If you want to stay in Thailand for 30 days or less, you do not need a visa (if you are from one of these countries). You are however obligated to carry a passport that is still valid for at least 6 months when you leave Thailand, with at least one empty visa page. Officially you must also be able to present a return ticket or a ticket to your next destination, but this is not often checked. Many backpackers travel by land to Laos or Cambodia and do not have an outgoing ticket. Once you’re in Thailand, you can extend your visa-free stay with an additional 15 days. If you enter the country by land, you can extend it for a maximum of 7 days.

Single entry visa

If you want to stay in Thailand for more than 30 days, you can apply for a single entry visa that allows you to stay in Thailand for a continuous 60 days. You can always extend your single entry visa by 30 days at one of the immigration offices. For this you need the following:

• Valid passport
• ID Picture
• Departure card; you will receive this on the plane to Thailand
• Cash
• Copies of the first page of your passport, visa stamp(s) and your departure card
• Completely filled in TM.7 form; you’ll get this at the immigration office

Visa run

Another thing you can do is a visa run. Which is leaving the country briefly and return via an airport. You’ll get another visa-free entrance for 30 days. You can also leave Thailand by land and come back, but that will only get you a 15-day visa*. Please note that you can do an over land visa run twice per calendar year at most. If you do this via an airport, this restriction does not apply.

* If you’re from USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy or Japan you’ll get another 30-day visa, even over land. 

Multi-entry visa

You can also apply for a multiple entry visa if you want to be able to travel in and out of the country multiple times. This visa is valid for six months from the date of issue, so within these six months, you must be in Thailand. From your day of arrival, the visa is valid for 6 months for multiple periods of up to 60 consecutive days. Every time you enter the country, you get a stamp for a new stay of 60 consecutive days.

For more information, please contact the Thai embassy or consulate in your country.

It is wise to get vaccinated against tetanus and hepatitis A before you travel to Thailand. Depending on where you are going and what you are going to do, you can get a vaccine for yellow fever, cholera, hepatitis B, TB, rabies, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid, or take medicine to prevent malaria (or ask for an emergency set). There are also mosquitoes that transmit other diseases for which there are no vaccinations or medicines. So where you can, make sure to protect yourself against them. Check out the recommendations.