Thailand Trip Planning 2026–27: 30 Days, Extension or e-Visa?

For two years a European, British, American or Australian passport meant 60 days in Thailand with nothing to arrange except the arrival card. That is over. From 15 September 2026 the stamp says 30 days, and a five-week winter escape or a month of island-hopping plus a Bangkok weekend now needs a plan. There are exactly three routes, and the right one depends on one number: how many days you intend to stay. This guide walks through each route with the current fees, documents, timings and the places where travellers get caught out.

Thai immigration counts the day you arrive as day one, and the permitted stay is printed on the entry stamp or shown on the e-gate slip as an exact date. Plan from that date, not from a rough "a month". A 30-day exemption used on 1 January runs out on 30 January, not 31 January. Once you know your total, the table below tells you which route to take.

The old habit of leaving and coming straight back to reset the clock is the one thing not to build a trip around. By land, visa-exempt entry is now limited to twice per calendar year (travellers from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore are exempt from that cap). By air there is no written limit, but back-to-back exemptions are exactly what immigration officers question at the counter. If you want more than 60 days in Thailand this season, get the visa.

This is the default for the 60 nationalities on the exemption list, which still covers the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and most of Europe. The full list, with every nationality's current entitlement, is on our visa-free countries page, and the visa checker gives a one-line answer for your passport.

• Passport valid for at least six months on the day you arrive.
• Purpose: tourism only. Working, even remotely for a foreign employer, is outside the exemption's intent and is a separate discussion.
• Onward or return ticket within the 30 days. Airlines check this at check-in more strictly than immigration does.
• Funds: officers may ask for the equivalent of 10,000 THB per person or 20,000 THB per family. Most travellers are never asked; those with several recent entries often are.
• Arrival card: a TDAC filed within the 72 hours before arrival, matching your passport exactly.

A visa-exempt entry can be extended once, by 30 days, at any immigration office in Thailand. This is the route for travellers whose plans are still open: you arrive on the exemption, decide in week three that you want to stay, and pay for the extra month. The fee is 1,900 THB, paid in cash, and it is not refunded if the extension is refused.

Where to apply

Any provincial immigration office handles tourist extensions. In Bangkok that is the Immigration Bureau at the Government Complex on Chaeng Watthana Road (Building B). Chiang Mai, Phuket, Jomtien for Pattaya, Hua Hin, Koh Samui, Krabi and Chiang Rai all have offices used to walk-in tourists. Go early: the busiest offices hand out queue numbers in the first hour and stop accepting applications when the day's quota is full. Several offices now take online appointments; check the office's own page before you travel across town.

What to bring

• Your passport with the current entry stamp.
• Form TM.7 (Application for Extension of Temporary Stay), available at the office or online; fill it in before you queue.
• One passport photo, 4 × 6 cm, taken within six months.
• 1,900 THB in cash. Cards are not accepted at most counters.
• Photocopies of the passport photo page, the current entry stamp and your TDAC or arrival record, each signed.
• Proof of where you are staying: a hotel booking, or the TM.30 residence notification your host or landlord filed. Offices increasingly refuse applications without it.
• An onward ticket within the extended period. Not always requested, always worth having.

When to apply, and what you get

Apply in the last one to two weeks of your permitted stay, and never after the date on the stamp. The extension is counted from the original expiry date, not from the day you apply, so applying early costs you nothing. Most offices issue the new stamp the same day, sometimes within an hour, sometimes after a wait of several hours in high season. The result is 30 additional days, giving a visa-exempt traveller 60 days in total. A second tourist extension is granted only in exceptional circumstances such as illness, with documents to prove it.

The single-entry tourist visa (category TR) gives 60 days from the day you enter, extendable once by 30 days for the same 1,900 THB. It is the only way to recreate the old 60-day stay with certainty, and since 15 September it is the route for anyone with fixed dates beyond a month. Applications go through the government's e-Visa portal at thaievisa.go.th; embassies no longer take paper tourist-visa applications at the counter. We explain how the visa and the arrival card relate in our e-Visa versus TDAC article; this section covers the application itself.

Documents the portal asks for

• Passport bio page, valid at least six months beyond arrival, with blank pages.
• A recent passport-style photo (digital upload).
• Flight confirmation into and out of Thailand, or a full itinerary.
• Accommodation for at least the first part of the stay.
• Proof of funds: bank statements showing the equivalent of at least 20,000 THB per person or 40,000 THB per family over the last few months.
• Proof of current address, and at some embassies an employment or study letter.

Two rules trip people up. First, you apply under the Thai embassy responsible for the country where you are a national or a legal resident, and a tourist stamp in a third country does not count as residence; the same principle was formalised for the DTV in August, and we cover it in our DTV requirements article. Second, the fee is charged when you submit and is not refunded if the application is refused or if you never travel, so upload complete, legible documents the first time.

December to February is when immigration offices are busiest and e-Visa processing is slowest, so the safe timeline for a longer trip starts earlier than it used to. Take a 45-day trip from 10 January to 23 February 2027 as the worked example.

1. Early to mid-November: decide the route. Fixed flights and 45 days means Route C. Check that the passport is valid to at least 23 August 2027 (six months beyond arrival).
2. By 10 December: submit the e-Visa on thaievisa.go.th with flights, first hotel and bank statements. Allow 14 working days in this season; approval usually comes sooner.
3. 7 to 10 January: file the TDAC. The portal opens 72 hours before arrival; we file it for you inside that window and email the QR code with the details checked against your passport.
4. 10 January: arrive with the e-Visa PDF, the TDAC QR code, the return booking and the first hotel address ready at the counter or the e-gate.
5. If you chose Route B instead: arrive visa-free on 10 January, the stamp reads 8 February, and you apply for the extension between 1 and 6 February with the documents above. The new stamp reads 10 March.
6. Before departure on 23 February: check the date on the stamp against your flight. Every day past it costs 500 THB, capped at 20,000 THB, and an overstay caught at the airport rather than reported voluntarily can bring a re-entry ban.

Whichever route you choose, the last document before departure is the same: the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, required for every foreign arrival by air, land or sea, filed within the 72 hours before you land, and read at the immigration counter and the automated gates. It must match the passport you present, down to the spelling of a middle name, and it carries the address of your first night in Thailand. Our field-by-field guide covers every question on the form. If you would rather not do it yourself, we review your details against your passport, file inside the window and send the QR code to your inbox for $29 per traveller.

One more link worth reading before a longer stay: our article on the signals that get travellers questioned at the border. Under the 30-day rule, a passport full of short Thai stamps draws more attention than it did last year.