Service guide
What a Thai visa overstay costs, how the re-entry ban changes if you surrender instead of being arrested, and what a lawyer can do about a removal order.
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A short overstay is a money problem. You surrender at the checkpoint on the way out, pay a fine of 500 baht for each day you stayed beyond your permitted date, and leave. The fine stops climbing at 20,000 baht, which is reached at 40 days. Where the overstay is only a few hours, the Royal Thai Embassy notes the fine is usually waived at the counter.
That is the whole story only if the overstay is short and you leave voluntarily. Past 90 days it stops being a money problem, because a re-entry ban attaches, and the length of that ban depends on something most people do not realise they are choosing: whether you present yourself or whether an official finds you.
What an overstay costs
The administrative fine, settled at the checkpoint on the way out of the country.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Overstay fine, per day beyond the permitted date | 500 baht |
| Maximum overstay fine (reached at 40 days) | 20,000 baht |
Source: Immigration Bureau, warning on overstay in Thailand
Checked August 2026
Criminal and detention exposure under the Immigration Act
Separate from the administrative fine, and applying to staying without permission at all.
| Item | Exposure |
|---|---|
| Staying without permission, or after permission expired or was revoked | Imprisonment up to 2 years, or a fine up to 20,000 baht, or both |
| Cost of immigration detention while awaiting removal | Charged to the detained person's account |
Source: Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979), sections 54 and 81
Checked August 2026
This is the single most consequential fact on this page. The published re-entry ban schedule treats a person who surrenders at a checkpoint completely differently from a person who is arrested and prosecuted.
Someone who has overstayed by eleven months and walks into a checkpoint faces a one year ban. Someone arrested at the same eleven months faces five years. The overstay is identical. The difference is entirely in how it ended.
Re-entry ban: surrendering versus being arrested
Ban periods run from the date of departure from Thailand.
| Surrendered to authorities | Arrested and prosecuted | |
|---|---|---|
| Overstay of less than 1 year | More than 90 days carries a 1 year ban; below that, the fine settles it | 5 years |
| Overstay of more than 1 year | 3 years | 10 years |
| Overstay of more than 3 years | 5 years | 10 years |
| Overstay of more than 5 years | 10 years | 10 years |
| How the ban is triggered | Presenting yourself at a land border, seaport or airport checkpoint before leaving | Being found by an official, with prosecution following |
Source: Immigration Bureau, re-entry ban schedule
Checked August 2026
Warning: If an order has been served on you, the clock is forty-eight hours
The Immigration Act gives two appeal routes and both are short. An order to leave the Kingdom as a person excluded from entry is appealed to the Minister within forty-eight hours of receiving it, and filing that appeal delays deportation until the Minister rules. Revocation of permission to stay is appealed to the Immigration Commission, also within forty-eight hours. In both cases the decision on the appeal is final, and some grounds cannot be appealed at all. A visa denial appeal runs on the same kind of deadline.
Firms
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Browse all firmsThe honest answer is that a lawyer cannot make an overstay disappear. The fine is fixed by a published schedule and the ban follows from the length of the overstay and how it ended. Anyone offering to erase either is selling something that does not exist.
What a lawyer does is narrower and more useful. They work out which category you are actually in, because people routinely assume the worst case when the schedule puts them somewhere better. They make sure the record is accurate, since a ban applied on the wrong overstay length is worth correcting before you leave rather than years later at a consulate. Where an order has been served, they file the appeal inside the window and make the argument.
In detention cases the work is more practical still: attending in person, dealing with the officers, arranging the documents and the fare, and where a criminal charge is involved, running that alongside. Whether release pending a decision is possible depends on the case, and that overlaps with bail applications and, where a prosecution has started, with criminal defence.
Establish the actual overstay period
From the entry stamp and the permitted-to date, not from memory. The number of days decides the fine, and the bracket decides the ban.
Decide how it ends
Surrendering and being found lead to different bans, so this is a decision to take with advice rather than by default. Where an official has already made contact, that choice is gone and the work changes.
Deal with any order inside the deadline
An order to leave or a revocation of permission to stay is appealable, but only for forty-eight hours from service. An appeal filed in time delays deportation until the Minister rules.
Handle detention if it arises
Detention has its own limits and its own costs, and the practical work is access, documents and speed rather than argument.
Settle the money and leave
The fine is paid at the checkpoint against a receipt. A departing foreigner who is liable for Thai tax, or who files on behalf of a company, also applies for a tax clearance certificate within fifteen days before leaving.
Record what happened
Keep the receipt, the stamps and any order. This is the evidence for any future application, and it is the only thing that fixes a mis-recorded ban later.
Immigration detention in Thailand is not open-ended, and the limits are worth knowing before anyone tells you otherwise. An official may detain a person for up to forty-eight hours from their arrival at the office. That can be extended to a maximum of seven days, with the reason recorded. Beyond seven days the official has to apply to the Court, which may order further detention where it finds it necessary, for periods not exceeding twelve days at a time.
Where a deportation order exists, the Act also allows the official to require a person to stay at a prescribed place or to report at set times, with security or a bond, instead of detaining them. Detention costs are charged to the detained person.
Those provisions are the ones a lawyer works with. They are also why speed matters: the difference between a lawyer engaged on day one and on day six is the difference between arguing about conditions and arguing about a court order.
Your passport and every Thai entry and exit stamp
The permitted-to date is the fact everything else is calculated from.
Any written order, notice or receipt you have been given
An order to leave or a revocation notice starts a forty-eight hour clock from the moment you received it, so the date and time matter.
Your full immigration history in Thailand
Previous overstays, refusals and extensions change the picture, and they are already on the system whether or not you mention them.
Details of any arrest, charge or police contact
Whether the matter is administrative or has become a prosecution changes both the route and the likely ban.
Your current address and who else is affected
Family, employment and a lease in Thailand all have consequences that outlast the departure.
Evidence of funds for the fine and the fare
Without them the practical outcome is detention until they are found, whatever the legal position.
For a two week overstay that you are about to walk out of, it usually is not. Pay the fine, keep the receipt, leave.
It becomes worth it once any of three things is true: an order has been served on you, detention or arrest is in play, or the overstay is long enough that a multi-year ban is on the table and you have a life in Thailand you are trying to keep. In those cases the value is in acting inside the deadlines and in getting the record right, neither of which can be done retrospectively.
On fees, the official side is fixed and published; the professional side is not. Firms set their own rates, and the shape follows the work: attending a checkpoint or advising on a bounded overstay is usually a fixed fee, while a detention or removal matter is normally hourly, because its length depends on officials and on the case rather than on the firm. No credible published source gives professional fee ranges for this work, so compare written quotes.
For context on the wider practice, an immigration lawyer in Thailand handles this alongside refusals, proceedings and status disputes. This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules, fees and procedures change, and an individual overstay depends on facts a page cannot see, so speak with a qualified professional about your own situation.
Common questions
Practical explainers on this topic: general information, not professional advice.
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