EXTENDING YOUR TOURIST VISA FOR THAILAND IN KRABI

by Mar 18, 201834 comments

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)

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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.

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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*
Powered by 12Go Asia system

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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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! 🙂


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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! 🙂

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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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