Service guide
Thailand visa application fees and categories: 800 baht transit, 1,000 tourist, 2,000 or 5,000 non-immigrant, the e-Visa steps, and what an agency adds.
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A Thailand visa application is filed with a Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate-General through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs e-Visa system. Most applicants can complete that themselves, and this page says so before it says anything else. The account, the passport and photograph uploads and the card payment sit with the applicant, and the fee is not refunded if the application fails.
So the useful question is narrower than "who files it". It is which category to file in, what evidence that category demands, what happens in Thailand after arrival, and what to do if the answer comes back no. Those are the four places money is actually lost, and they are where a visa agency or a lawyer earns a fee.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues six visa types: transit, tourist, non-immigrant, diplomatic, official and courtesy. The first three are the ones a private traveller or a foreign worker deals with.
Many nationalities can still enter Thailand without a visa, and that entitlement is being narrowed. The Cabinet approved a revised visa exemption framework on 14 July 2026 covering more than 65 countries and territories under a one country, one entitlement rule: 59 countries at 30 days visa-free, Mauritius and Seychelles at 15 days, and Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia moved to visa on arrival. The draft announcements take effect 15 days after publication in the Royal Gazette, so treat the change as pending rather than in force, and check the current entitlement for your nationality before assuming you do not need to apply.
Visa-free entry also carries a short permitted stay and limits on what you may do while you are here. Anyone planning to stay for months, work remotely, or bring a family will be looking at a visa category instead, and for remote workers that increasingly means the destination thailand visa.
Category choice comes before everything else, because the fee is charged whether or not the application succeeds. The four rows below cover the situations most applicants are in.
Visa categories, stay lengths and official fees
General fee schedule published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Missions abroad collect the equivalent in local currency, and some nationalities may apply only at the mission in their home or residence country.
| Category | Validity and stay | Official fee |
|---|---|---|
| Transit (TS): passing through to a third country | Valid 3 months, stay up to 30 days | 800 baht per entry |
| Tourist (TR): holiday or medical visit | Valid 3 to 6 months, stay up to 60 days | 1,000 baht per entry |
| Non-Immigrant "B": work, business or investment | Valid 3 months or 1 year, initial stay up to 90 days | 2,000 baht single entry, 5,000 baht multiple entries |
| Non-Immigrant "O-A": long stay from age 50 | Stay 1 year | 5,000 baht multiple entries |
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Issuance of Visa
Checked August 2026
Other non-immigrant sub-categories exist for other purposes: "O" for family and retirement, "ED" for study, and the long-term resident and destination visas for remote and higher-income applicants. Each has its own evidence list, so the sub-category matters as much as the letter on the front.
Any fee a firm charges for handling the application is separate from these amounts and is quoted by the firm. Justenda publishes no professional-fee figure for visa work, because no official source states one.
Required: What every application needs, whatever the category
A passport valid for at least six months, a completed application form, a recent 4x6 cm photograph, evidence of adequate finances, and travel documentation.
Non-immigrant categories add category-specific evidence on top. A "B" visa for employment needs a Ministry of Labour approval letter and the Thai employer's corporate documents, and asks for finances of 20,000 baht per person or 40,000 baht per family. An "O-A" long stay visa needs a bank statement of at least 800,000 baht or income of at least 65,000 baht a month, a medical certificate, and a police clearance letter from the country of nationality or residence.
Assembling that evidence, in the form the mission accepts, is most of the work in a non-immigrant application.
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International boutique law firm in Bangkok and Phuket, providing legal and tax services to investors, businesses, and private clients across Thailand
฿7,000–12,000 / hour
Experts assisting clients in conducting their businesses and protecting their rights and investments in Thailand across a wide range of legal matters.
Applications run through the official e-Visa system. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the user manual, and its six published steps are the whole process.
The first screen is the one to slow down on. It asks which travel document you hold, whether you have permanent residency elsewhere, where you are currently located, which mission you are submitting to, your purpose of visit, the visa type and the number of entries. Those answers fix the category, and the fee is charged against them.
Create an account
Register as an individual applicant. The activation email arrives within 30 minutes.
Fill in the application form
Eligibility and mission first, then profile, travel document, address, employment and travel details.
Upload supporting documents
The passport biodata page and photograph, plus the evidence the chosen category requires.
Pay the visa fee
By card, inside the system. The manual warns that once paid there is no refund, so the details are checked before payment rather than after.
Wait for the application to be processed
Progress is tracked under Check Status, grouped by booking number and paid date. No official processing time is published, so treat any promised turnaround as an estimate rather than a rule.
Receive the approval by email
The approved visa is sent to the email address on the account.
The honest division is worth setting out, because few pages in this market do.
You hold the account, upload your own passport and photograph, and pay the fee from your own card. Nobody else can do those things for you, and nobody can reverse a refusal once it has been issued. Any firm promising a guaranteed approval is promising something it does not control.
What a firm brings is judgement before filing: reading your situation against the category rules, telling you which sub-category the evidence you actually have will support, and getting the employer, financial or medical documents into the shape the mission expects. It also brings the in-country side, which the embassy that issued your visa does not handle at all. A visa agency in Thailand works across both lanes, and complex or employment-linked cases often sit with a lawyer instead.
A good adviser will also tell you when the answer is no, or when the honest route is a different category. That conversation is cheaper than a non-refundable fee spent in the wrong one.
Refusal at the visa stage and refusal of entry at the border are separate events with separate consequences. The Immigration Act sets out the grounds on which a foreigner is not allowed to enter the Kingdom, and those grounds apply at the checkpoint even to someone holding a valid visa.
The fee already paid is gone either way. What matters next is why the decision went that way, whether a fresh application in a better-evidenced category is realistic, and whether anything on the record will follow you into the next attempt. A lawyer can read the reason given and advise on the route; visa denial appeals work starts there rather than with a second identical filing.
The embassy lane ends when you land. Extensions of stay and changes of visa type are handled by Immigration, at the office of the province where you live, and the Bangkok office sets out how those applications run. Someone who entered on a tourist visa and later qualifies for a non-immigrant category usually deals with that in Thailand rather than by flying home.
That is also where a stay gets lengthened rather than restarted, which is the ordinary maintenance work of living here. See visa extensions for how those applications are handled, and dependent visas where a spouse or children are joining a visa holder.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Fees, categories and entry rules change; for a specific case, speak with a qualified professional.
Also listed
Every one of these is verified on Justenda and can take on tourist & non-immigrant visa applications work in Thailand.
International boutique law firm in Bangkok and Phuket, providing legal and tax services to investors, businesses, and private clients across Thailand
฿7,000–12,000 / hour
Experts assisting clients in conducting their businesses and protecting their rights and investments in Thailand across a wide range of legal matters.
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International boutique law firm in Bangkok and Phuket, providing legal and tax services to investors, businesses, and private clients across Thailand
฿7,000–12,000 / hour
Experts assisting clients in conducting their businesses and protecting their rights and investments in Thailand across a wide range of legal matters.
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