Service guide
A visa extension in Thailand costs 1,900 baht in official fees, is never refunded, and runs up to a year. Category rules, filing steps, and what goes wrong.
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A visa extension in Thailand keeps you in the country past the date stamped in your passport, on the same purpose you were admitted for. It is not a new visa and it is not a change of visa type. The Immigration Act lists the temporary-stay purposes, from touring and business to investment, study and mass media, and an extension continues one of them.
The official fee is 1,900 baht per application, whatever category you apply under. Each grant is capped: the Act tells the Director-General to consider granting an extension "for a period not exceeding one year for each time". A tourism extension is far shorter, and you get it once.
You file in person, on form TM.7, at the immigration office for the province where you live. Bangkok's Immigration Division 1 confirms that both extensions of stay and changes of visa type are handled at your provincial office rather than centrally.
There are two numbers on this page and only one of them is published. The government fee is fixed at 1,900 baht and does not vary by category, by nationality, or by how long the extension turns out to be. What a firm charges to prepare, check and run the filing sits on top of it, varies by scope, and is not published anywhere. Any page quoting a standard agency rate is quoting itself.
The fees below come from the Immigration Division 1 fee schedule, corroborated by Samut Prakan Immigration.
Official immigration fees and fines
Rates published by Immigration Division 1 and Samut Prakan Immigration. Professional fees are separate and are not published.
| Item | Official amount |
|---|---|
| Extension of stay, any category | 1,900 baht per application |
| Re-entry permit, single entry | 1,000 baht |
| Re-entry permit, multiple entry | 3,800 baht |
| 90-day address report | No fee |
| Late 90-day report | 2,000 baht |
| Overstay | 500 baht per day, capped at 20,000 baht |
| Professional or agency fee | Not published, varies by firm and scope |
Source: Immigration Division 1, fee schedule
Checked August 2026
Warning: The 1,900 baht is not refunded if you are refused
The fee page states it plainly: "Fee is not refunded under any circumstances." You pay per application, not per approval. A file that is short of a document, or that fails a financial threshold by a small margin, costs the same as one that is granted.
That is the whole commercial case for getting the paperwork right before it reaches the counter. It is also why the categories with an interview or a seasoning rule attached are the ones where people most often pay twice.
An extension application is a documents exercise with a same-office decision at the end of it. The order below follows the published criteria for the main categories.
Confirm which category you qualify under
Retirement, Thai family, work, education and tourism each have their own criteria and their own document list. The category decides everything that follows.
Assemble the documents the category requires
TM.7 with a photograph taken within the last six months, passport copies, and the category evidence: bank letters and passbooks, a work permit copy, an institution's request letter, or the family evidence set.
File in person at your provincial immigration office
Extensions are handled where you reside, not centrally. Originals are shown to the officer.
Attend the interview where the category requires one
Thai family cases require the applicant and the spouse to appear together in person.
Pay the 1,900 baht fee
Per application, non-refundable, whatever the outcome.
Receive the stamp, or wait under consideration
The Immigration Act provides that while an application waits for directives, the applicant may be permitted to stay.
The criteria published by Immigration Division 1 run to dozens of numbered items. The five below cover almost every foreigner asking about an extension. Every long-stay category assumes you already hold a non-immigrant visa; a visa exemption stamp does not lead to a one-year extension.
Retirement is the category with the most moving parts, and the money has to sit still for months rather than appear on the day. The retirement visa service page covers the application and renewal work, and the guide to retiring in Thailand goes through the 800,000 baht and 65,000 baht routes in detail.
The main extension categories
Headline criteria as published by Immigration Division 1. Each category carries a longer document list.
| Category | Tourism | Retirement | Thai spouse or family | Work | Education |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How long is granted | One time only, no more than 30 days | No more than one year at a time | No more than one year at a time | No more than one year at a time | No more than one year at a time |
| The headline requirement | A tourist visa or an exemption entry of up to 30 days | Age 50 or over, plus 65,000 baht monthly income or 800,000 baht on deposit | A de jure and de facto relationship, plus 40,000 baht a month or 400,000 baht on deposit | Employer paid-up capital of 2 million baht and four Thai staff per foreign employee | A confirmation and request letter from the institution |
| The catch people miss | Nine nationalities are capped at seven days | The deposit must sit two months before filing and three months after permission | The applicant and spouse are interviewed together in person | The permission ends the moment the job does | Foreign teaching staff at private schools are capped at 10 percent |
Source: Immigration Division 1, extension criteria
Checked August 2026
Required: An agent cannot sit your spouse interview
The published criteria for the Thai family categories say it twice: "Applicant and spouse must contact in person for an interview." The originals are shown to the officer at the same time. Both of you appear, or the file does not progress.
The document set behind it is heavier than most people expect: evidence of address reporting, evidence of 90-day reporting, four family photographs taken inside and outside the house, the house lease and the owner's household registration. A firm can assemble and check all of that. It cannot attend for you.
Retirement money carries a different kind of trap. The 800,000 baht route requires the balance to have been held for at least two months before you file and three months after permission is granted, after which it may drop to no less than 400,000 baht. A deposit made the week before the appointment does not qualify, however large it is.
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A tourism extension is granted one time and for no more than 30 days from the date your permitted stay expires. For nationals of Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Nepal, Togo, Nigeria and Uganda, Immigration Division 1 states that the extension "will not be longer than 7 days". That restriction is published, not discretionary.
Working on a non-work extension is a separate offence, not a technicality. The Immigration Act bars occupation or employment unless it is authorised under the work-permit law, and attaches imprisonment of up to a year, a fine of up to 10,000 baht, or both. A retirement or Thai-spouse extension is permission to stay, never permission to work.
Repeated exemption entries are not a substitute for an extension either. The Royal Thai Consulate-General in Los Angeles publishes the rule that entry under the tourist visa exemption scheme by a land border is limited to twice in a calendar year, with nationals of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore excepted.
Four failures account for most of the damage, and none of them is the officer being difficult.
The first is a refusal on an incomplete file, which costs the 1,900 baht and leaves you with whatever time remains on the original stamp. The second is a permission that ends before its date. Immigration Division 1 states that where a foreigner changes employer or leaves the job, or the reason for staying changes from the one permitted, "the permission to stay in the kingdom will be terminated immediately", and that this applies to those who follow the alien as well. A resignation ends the employee's permission and the family's with it, on the day, regardless of what the passport says.
The third is revocation. The Director-General or the Immigration Commission may cancel a permission already granted, with an appeal to the Commission within 48 hours and no route beyond it. The fourth is overstay, which the Immigration Act treats as a criminal offence carrying up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 20,000 baht.
In practice, overstay is charged administratively at 500 baht a day, capped at 20,000 baht, followed by an entry ban. Surrender voluntarily and the ban runs one year for an overstay over 90 days, three years over one year, five years over three, and ten years over five. Get arrested instead and it starts at five years, rising to ten for an overstay over a year. Illness is not a defence to the daily fine. Where a ban or removal is already in play, deportation is a different problem from an extension and needs different help.
The extension is the start of a maintenance cycle, not the end of one.
You must report your address every 90 days once your stay passes 90 days. The window is within 15 days before, or 7 days after, the due date, in person, by an authorised person, by registered mail, or online. A late report costs 2,000 baht, and being caught rather than self-reporting costs more. Leaving Thailand and returning resets the count to day one. Online filing is available from 15 days ahead and the result is emailed within three days, except after a passport change, when that first report has to be made in person or through an authorised person. A change of address has to be notified within 24 hours.
The departure rule is the one that catches people who have done everything else right. Under the Immigration Act, once you have permission to stay, leaving the Kingdom means your permission to enter is treated as expired, unless you obtained permission to return before you left. A re-entry permit bought in advance preserves the balance of your extension. One trip abroad without it, and the year you just paid for is gone.
The 1,900 baht is the same whoever hands over the form. What a law firm or visa agency in Thailand is paid for is the checking: whether your category still fits your circumstances, whether the bank letter is dated correctly, whether the seasoning period is complete, whether the employer's paperwork supports a work-based file, and whether a re-entry permit is needed before a trip you have already booked.
They are also worth using to hear no. Where the category does not fit, no amount of paperwork fixes it, and a firm that says so before you file has saved you the fee and the gap in your status.
Ask any firm two questions before engaging: what is included in the quoted fee beyond the 1,900 baht, and which parts of the process require you personally. On a Thai family extension, the interview always does.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Fees, criteria and immigration practice change; for a specific case, speak with a qualified professional.
Sources: Where these figures come from
Fees and the non-refund rule: Immigration Division 1 fee schedule, corroborated by Samut Prakan Immigration.
Category criteria, the seven-day nationality cap, the in-person interview requirement and the termination of permission when employment ends: Immigration Division 1 published extension criteria and FAQ.
The one-year ceiling per grant, the position while an application waits for directives, revocation and appeal, the bar on unauthorised work, 90-day reporting and the effect of leaving the Kingdom: Immigration Act B.E. 2522, official English translation.
Overstay fines and entry bans, and the 90-day reporting window and late fine: Samut Prakan Immigration. Land-border exemption limit: Royal Thai Consulate-General, Los Angeles. All figures checked on 26 August 2026.
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