Extending a Tourism Visa At Chiang Mai

The following post relates to those that either have a visa exemption (got a stamp at port of entry) or those that have a tourist visa and want to extend it for a further 30 days without having to leave the country. This post relates to Chiang Mai immigration, Central festival branch. Although, the same thing should apply at any branch of Thai immigration. 

As of June 2024 the following documents are required. 

-  2 passport sized photos

- TM30 form , you should be able to get this from your landlord or building reception. 

- 1900 THB fee paid in cash only. 

- Completed application form. 

I arrived at Central Festival by taxi at approximately 13.30 in the afternoon. It should be noted that if you only have 1 day validity left in your stamp, you are probably chancing it by coming in the afternoon, and you may be better advised to arrive prior to the 9am opening time. 

To get to immigration I walked straight through the entrance shown above, and then continued until I found the Marks & Spencer store, on the right there is a sign for immigration as shown below. Here there are lifts that will take you to the 2nd floor, where the immigration branch is located. 

If you haven't remembered to bring photos or if you need documents printed or scanned, there is a small shop that has reasonably priced photography services, along with scanning and printing. 

Carry on about 15-20 meters and you will find a stand with the different forms required. Since we are looking for an extension of a tourist visa, we select the form shown below. 

It is advised to take your time with the form and ensure that everything is correct. The stafff at the document step check are quite strict. 

The next step is to queue up at counter 1, here you will be given a queue number in order to have your documents checked at counter 2. 

Once you get your queue number, you should take a seat in the seating area provided. It is important to listen carefully for your number being called, as there are a lot of people in the room and it can be quite hard to hear. Probably not a good idea to walk off for a break, as it seems there are many people who leave and their number gets called while they are away. 

At the document check counter 2, the officer carefully reviewed my application form. In addition to the standard procedure, I was asked for my Thai phone number, which the officer noted on the form. What struck me as quite unusual was the next request: the officer asked me to open my hotel location on Google Maps and then proceeded to write down the latitude and longitude coordinates of the building. Although I found this request strange, I felt slightly reassured when I noticed the individual next to me undergoing the same process. I am still unsure why they needed the building coordinates, as I had never encountered this requirement before.

Anyway, once the documents have passed the check, the officer handed me a queue number for actually submitting the documents. There must have been quite a few people with the same idea as me (go after lunch) , because there were 29 people in the queue before me just to submit the documents to the application counter. Note that we haven't included photos of the application counter as there was a sign for no photography in this part of the building, but it is directly behind the document checking counter. 

As mentioned, there was quite a queue in front of me, so it took about 1.5 hours to submit the application to the officer. I listened to a podcast during this time, and also entertained myself wondering just how much trouble the intern who came up with the English is going to get in to when someone translates the English on the poster below! 

After submitting my application, I took a seat again, and waited about 30 minutes until the officer called out my name, and my passport with a new stamp which had been extended for 30 days was waiting in my passport. Also note your change will be returned to you after the application has been processed, so I paid with 2000 THB and received my 100 THB at the same time as getting my passport. 

So that is all there is to it! It was about 3 hours start to finish and I got my visa extended for 30 days. As mentioned previously, I definitely wouldn't want to be arriving in the afternoon if my visa was expiring the next day, I can image that this office can get even busier than it was when I went, and overstaying your visa is a really bad idea in Thailand!