EXTENDING YOUR TOURIST VISA FOR THAILAND IN KRABI
GUIDE ON HOW TO EASILY HANDLE YOUR 30 DAY VISA EXTENSION IN KRABI WHEN STAYING ON KOH LANTA ISLAND
Getting a 30 day visa extension when staying in Southern Thailand around Krabi, Ao Nang and the island of Koh Lanta is super easy and simple – we show you how! You’ll find all details below on how to apply for a 30 day visa extension at the Krabi immigration office.
Well, actually we only wanted to stay a few days on the beautiful island of Koh Lanta in Southern Thailand but somehow days quickly turned into weeks and with the strong feeling that even those 3 ½ weeks on Koh Lanta wouldn’t be enough (especially considering that we hadn’t even started moving around Thailand yet!) we realized that we better hit the road and pay the Thai immigration office a visit to get our tourist visa extended if we wanted to keep enjoying Thailand’s tropical beaches and islands. AND WE SOOO DID!
So if you’re also in Southern Thailand not ready to leave just yet (we totally get it! 🙂 ) but wonder how the tourist visa extension process exactly works than keep on reading. Heads up – it was the easiest and fastest visa extension process we’ve ever experienced in Thailand.
(Check out our other article – How to extend your tourist visa for Thailand in Chiang Mai)
DISCLAIMER: This article contains affiliate links which are marked with a *. If you buy anything after you clicked such a link we’ll receive a small commission but most importantly the price for you stays the same.
WHERE TO EXTEND YOUR THAI TOURIST VISA IN SOUTHERN THAILAND?
The closest immigration office from Koh Lanta is in Krabi town where you can extend your stay (once!) for another 30 days, no matter if you entered with the 60-day tourist visa or whether you are on the 30-day visa waiver/ Visa exemption program.
The immigration office in Krabi
What is Visa Exemption / Visa Waiver?
A Visa Exemption / Visa Waiver is when you arrive in Thailand without a visa, but you are from one of the 55 countries that Thailand allows to enter without prior documentation including countries like Germany, UK, USA, New Zealand, Australia. You will get a stamp in your passport when you arrive and are then allowed to stay for 30 days. There is no fee or payment required – YAY!
However, even if you are from one of these countries – if you know already that you’ll be staying for at least 2 months if not even 3 than you might be better off going for the 60-day tourist visa.
WHY APPLY FOR AN EXTENSION OF YOUR THAI TOURIST VISA?
With our German passports we are, as mentioned above, allowed to enter Thailand with no visa at all and are permitted to stay for a total of 30 days (visa exemption).
However, if you plan on staying longer (and we already established that 30 days is waaaaay to short so yes, you’ll definitely want to stay longer 😊) you can extend your stay for another 30 days. PIECE – OF – CAKE!
Same applies when you enter with a single-entry tourist visa which allows you to stay in Thailand for a total of 60 days. And I mean even 60 days will fly by in no time so luckily, you can also extend this visa (only ONCE!) for another 30 days without leaving Thailand giving you the possibility to stay for a total of 90 days! Three months in Thailand? HELL YEA!!!! 😊
Attention! Keep in mind that the first day you are on Thai soil is already counted towards those 30/60/90 days! So always check your passport stamp for the exact expiry date and make sure to leave before as it gets VERY pricey if you overstay your visa!
WHEN TO APPLY FOR AN EXTENSION OF YOUR THAI TOURIST VISA?
Theoretically you can apply for an extension of your tourist visa for Thailand up until the day it expires (Or if you entered with no visa than the day indicated on your passport stamp where you’re supposed to leave paradise.)
However as always, waiting until the last second is risky. There might be a public Thai holiday you don’t know about or the date simply falls on a weekend when the immigration office is closed.
Maybe you forgot your passport at home (it happens!) and you need to go back to get it or it might be one of those days when there are just too many people in line who also decided to extend their visa that day and you simply won’t make it before closing time.
Whatever the reason, better be safe than sorry! So in order to NOT risk any last minute heart attacks we recommend heading to the immigration office to extend your stay/visa at least 2-3 days prior.
HOW TO GET TO THE THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICE IN KRABI FROM KOH LANTA TO EXTEND YOUR TOURIST VISA OR STAY?
There are shuttle services running from Koh Lanta to Krabi or even to the Krabi immigration office directly however this no-hassle option comes at a price (500 THB+ p.P)
You could also check and book transportation deals via the 12GoAsia-form below. 12GoAsia sometimes offers really good transportation and package deals at very affordable prices and you can book your transport in advance online hence avoiding all the hassle searching for transport on the island. So if you haven’t booked your ticket yet it might be worth checking your options below.
12GoAsia Transportation Options*
We figured that we’re way better off renting a scooter for only 200 THB per day and make a fun little road trip out of it.
You’ll need to take the ferry from Koh Lanta to the mainland which runs very regularly and only costs 5 THB per motorcycle and 20 THB per Person (so we paid 45 THB in total per crossing).
Moments before we got on the ferry in Koh Lanta
As we had the feeling that it would probably take us quite some time by scooter to get from Koh Lanta to Krabi Town we decided to stay overnight in Krabi* giving us the chance to relax after our drive as well as explore a bit more of Krabi and it’s beautiful surroundings.
We found a great last-minute deal on booking.com and booked us a double room at The Fong Krabi Resort* which was just a few minutes’ drive from the immigration office.
Fong Resort in Krabi, the perfect getaway
It turned out that this was THE BEST DECISION! Totally saved our sunburned butts!
Not only was The Fong Krabi Resort* a beautiful little, cozy hotel making this “business” trip feel much more like a little mini-vacation but most importantly, we would have never, NEVER, made it from Koh Lanta to the Krabi Immigration Office in a day! Ooops! Classic miscalculation!
The drive from Koh Lanta took us way longer than anticipated (3 hours+!!!) as our sat-nav didn’t work and we had to stop several times to check the map. Once we got to the immigration office at 4pm the doors were already closed, despite the sign saying that it was open until 4:30pm…no suprise. ☹
But as we were staying overnight in Krabi it didn’t really bother us as this meant we could simply come back the next morning – no worries.
So we headed to our hotel, played in the pool until the sun was gone, made use of the free shuttle to the nightmarket in Krabi town and had a good night’s sleep followed by a big breakfast by the pool before making our 2nd attempt at the immigration office.
This time we were lucky, the gates were wide open and we could finally apply for our tourist visa extension.
The Thai immigration office in Krabi is basically just this one open-plan office with the following services on-site: Free WiFi (which however didn’t work when we were there so don’t count on it), toilets, a few plastic chairs and a small playing area for children.
WHAT TO BRING WHEN EXTENDING YOUR THAI TOURIST VISA?
Theoretically your passport with your departure card plus the fee you need to pay should be completely enough to extend your stay in Thailand as everything else usually is provided (forms, passport photo service, copy shop) – it’s not called “one stop shop” for no reason and in Krabi they take the “one-stop-service” very seriously! 😊
However, here is the full list of what is officially REQUIRED for extending your Thai tourist visa:
- Passport (including your Tourist Visa or your entry stamp and departure card)
- Photocopies of the main passport photo page
- Photocopies of your current Thai tourist visa page (if you have a tourist visa already) or a copy of exit stamped page
- Photocopies of your departure card
- Application for Extension of Temporary Stay in the Kingdom (form TM.7)
- One 4cm x 6cm passport photo (they are not flexible here!!)
- An application fee of 1,900THB
- the address where you are currently staying as well as having a thai phone number – this information is required on the visa form!
WHAT IS THE EXACT PROCESS FOR EXTENDING YOUR THAI TOURIST VISA IN KRABI?
As mentioned before the Thai immigration office in Krabi had one of the easiest and fastest visa extension process we’ve ever seen (compared to Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Phuket). Some of our fellow travel friends and blog readers even managed to be in and out with their new visa in hand in less than 10 (!!!) minutes!
Their “One-stop-service” translates pretty much to “don’t-you-worry-about-anything”. No papers to fill out once your are there or anything like that. All we needed were our passports, our departure cards and the fee of 1,900 THB per Person in cash. THAT’S IT!
They made some copies of our passports right there (at no extra charge) and even took the “passport photos” – via their webcam. Hey, they will even filled in the forms for you (!!!!!) so all we needed to do was smile, wait, smile a bite more and DONE! Thumps up Krabi!!!!
Update March 2019: A blog reader informed us that they now charge 100 THB for the photos.
Below you’ll find a detailed description of the exact process when applying for an extension of your stay at the immigration office in Krabi town:
Tourist Visa Extension Process
- 1. Arrive at the Thai Immigration Office in Krabi (there is free parking on-site if you arrive by car/scooter)
- 2. Enter the office and pull a number from the machine on the left hand side off the desk
- 3. Take a seat and wait until your number is called (it will state the approx.. waiting time, assume roughly 5 min per number)
- 4. Once it’s your turn go to the counter and hand over your passport, departure card and any copies/passport pictures you might brought with you – it will speed up the process a little
- 5. If you didn’t bring any copies they will make a copy of your passport which you’ll need to sign
- 6. They will take a picture of you with the webcam (again, if you brought some passport photos then they’ll happily use them)
- 7. You’ll be asked to write down your address where you stay so have that ready. Meanwhile they’ll fill in the application for you which you only need to sign
- 8. After that you can sit down again and wait a few minutes until they call your name again
- 9. Pick up passport and pay the fee of 1900 THB in cash
- 10. LEAVE AND ENJOY YOUR ADDITIONAL 30 DAYS 😊
All in all we spend around 40 minutes at the immigration office which was only due to the many tourists there that day who also wanted to extend their visa/stay (it was Friday – what did we expect 😊) but the extension process itself if there aren’t that many people in front of you should only take 10-15 minutes max. Very straight-forward and efficient those Krabi peeps!
Note: Although it states that the immigration office is closed from 12 – 1pm there was actually somebody covering for the person on visa-extension-duty so that the service continued throughout the lunch time hour, luckily for us as we otherwise had to wait for ages.
What about you – have you already extended your stay/tourist visa in Thailand? What was your experience? We’d love to know how it works in other places in Thailand so make sure to let us know in the comments below.
As for us we definitely look forward to spending more time in Thailand. It already feels a bit like home. If you need some inspiration on fun things to do here in Thailand then make sure to check out our Thailand Adventures. From yummylicous food tours in Bangkok, island fun on Koh Chang to our list of awesome things to do on Koh Tao (especially if you’re NOT into diving! 😊) – WE GOT YOU COVERED! 🙂
This could also interest you:
About us
Welcome to Hungry Backpack!
We love to eat, we love to travel. We did not like the life we had so we changed it, completely! Packed our bags, said our goodbyes and left for a trip around the world with no end in sight. Follow us as we are tasting a new kind of life! 🙂
What You’ll Need To Bring
This is the ‘official’ list of what you need to bring when extending your tourist visa.
- Passport (including your Tourist Visa or your entry stamp and departure card)
- Photocopies of the main passport photo page
- Photocopies of your current Thai tourist visa page (if you have a tourist visa already) or a copy of exit stamped page
- Photocopies of your departure card
- Application form for Extension of Temporary Stay in the Kingdom (form TM.7)
- One 4cm x 6cm passport photo (they are not flexible here!!)
- A visa application fee of 1,900THB + 100 THB for passport photos if required
- the address where you are currently staying as well as having a thai phone number – this information is required on the visa form!
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Hi guys
Thanks for the fantastic, informative post. Great work! I just have a quick question: I’m from the EU, I stayed in Thailand in December and January (60 days) went to Malaysia for 3 months, and now I’ve been back in Thailand since 1st of May, so I’ve been here 90 days in total.
Can I go to the Krabi Immigration office and extend for another 30 days? Or is the maximum time I’m allowed to stay in the country 90 days per year?
Many thanks
Kind regards
Update – Feb 2024. They do close for lunch 12-1pm, which is a little frustrating when you are the next ticket. Not much we could do given ferry arrival time. Good to know though
We have a 30 day on arrival visa that expires in 3 weeks (Feb 11) and we happened to be in Krabi today so went to the immigration office and they were very helpful and extended our visa from Feb 12 to March 12 saving us a trip back to Krabi in a few weeks. So glad we stopped by today to check it out.
Hi
Thanks for this travel blog, extremely helpful, superstars!
We’re British and currently stuck in Ao Nang (hardship I know ..) due to situations around the world. We were due to head to Singapore at end of month but now can’t and can’t get back to UK so will struggle to depart before our 30 VE expires on 6th April.
We plan to head to the Krabi Immigration office next week to apply for a 30 day extension.
We will update your thread with how it goes and make you aware of any changes to policy or procedure.
Thanks again for this.
Darren & Hilary
Hi you two!! Thanks for your message – it’s a weird situation indeed and we hope you guys stay safe and healthy!! Thailand is probably one of the few places that’s still fairly relaxed – here in Malaysia you can’t even go to the Park anymore, everything is closed. However it hopefully helps to flatten the curve so that we all can go back to our “normal” lives soon! fingers crossed.
Yes, please keep us updated on the visa process in Krabi!Would be really helpful and good to know whether anything has changed or whether it’s still “business as usual!” In Indonesia (Bali) for example they just announced that you’ll simply don’t get fined an overstay fee anymore meaning no one needs to go to a busy immigrations office (which is probably very risky these days). Maybe they’ll be doing something similiar in Thailand but so far we haven’t heard anything so please keep us updated!!
Good luck and stay safe!
Berit & Martin
Hi guys. We are also in Vietnam (Da Nang) and will be heading to Koh Lanta for a month starting in April. We have just cancelled our AirBnb in Kuala Lumpur for May because we don’t know what will be happening with travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 problem so we might want to extend our 30 day T.V. in Thailand, should things get tough on our travel plans. This article has answered all of our questions concerning the extension. The extension allows us some wiggle room. Thanks for posting it.
Hi guys! How are you? Are you still in Vietnam planning on travelling to Koh Lanta in April? Everything changes so quickly, we think it’ll be very tricky to get to Koh Lanta. We are currently in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur. There are a lot of rules here but generally we feel good and safe. But nobody knows how the situation is going to be in a few weeks…If you make it to Thailand probably best to try to get the 60 day visa (which country are you from?) which you can then also extend by another 30 days, making it possible to stay for 90 days in total. Well good luck and stay safe!!!
Hi both! Many thanks for the detailed and helpful article! We are looking to extend our stay, but my partner has lost his departure card! Do you know if this would be a problem?? Thank you so much and looking forward to your reply.
Hi Mimi! Great to hear that you found this article helpful! 🙂 Regarding your question concerning the lost departure card -this shouldn’t really be a problem and actually the immigartion office would be the right place to check for a new one. It happened once to us a few years back and we could simply fill in a new one at the airport – it took a little while but otherwise it wasn’t a big problem. We would imagine it’s still like that but if you are planning on going to the immigration office anyay we’re sure they can sort you out there!
Let us know how it went so we can include this information here in this article!
2020 January 23. It took 10 minutes. All what they asked were passport, departure card, present address in Thailand and local mobile number. Photo was made via webcam (same as in airports). Paper work was done by immigration. You have to sign it and pay in cash total 2000 B for one visa extension stamp for 30 days.
Thank you for this post! We went yesterday at 9am and it was SO EASY! We brought copies of everything and it wasn’t even necessary, just passport, departure card, and $ like you said.
Hi Jamie! Thanks for the info! Glad to hear that everything went smoothly and that you didn’t have any issues! We prefer the smaller immigration offices (Krabi, Chiang Mai) as the process is usually much quicker and easier. Enjoy the rest of your time in Thailand!!!
Your post was super helpful, we just got our extension done in 15 minutes 🙂
We arrived at 8:30 and were out by 8:45. We also had to pay 100 instead of 20 for the photo (in case you want to update your post with the new price)!
Also a piece of advice to everyone, rent a scooter to go there because when I looked at the price for a grab, it was 250 each way from krabi center! A scooter was only 200 for a day.
Hi Sebastian,
thanks for your message and the info regarding the changed prices for the photos! It’s crazy, when we went, it was still free, than they wanted 20 THB and now already 100 THB – guess it’s a good way to make some money 😉 We’ll update this post accordingly!
Happy Travels and keep enjoying beautiful Thailand!!!!
Tnx for the info … will go here instead of Phuket as it is more convenient 🙂
Hey Luke! Yes, we found the visa extension process in Krabi way smoother than in Phuket. Also we like Krabi in general way more than Phuket 😉 Hope everything goes well! Greetings from Chiang Mai!
Hi, not sure if you’re still updating your articles but wanted to say, it is now 20 baht for photocopies and 100 baht for a passport photo.
Still a very easy and quick process!
Also thanks so much for this detailed article, it really helped!!
Hi Amy! Thanks for letting us know! We made sure to update our post with your valuable information straight away! Thanks so much and happy travels!!!
Hi the hotel you stayed in was it in walking distance to the immigration office. Would it save time if we copied our passports and brought our own pics. Do you know how far from bus station please. Thank you for this post been so helpful
Hi Frances,
The hotel we stayed at is not in walking distance to the immigration office unless you consider 1 hour on foot walkable (some people do ). Since the immigration office is located in a very “industrial” area with mainly government buildings there are no many accommodation options nearby. The Fong Krabi hotel is perfect for you if you have a scooter or car at your disposal since it’s almost just 10 minutes down the road. Honestly, we’re not sure if there is a bus going at all to the immigration office but you might just grab a local taxi (you can also have the hotel call one for you)
It won’t save you much time (only a few THB) if you bring copies of your passports as it’s a one-stop-service meaning you pull a number and once it’s your turn they do it all at once (copies, filling in the form .etc..)
Regarding the photos, they tend to be very picky about them (background, size…) so it could happen that they won’t use your photos after all but if you have them already bring them along…you never know .
Let us know how it goes and good luck!
Hi! Google maps show me 2 immigration offices in Krabi. Could you please check the exact address of that office where you applied to extend your stay. Thanks.
Hi Eugene!
That is strange, our google maps only shows one Krabi immigration office. It’s this address: Sai Thai, Amphoe Mueang Krabi, Krabi 81000, Thailand. (it’s in the area with all the other government buildings)
Let us know if you need any further help!
Happy Travels, Martin & Berit
Hi
Just to update, even with passport size photo, there is now an additional 20 baht fee for the webcam photo. 1920 baht total fee and done in 10 minutes!!
Cheers for the article!!
Kev
Hi Kev!
thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and informing us about the extra charge for the webcam photos. We have updated this post immediately! Have a great stay in Thailand and greetings from Mexico! 🙂
hey hey, thanks for this info.
is a balnco departure card fine?
thanks a lot
Hi Richard!
You’re welcome, we hope it helps a bit! 🙂 Regarding your question, what exactly do you mean by “Blanco – departure Card” ? Usually it’s just asking for your name and passport number, so this shouldn’t be an issue. What you can however leave blank is your flight details. Obviously you don’t know that yet. We always left this blank and it was never a problem.
Good luck and enjoy Thailand!!!
hi, can we apply for another extension in krabi for atleast 5 days stay ? have to stay in thailand for2 months and 5days. thanks
Hi Monica! Did you arrive with a 2 months or 1 month tourist visa? If you can stay for 60 days than just extend it (as per procedure in the post) – you’ll get another 30 days which will easily cover the 5 days (it’s still cheaper than paying the overstay fees).
If you however entered Thailand with the stamp only allowing you to stay for 30 days than note that you can only extend once for another 30 days meaning you will not cover the time of your stay in Thailand (overstaying your visa) which will cost quite a bit per day and you will have to pay that when leaving. But we would always recommend to make sure you don’t overstay your visa. You can always do a visa run meaning leaving the country for some days (e.g. fly to KL for a week and come back) and thereby avoiding any overstay charges.
Great info man. We are in Lanta and just realised our visa stamp exit stamp is in one week! We are on a 6 month multiple entry visa and assumed that allowed us to stay for 6 months without leaving. NOPE! Thanks for the info.
Hi Leo,
glad you found this post helpful! 🙂 Fingers crossed everything works well with the extension but as long as you do it before the exit stamp date you should be fine. Keep enjoying beautiful Koh Lanta, we sooo miss this little island paradise!!!
Hi you two! Very interesting article, great and detailled description and a big help, if you are in need of a visa extension! We would appreciate to read more and are looking forward to new posts.
Cheers, Farina
Thanks Farina – happy to hear that you enjoyed it and found it helpful! We absolutely love Thailand so extending our visa was a no brainer for us – especially if it is as easy and straight-forward as in Krabi. 🙂
Happy Travels!
Hi guys!
Great article! Very helpful and I will be using these instructions at the Krabi immigration office! Quick question re: clothing. This wasn’t really mentioned in the article and whilst speaking to past travelers, I have been told to dress as if you were going to an interview. Eg. Smart casual, work attire. Can you please confirm if this is the case?
Thank you.
Hi Stephanie! Happy to hear that you found this article helpful! Regarding your question on how to dress – well there are signs to dress “appropriately” however it is usually not that strict. Maybe don’t come wearing your swimsuits / beach clothes but shorts and t-shirt should be completely fine (we never had any problems). One thing though – when I had my pictures taken I had to make sure my shoulders were covered but I had a scarf with me and simply wrapped that around me and that was okay.
Good luck and enjoy your time in Thailand!! Greeting from Vietnam.