellations rarely reprice downwards.
Nov 1, 2026 – Mar 31, 2027
The reason the price index has two levels: hotel and villa rates through these five months sit well above the May-to-October ones, and the Christmas fortnight sits above the rest of the dry season again. Book villas for December and January six to nine months ahead.
Oct 15, 2026 – May 15, 2027
The single hardest constraint on a Phuket itinerary: a trip planned between 16 May and 14 October cannot include the Similans at all. Inside the window, December to February sells out first and April is the quietest month with good sea.
Medians per calendar month over 2015–2025. Open-Meteo (ERA5), 2015–2026.
A median December carries 113 mm of rain over 16 days, of which 1 bring more than 20 mm. Daily highs sit around 29.2 °C and nights around 24.1 °C, with about 298 hours of sunshine in the month and humidity near 83%. The sea off the west coast is calm: a median December has 0 rough-sea days, and the surface water sits around 29.0 °C.
Mu Ko Similan National Park is open in December.
| Month | Median rain | Rain days | Daily high | Nightly low | Sunshine | Rough-sea days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 37 | 10 | 29.5 | 24.4 | 329 | 0 |
| February | 21 | 7 | 30.7 | 24.7 | 312 | 0 |
| March | 73 | 14 | 31.7 | 25.4 | 343 | 0 |
| April | 183 | 25 | 30.7 | 25.7 | 311 | 0 |
| May | 343 | 28 | 29.8 | 25.6 | 298 | 4 |
| June | 275 | 22 | 29.3 | 25.9 | 284 | 8 |
| July | 241 | 24 | 29.2 | 25.8 | 279 | 13 |
| August | 270 | 25 | 28.9 | 25.3 | 277 | 9 |
| September | 309 | 25 | 28.7 | 24.8 | 248 | 12 |
| October | 340 | 28 | 29.0 | 24.4 | 286 | 2 |
| November | 270 | 27 | 28.7 | 24.5 | 260 | 0 |
| December | 113 | 16 | 29.2 | 24.1 | 298 | 0 |
A median December brings 1,215,905 hotel guest arrivals in Phuket with occupancy around 84.1%, which makes it the 1st busiest month of the twelve in the Ministry of Tourism and Sports series. Occupancy at this level is what pushes hotel and villa rate cards to their high-season level, and it is why the island’s best inventory is committed months ahead.
December sits inside the high season: rate cards are at their upper level and the best hotels and villas are committed months ahead.
| Segment | Median | n | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3★ hotel, island median per night | $34 | 177 | September 2026 |
| 4★ hotel, island median per night | $62 | 210 | September 2026 |
| 5★ hotel, island median per night | $141 | 87 | September 2026 |
| 3-bedroom villa, island median per month | $3,975 | 125 | September 2026 |
Current island medians, observed September 2026, with the sample size behind each figure. The index has one observation month so far, so no per-month price history exists yet — it accrues from September 2026. Price index →
Source: Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Thailand, 2023–2025 · All sources · 2026-09-05
December is Phuket at full volume. The weather is as good as it gets — flat sea, low rain, clear evenings — and the island is priced accordingly. The month divides sharply: the first two weeks are ordinary high season, busy but bookable, and from roughly the twentieth the peak fortnight takes over and every rate on the island reaches its annual maximum.
The peak is not driven by one market. Russian, European, Indian, Kazakh, Malaysian and Australian holiday calendars overlap in the same fortnight, which is why nothing releases: a cancellation is absorbed the same day. Minimum stays of seven to ten nights appear on villas, and compulsory gala dinners are added to the room rate on the twenty-fourth and the thirty-first.
Three Thai holidays fall in the month — the fifth, the tenth and the thirty-first — and the King's Cup Regatta finishes in the first week off Kata. If you need immigration, a bank or the land office, do it before the tenth.
Anyone travelling on price, and anyone hoping to arrange a villa or a New Year table at short notice.
King Bhumibol's birthday, National Day and Father's Day (December 5, 2026); Constitution Day (December 10, 2026); New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (Dec 31, 2026 – Jan 1, 2027); Russian New Year holidays (Dec 31, 2026 – Jan 8, 2027). And 2 more entries on the calendar page.
A median December has 113 mm of rain over 16 days, daily highs around 29.2 °C and nights around 24.1 °C, from eleven years of reanalysis data. Mu Ko Similan National Park is open in December.
Yes. A median December has 0 rough-sea days on the west coast, so Patong, Kata, Karon, Kamala and Surin are normally swimmable and the sea sits around 29.0 °C. Red flags still go up on individual days — they mean what they say.
December sits inside the high season: rate cards are at their upper level and the best hotels and villas are committed months ahead.