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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai Immigration Form TM 88: Application for Visa on Arrival

Thai Immigration Form TM 88: Application for Visa on Arrival

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing the Forum TM 88, the application for visa on arrival in Thailand. This is the form itself, it is just a one pager here. As you can see there's a little box here where you are going to need to go ahead and have a photo attached with an application for a visa on arrival.  

But the things to take away from this video is that:

 1. There are certain nationalities that require no visa to come into Thailand and in fact they are issued with what is called Thai Visa exemption status upon arrival in Thailand. They receive what are colloquially referred to as 30-day stamps. Depending on the nationality of the individual, they will either get 30 or 15 days maybe even less. Sometimes more actually; there are certain nationalities to my understanding that can even get as much as 90 days just stamped in the moment they come true. But that being said, most come through, I know Americans come through with 30 days of visa extension status.

That is not the same as a visa on arrival. A visa on arrival is quite literally exactly what it sounds like; it is a Visa.  You just apply for and are permitted it at the kiosk before you go through Immigration quite literally. For example at Don Muang Airport there is a visa-on-arrival counter. It is very truncated in most cases but you sort of go through a truncated visa application process. They go ahead and issue the Visa and then you go ahead and go through Thai Immigration and Immigration stamps you in at that checkpoint and you are officially admitted into the country. Again very different from Visa exemption status where you are just stamped in for 30 days and you are exempt from the visa laws but you are in lawful status. This, you are not exempt from the visa laws, you actually have a visa. It just happened to be issued the moment you arrived in the Kingdom of Thailand.