What is a re-entry permit and when do I need one?

Thai immigration treats your visa and your permission to stay as two separate things. A single-entry visa is used up the moment you enter, and what you live on afterwards is the stay stamped in your passport, or the extension added to it. Fly out and that stay ends with the exit stamp, unless you bought a re-entry permit first.

Who needs one

Anyone whose stay comes from a single-entry visa or from an extension granted inside Thailand: a single-entry Non-Immigrant B, a single-entry Non-Immigrant O for retirement or marriage, an ED visa, or a one-year extension on any of them. The one-year extensions catch people most often, because an extension of stay is not a multiple-entry visa even when it lasts a year.

Holders of multiple-entry visas do not. ThaiLawOnline lists the DTV, the LTR, Thailand Privilege and the multiple-entry tourist visa among them. A DTV holder who leaves for a weekend comes back to a fresh stay of up to 180 days with nothing extra to buy.

What it costs and what it takes

You file form TM.8 with your passport, one 4x6 cm photo and copies of the photo page, visa and entry stamp. If you expect four or more trips during the same permission, the multiple permit is cheaper.

Where to get one

At any immigration office, where ThaiLawOnline puts processing at 30 to 60 minutes, or at the 24-hour counters at the main international airports, including Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang. The fee is the same at the airport, but the queue is not predictable, so leave time.

If you forget

Your permission to stay ends as you leave, and there is nothing to pay on arrival that brings it back. You apply again through a Thai embassy abroad, which for a retirement or marriage extension means rebuilding the whole file.

The guide to arriving and staying legal in Thailand sets this alongside the TM30 and the 90-day report.