According to Thai Immigration Law B.E. 2522 (1979) Immigration Act of Thailand, any foreign citizen who wishes to enter the Kingdom of Thailand is required to obtain a Visa from a Royal Thai Embassy or a Royal Thai Consulate-General prior to entering Thailand.

If you are a foreigner and you want to visit Thailand for tourism purposes, here is how to get a Tourist Visa:

Documents required:

• have a passport or travel document with validity of not less than 6 months;
• Visa application form completely filled out
• recent passport photos
• flight itinerary
• the applicant must possess means of living expenses amounting to 10,000THB per person and 20,000THB per family accordingly.

**Consular officers reserve the rights to request additional documents as deemed necessary

Validity of Visa:

Upon entering Thailand by plane, you have to check whether your country belongs to Visa on Arrival or Visa Exemption Scheme category as it varies per nationality. The earlier, you will get 15 days (Visa on Arrival), while the latter you will get a maximum of 30-day period of stay. The Visa on Arrival is applied at the Immigration checkpoint at the airport. If your country belongs to Visa Exemption, you will automatically get 30-day visa. If your country doesn’t belong to the two categories, you have to go to Thai Embassy and apply for tourist visa. If you want to extend your period of stay beyond that date, you have to do Visa Extension, or you may need to apply for an appropriate visa validated by a Royal Thai Embassy or a Royal-Thai Consulate General depending on your purpose of stay.

Foreign citizens that come by road from a neighboring country shall obtain only 15 days instead of 30 days of visa exemption. This restriction does not apply to Malaysian citizens who will receive 30 days visa even if they come by road.

If you want to stay in Thailand at a longer period, you can apply for another type of visa: 90- Day Thai Visa or a 1-Year Non-immigrant Visa.

90- Day Thai Visa

The validity of this type of visa would be one visa for one entry (single entry visa)- it will allow you 90-day duration of stay from date of arrival to Thailand.

1-Year Non-immigrant Visa

It will give you multiple entries to Thailand. From the date of arrival to Thailand, you can stay for a period of 90 days per entry. You can go to the nearest border (about 4 hours away from Bangkok) so you can renew your stay for another 90 days in Thailand. The period of validity of this type of visa would be one calendar year.