Nationals from 56 countries can enter Thailand for 30 days without a visa, whereby you can get the visa stamped into your passport from an immigration officer at the airport. This is called “visa upon arrival”. Nationals of another 76 countries, most of which don’t have a Thai consulate, can get a 15-day visa stamp upon arrival. Nationals from Sweden and Korea can get a 90 day visa upon arrival. However, these are supposed to be used for tourists, not people intending to work and/or live in Thailand.
If you plan to be in Thailand longer, then you should bring your passport to the Thai embassy or a Thai consulate nearest you in the country where you are currently residing, and apply for whichever visa is appropriate:
Tourist visa (90 days)
No special paperwork is needed for westerners from rich countries and those from rich Asian countries. However, lately, many Thai embassies and consulates have been giving 60 day visas and tell you to extend to 90 days in Thailand. Try to get a “double entry” tourist visa which you can stretch to 180 days with one border run.
Non-immigrant visa (90 days, renewable to 1 year)
if you plan to do business here, or reside with a spouse, or retire. This requires documentation of your intent, usually a letter from your employer or your spouse’s employer, or a marriage certificate with your Thai spouse.
Type B: If you are coming to Thailand for business, then you apply for a Nonimmigrant B (Business) Visa. This 90 day visa can be extended for up to 1 year (and again for the next year) if you subsequently get a work permit and can show you’ve been paid the minimum monthly salary (50,000 baht for nationals of most Western countries, less for others, details below).
Type O-A: Retirement Visa (so-called) for those over 50 years old who keep a minimum balance of 800,000 baht in their Thai bank account over the previous 3 months and/or can prove they have a pension or regular income of at least 65,000 baht/month (including a required letter from their embassy about this pension), and wishing to retire in Thailand. If you are relying on the 800,000 baht then you must show it came into Thailand from a foreign country. Sometimes, a combination of the two (bank and pension) is allowed. A medical certificate is no longer required.
Type ED: Education visa. Many Thai language schools offer this to their students, so that you can get a longterm ED visa just by enrolling in (and paying the fees for) a Thai language school. It’s a good idea to learn Thai anyway, so many expats simply get their visa this way, too. Some advertise costs of about 35,000 baht/year whereby you never need to leave Thailand once you arrive, just keep on extending the ED visa at immigration.
Type O: If you have a registered legal marriage to a Thai (or to a foreigner who has a work permit in Thailand), then you apply for a Nonimmigrant O Visa. This 90 day visa can be extended for up to 1 year (and again for the next year) if you can display sufficient funds in a Thai bank savings account (a minimum balance of 400,000 baht over the previous 3 months). You show immigration your bank book, but immigration can also check its list of applicants using its contacts in the banks.
For a non-immigrant visa, if you start with a single entry visa (see all the multiple entry option) you start with a 90 day non-immigrant visa and can extend to a year by submitting an application to the Immigration Department near the time your visa will expire, if you qualify. You will normally get a 30 day extension while the application is being considered and processed (assuming it is complete and you meet the requirements), and it may require multiple trips to the immigration department for additional 30 day extensions — if the one year application has not been approved before your visa expires, then you must make sure to go back and ask the clerk to stamp your passport with another visa extension before your visa expires, which is extended one month at a time so may require more trips. This situation has improved over time so that most people don’t need additional 30 day stamps. In fact, many retirement visas have been processed on the same day.
A visa on arrival or transit visa is issued upon arrival in Thailand for those who arrive without a visa, and by the official rules it requires a ticket for continuing your travels back out of Thailand.
Tip: Multiple Entry Visa
You can also apply for a “multiple entry” visa when you first apply for your visa in your home country, if you are applying for a nonimmigrant visa of any kind. This saves you the trips to the immigration department in Thailand if you are entering and exiting Thailand often on business. However, business people with a 1 year nonimmigrant B multiple entry visa still can’t stay in Thailand longer than 90 days per visit unless they extend their visa based on a work permit. The purpose of the multiple entry business visa is to save business people and spouses the hassle of multiple embassy/consulate trips per year.
Many people with multiple entry visas need to stay in Thailand more than 3 months but for some reason or another cannot extend their visa beyond 3 months. They must exit within 90 days before their visa entry stamp expires, so after 3 months in Thailand without leaving, they must do a “visa run” to just quickly step over the border and back to get another 90 days — at any of several border crossings where there are immigration officers stationed to stamp their passports.
For example, they may just take a bus (or taxi) to the border with Cambodia or Burma (only certain places where there are immigration officers), exit thru Thai immigration, enter thru Cambodian immigration, turn around and exit thru Cambodian immigration, then enter thru Thai immigration to get a fresh new 90 days, altogether taking less than an hour depending upon the queue, in some places less than half an hour.
Again, the multiple entry visa means you don’t need to visit either an embassy/consulate nor the immigration department for a year, but you still must exit the country at least every 90 days.
It is difficult to get multiple entry visas from Thai consulates in Asia, as well as nonimmigrant B visas. You can with all your paperwork in perfect status, but it is inspected much more closely. It is much easier to get these kinds of visas in your home country.
IMPORTANT: 90 day rule about reporting to Immigration:
If you extend your visa so that you can stay beyond 90 days, you still must report to immigration every 90 days or less to update them about your current address. If you don’t, then you will be fined. You report to the immigration office within the jurisdiction of your registered address.