The TDAC arrival card, field by field

Fill in the Thailand Digital Arrival Card on the official site in the three days before you land, check your passport details twice, and save the QR code to your phone. That’s the whole job. It’s free, it takes about five minutes, and without it you’ll be sent to a kiosk queue before you can clear immigration.

Since filming: the card launched on 1 May 2025 with a three-day window and an Update Arrival Card option; this page reflects the live site.

Who this is for: every foreign passport holder entering Thailand, including expats with retirement, DTV or work visas coming home from a trip.

Who can skip it: Thai citizens; passengers changing planes without passing through immigration; and people crossing on a border pass.

What the TDAC is

The TDAC replaced the paper arrival card, the TM.6, on 1 May 2025. It holds the same details: who you are, how you’re arriving, where you’ll stay and a short health declaration. Immigration sees it the moment your passport is scanned.

It isn’t a visa and doesn’t replace one. If you need a visa, you still apply for it separately on the e-Visa site, thaievisa.go.th.

Good to know: you need a new TDAC for every entry. A week in Vietnam means a fresh card before you fly back.

When to file it

You can submit from three days before your arrival date, counting that date itself. For a 20 November arrival, the form opens on 17 November.

• Too early: the date picker greys out any arrival more than three days away. You can’t get ahead.
• Late is fine: you can file from the gate, or even on the plane if there’s Wi-Fi.
• Arriving just after midnight: use the date you land, not the date you took off.

Before you start

Have these open:

• Your passport. The site can read the two machine-readable lines at the bottom of the photo page if you upload a photo of it; check what it fills in.
• Your flight number, from your booking or boarding pass.
• Your first night’s address, the full hotel name and street address.
• A list of every country you’ve been in for the past two weeks, including layovers of 12 hours or more.
• An email address you can open on your phone.

Use English for everything. In drop-down lists, typing the first three letters brings up the matches.

Step by step

1. Open the official site

Go to tdac.immigration.go.th and choose Arrival Card. Type the address yourself. Search results for “Thailand arrival card” are full of paid look-alikes, and some of them collect passport data.

Thailand’s immigration app, THIM, can also file a TDAC. It’s optional and still being rolled out; the website is the safe default.

2. Personal information

• Family name and first name, exactly as printed on your passport, without titles.
• Passport number and nationality. Dual nationals: use the passport you’ll hand to the officer, and the nationality that matches it.
• Date of birth, occupation and gender.
• Visa number: leave it blank if you’re entering visa-free. If you have a visa, enter the number from your visa or e-Visa approval.
• Country and city of residence: where you live. Expats living in Thailand choose Thailand.
• Phone number: a home or Thai number both work. Your confirmation goes by email, not text.

3. Trip information

• Date of arrival: only dates inside the three-day window can be picked.
• Country where you boarded: the country of your last flight, not your home country. Flying London to Bangkok via Doha? Choose Qatar.
• Purpose of travel: pick Holiday if you’re visa-exempt or on a tourist visa; the exemption only covers tourism. On a work visa with a work permit, choose employment. There’s no retirement option, so retirees choose Others and type “retirement”.
• Mode of travel: air, land or sea. For air, choose commercial flight and enter your flight number.
• Departure information: optional. Fill it in if you have a return or onward flight. The officer can still ask to see that ticket.

4. Accommodation

Enter your first night’s stay only: the hotel, condo or friend’s address, with province and district. Moving around afterwards? You don’t need to list the rest.

The “transit passenger” box is only for people who won’t pass through immigration at all. If you’re leaving the airport, even for a night, you need the full card.

5. Health declaration

Add every country where you’ve stayed in the past two weeks. Most people add one or two and are done.

If any of them carries a yellow fever risk, including a layover of 12 hours or more, the form asks for your vaccination date and lets you upload the certificate. Those travellers must also report to the Disease Control desk before immigration. Check your route on the form a week before you fly so there’s time to find the certificate.

6. Preview, submit, save

Read the preview line by line, enter your email, accept the terms and submit. You’ll get:

• a TDAC number and QR code on screen: screenshot it;
• the same card by email: save the PDF to your phone so it opens offline.

A printed copy is a sensible backup if your phone battery is low after a long flight.

Travelling as a family or group

One submission covers up to 10 people. Add each traveller, children included, with their own passport details. For 12 people, file one group of 10 and one of two. Each person still gets their own QR code, so forward them to the right phones.

Fixing a mistake

Go back to the site and choose Update Arrival Card, using your TDAC number, date of birth and nationality.

If one of the locked fields is wrong, submit a new TDAC with the correct details. Immigration uses the most recent one. Do it before you fly, not at the kiosk.

Renewed your passport since you filed? That’s a locked field. File a new card with the new number.

The common errors

• Paying a fee. The official site is free. If a site asked for a card number, it wasn’t the official one; contact your bank.
• A typo in the passport number. It’s the most common reason a card doesn’t appear when the officer scans your passport.
• Filing too early. People try a week ahead and assume the site is broken.
• Choosing your home country as the boarding country when you connected somewhere else.
• Picking “business” or “employment” while entering visa-free. The exemption is for tourism only, and a mismatched purpose invites questions.
• Listing the second hotel instead of the first night’s address.
• Forgetting the TDAC for a land border. It’s required at land and sea crossings too.

What the officer checks

At a staffed booth, the officer scans your passport and your TDAC appears on screen. Most arrivals are then photographed, fingerprinted and waved through. You rarely need to show the QR code, but have it ready.

The card gives the officer a starting point for questions. Expect them to compare:

• Your purpose against your visa or exemption. Holiday plus visa-free is what they expect.
• Your departure date, if you gave one, against your permitted stay.
• Your address against what you say when asked where you’re staying.
• Your travel history on file. A long run of visa-free entries draws more questions than any field on the form.

If asked, answer calmly and briefly, and have your onward ticket, hotel booking and proof of funds ready. Carry 20,000 baht per person or the equivalent: official guidance quotes 10,000 or 20,000, and enforcement varies.

At the e-gates: Suvarnabhumi’s arrival gates read the same TDAC data. They’re open to 33 nationalities on visa-free entry, if your current passport has a previous Thai entry stamp. Holding any visa? Use the staffed booth.

Forgot to file it?

Don’t panic. Before the immigration hall there are kiosks and help desks where you can complete the card. At peak arrival times the kiosk line can be long, and you join the immigration queue after it. Filing at the gate before you board saves that wait.