Thailand durian export season

Roughly March to August, in volume from April. The eastern orchards in Chanthaburi, Rayong and Trat open the season and the southern provinces carry the back half of it, so the country ships for considerably longer than any one growing region does.

The east starts cutting in April and peaks in May and June. The south starts in June and peaks in July. In 2025 Chumphon, Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat opened on 18 June. Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat did not open until the last week of July, so the tail of the Thai season is the deep south.

Each variety has its own opening day. The provinces set a first cutting day every year, and export fruit must meet a minimum dry matter: 27% for Kradum, 30% for Chanee and Puang Manee, 32% for Monthong. In eastern Thailand in 2024, Chanee could be cut from 5 May and Monthong from 20 May. Monthong is the export variety and the one the rules are written around. Cutting it early is the fraud inspectors look for; in May 2026 officials in Chanthaburi opened 350 packed boxes and found 529 unripe fruit.

Almost all of it goes to China. Thailand exported 859,183 tonnes of durian in 2024 and 97.4% went there, with Hong Kong a distant second. Since January 2025 every shipment to China needs a laboratory report showing no cadmium and no Basic Yellow 2 dye. In the first weeks of that rule about 100 containers were sent back before Chinese New Year. Fruit leaves by sea from Laem Chabang, by road, and by refrigerated rail through Laos, which now reaches Kunming in about three days.

Peak durian is an event rather than a busy stretch. Volume concentrates hard, prices move within the week, and a container that arrives late arrives into a different market than the one it was sold into. On a lane of four to eight days that risk is real, and the days go at the terminals rather than at sea.

Durian ripens fast after harvest: two to four days for Chanee, four to six for Monthong. The University of Hawaii postharvest guide recommends cooling to 15°C and holding at 85–95% relative humidity. Whole fruit kept below 15°C suffers chilling injury, and the husk turns dark brown from the grooves between the spines. Fruit picked from the tree keeps seven to eight days, fruit collected from the ground two to three. Once the husk has started to split, the pulp is too soft to travel.

Weather moves the window by weeks. In 2024, weeks of heat near 40°C and drought in Chanthaburi split fruit on the tree and shortened the harvest. The following year’s crop was forecast 31% larger, because the weather in the main growing areas favoured flowering.