Your 30 or 60 days in Thailand are almost up and you’re not ready to leave. The good news: if you entered on a visa exemption stamp or a tourist visa, you can usually buy yourself 30 more days at a local immigration office, no need to fly out and back in. The paperwork is simple, but the process rewards patience, since the actual bottleneck is the queue, not the form.
This guide covers who qualifies, what the extension costs and requires, which offices handle it, and the honest tradeoffs against a border run, plus what overstaying actually costs you. All fees are quoted in Thai baht with US dollars in parentheses at ฿33 = US$1 (July 2026), and every figure here should be confirmed at immigration before you rely on it, rules and requirements shift and offices can apply them slightly differently.
What does a Thailand visa extension cost and require?
Here’s the standard 30-day extension at a glance.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Fee | ฿1,900 (US$58), cash, non-refundable |
| Form | TM.7, completed in full |
| Photo | One 4x6cm passport-style photo |
| Copies | Passport photo page + current entry stamp/visa page |
| Extra document (varies by office) | TM.30 residence notice or hotel booking confirmation |
| Who’s eligible | Visa-exemption or tourist visa (TR) entries by air; most 60-day tourist visas extend to 90 days total |
| Who’s generally not eligible | Visa-exempt land-border entries (currently not extendable) |
| Where | Any immigration office, in person only, no online option |
| Processing | Usually same-day |
Compiled from current Thai Immigration Bureau fee schedules and office listings as of July 2026. Confirm at your local office, requirements and documents can vary slightly.
Who can extend their stay?
If you flew into Thailand on a visa exemption stamp or a standard tourist visa, you’re the intended audience for this extension. Visa-exemption arrivals can extend once, usually taking a 30-day stamp to 60 days total. Holders of a 60-day single-entry tourist visa can extend by 30 more days for 90 days total. Thailand cut its standard visa exemption from 60 to 30 days for most nationalities in 2026, so what you’re entitled to on arrival now depends heavily on your passport and entry date, our Thailand tourist visa and exemption guide covers the current entry allowances in detail.
The one group this doesn’t help much: travellers who entered by land on a visa exemption. Those entries currently top out at 30 days with no extension option, and land-border visa-exempt entries are capped at two per calendar year, so plan your route accordingly if you’re crossing from Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar or Malaysia.
How do you actually file the extension?
Show up with your passport, a completed TM.7 form, one photo, and photocopies of your passport’s photo page and current entry stamp. Bring ฿1,900 in cash. Some offices also want a TM.30 (the residence notification your hotel or landlord should already have filed) or a hotel booking as proof of address, ask when you check the requirements for your specific office. If you haven’t already filed a digital arrival card for this trip, check our digital arrival card guide, officers sometimes ask to see it alongside your entry stamp.
Dress like you’re visiting a government office, because you are: no vests, no flip-flops, shoulders and knees covered. Officers can and do turn away applicants who show up looking like they’re headed to the beach.
Where are the main immigration offices?
Bangkok’s main office is inside the Government Complex on Chaeng Wattana Road, open Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm with a lunch break. It’s the busiest office in the country and can mean a 2-3 hour queue on a bad day, arrive by 8am if you want to be near the front. Chiang Mai’s office sits inside Promenada Resort Mall, generally a calmer experience if you’re there before 10am. Phuket’s office is on Phuket Road in Phuket Town, manageable most of the year but it rivals Bangkok’s queues during high season, November through March. Island destinations including Koh Samui also run local immigration offices, hours and queue systems vary by location, so check the current address and hours before you go rather than assuming they match the mainland offices.
Extension vs. border run: what’s the honest call in 2026?
A few years ago, plenty of long-stayers just hopped a bus to the border, got a fresh stamp, and came back. That’s a much riskier move now. Thailand has visibly tightened enforcement through 2026: land-border visa-exempt entries are capped at two per calendar year, and immigration officers now review your full passport history rather than judging each entry alone. If your stamps show a pattern that looks like you’re living in Thailand on repeated tourist entries, you risk being refused at the border, a much worse outcome than paying ฿1,900 for a legal extension.
As Immigration Bureau spokesperson Police Major General Choengron Rimphadee put it, describing who the crackdown actually targets: “Visitors who make one or two trips a year have nothing to worry about.” It’s the people chaining back-to-back entries together to live in Thailand without a proper visa who are getting turned away.
The extension costs money and queue time, but it’s the legal, low-risk option, and it keeps your passport history clean if you plan to apply for a longer-term visa later, like the Destination Thailand Visa for remote workers and long stayers. If you do end up on a longer-term visa category down the line, note that those come with their own address-reporting obligations, our 90-day reporting guide covers what that looks like once your stay is no longer a simple tourist extension.
What if you overstay?
The fine is ฿500 (US$15) per day, capped at ฿20,000 (US$606) once you hit roughly 40 days over. If your overstay is under 90 days and you leave voluntarily, paying that fine at the airport or land border on your way out is typically the end of it, no further consequence. Cross 90 days overstayed, though, and you’re looking at an entry ban starting at one year and climbing the longer you’ve overstayed, and getting caught by immigration rather than departing on your own tends to draw a harsher ban than a voluntary exit. Officers sometimes waive small overstays caused by a flight delay, but that’s discretion, not a rule, don’t plan around it.
Sources
- Immigration Bureau Division 1, Bangkok: visa extension information
- Thai Embassy: advice on Thailand visa overstay regulations
- Thaiger: Thailand visa exemption 2026, 93 countries and TDAC guide
- Thaiger: the visa run era is over, 2026 border-run enforcement
- Siam Legal: Thailand approves end of 60-day visa-free stay
- Current Chiang Mai and Phuket immigration office location and hours listings (2026).