Chosen your dates for Bangkok or Phuket? If you are travelling for tourism on an Indian ordinary passport, start with the visa-exemption conditions and complete your TDAC for your arrival date in Thailand. Keep your passport, flight tickets and hotel booking beside you as you enter the details. The steps below cover documents before departure, immigration after landing, and collecting your luggage.
Indian ordinary passport holders travelling for tourism qualify for a visa-exempt stay of up to 30 days from 15 September 2026, according to the Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi’s announcement. Its September 2026 guidance replaces the older 60-day exemption information. This is an Indian passport rule: family members or friends holding another passport must use the conditions for their own nationality.
An advertised maximum stay is not automatically granted to every arrival. After immigration, check the actual admitted-until date recorded in your passport and leave within that permission. If you will work, study or stay for a longer purpose, prepare the relevant visa rather than relying on tourist entry conditions.
Keep your passport, ticket and accommodation booking together. Enter your name exactly as it appears in your passport and use the booking’s English accommodation name and address for the TDAC. Read the Thai arrival date and flight number from your ticket, rather than copying the date you leave your departure country.
Have your return or onward ticket and accommodation details ready. If an immigration officer asks where you will stay and when you will leave, answer using your booked itinerary. Prepare evidence of sufficient travel funds under the requirements for your entry category. The bank evidence requested for a visa application and any funds evidence requested at the border serve different purposes; neither is a payment for the TDAC, which is free.
The TDAC is the online arrival declaration replacing the paper arrival card. Non-Thai nationals entering Thailand by air, land or sea must complete it before immigration, subject to the official exemptions. Children need their own traveller details too.
Submit within the three-day window that includes your arrival date. Prepare your passport, ticket, English accommodation address and email, and use the local arrival date in Thailand. Download the completed document to your phone so you can open it at the airport even with an unreliable connection.
Completing an arrival declaration does not issue a visa. TDAC and visa preparation are separate. If your purpose requires a visa, prepare both the visa and the TDAC.
Follow Immigration / Passport Control signs to the immigration area. Keep your passport, TDAC confirmation and any required visa easy to reach. Answer questions about your travel purpose and accommodation using your actual plans.
After immigration, read the permitted-stay expiry recorded in your passport. Continue to Baggage Claim, collect your bags and pass through customs to the arrivals hall. Use the declaration procedure if you have goods to declare. Routes differ between airports such as Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang, so read the guide for your arrival airport as well.
You do not need a TDAC if you transit without passing immigration. If you enter Thailand to leave the airport or collect bags and check in again, you need a TDAC.
If you booked separate tickets, ask the airline before departure whether your bags will be checked through and whether you must pass Thai immigration. An itinerary labelled “transit” can still require entry into Thailand.
Not necessarily. You need a TDAC for visa-exempt tourist entry on an Indian ordinary passport unless an official TDAC exemption applies, but a qualifying tourist visit can use visa exemption without a separate visa. A TDAC is an arrival declaration. Work, study or another purpose requiring a visa cannot be prepared by submitting the TDAC alone.
The New Delhi Embassy’s notice provides a visa exemption of up to 30 days for Indian ordinary passport holders travelling for tourism, effective from 15 September 2026. After immigration, check the actual admitted-until date in your passport and leave within that permission. Do not use the older 60-day information to choose your departure date.
Use the local arrival date in Thailand shown on your ticket. If you depart one day and land in Thailand the next, enter the next day’s date. Check the arrival date and flight number together.
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