A scouting trip is the honest first step of a relocation: walk the neighbourhoods, visit the schools, meet the employer, then decide. Asia Relocation Thailand checks whether your passport needs a visa at all, files the tourist visa (TR) when it does, and plans the step after the visit so that the trip leads somewhere.
The tourist visa is the lightest file in Thai immigration and the one most often filed for nothing. Many passports enter for a short visit without any visa, and the exemption rules were revised again this September. The first thing we do is not to fill a form: it is to check whether your passport needs one, for the length of stay you have in mind, under the rule in force on the day you travel.
When a visa is needed, the category is broader than its name. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues it for leisure, for conferences and incentives supported by the convention bureau, for a course in Thai cooking, diving or boxing, for a family visit and for medical treatment, each under sixty days and each with its own supporting document.
Asia Relocation Thailand answers the visa-or-exemption question, files the e-Visa to the list of the post that will handle it, and plans what comes after the visit, because a scouting trip that cannot be converted into a stay is a trip that has to be made twice.
The line between visiting Thailand and living in it is the line between this page and its sisters. Knowing it before you fly is most of the service.
If your passport needs no visa, we say so and file nothing.
When the visit is the first step of a move, one coordinator runs both.
Same visa, different supporting document. The Ministry lists them by purpose.
Leisure on paper, reconnaissance in fact: districts in Bangkok, schools, the future office. Bookings and accommodation are the file, and what matters is planning the conversion before the trip.
Parents or relatives of a resident, for a stay under sixty days, with an invitation from the family in place of a hotel booking. Longer family stays belong to another category.
Meetings, exhibitions and incentive trips supported by the convention bureau, filed on the organiser's documents for the delegate.
Diving in Phuket, boxing in Bangkok, a cooking or massage course in Chiang Mai: recreational learning, on the school's letter, for the length of the course.
A hospital stay or a course of treatment under sixty days, on the hospital's confirmation, for the patient and often for the person accompanying them.
Your passport and your dates against the exemption rule in force. If no visa is needed, this is where the file ends, with a written answer.
Booking, invitation, school letter or hospital confirmation, whichever the purpose calls for, in the form the post expects.
Account, form, uploads and fee on the official system, to the list and the lead time of the post covering where you live.
Before you fly, we say whether the visit can turn into a stay from inside Thailand or must be refiled from abroad, so the trip is planned as a bridge.
A week in Bangkok to see the districts and the schools before the assignment is signed, with the long-stay route already sketched.
Relatives of a resident, invited by the family, whose passport may or may not need a visa for the length they have in mind.
A company sending a team to a conference or an incentive week in Thailand, with one file per traveller and one counterpart for HR.
A diving certification, a boxing camp, a cooking school: a recreational stay on the school's letter, for as long as the course runs.
The tourist visa is issued by the Thai post covering your country, on the e-Visa system. Nothing is filed at the airport in Bangkok, Phuket or Chiang Mai for this category.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs runs the e-Visa for applicants who are outside Thailand, and each embassy or consulate publishes its own document list and its own lead time. The confirmation arrives by email and is shown to the airline and to the immigration officer on arrival; the passport is no longer handed in.
What happens in Thailand is the exemption, for the passports that enjoy it, and any extension or change of category afterwards, at the Immigration Bureau office for the province where you are staying. Our Bangkok desk confirms current practice there before you plan around it.
Employment, study or family: the non-immigrant categories, chosen by what you will do and filed from abroad on the letter that proves it.
Non-immigrant visas for Thailand →Every route into Thailand and every obligation once you are here, from a scouting trip to a decade-long stay, on one page.
Visa & immigration services in Thailand →Visa or exemption answered in writing, the e-Visa filed if needed, the step after the visit planned before you fly.
Ask about a visit visa →