Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC)
The TDAC is a mandatory arrival form for every non-Thai national entering Thailand, and it has replaced the paper TM6 since 1 May 2025. It costs nothing on the government portal, takes about ten minutes, and the window opens three days before your arrival date — you cannot file it a month ahead. Children and infants need their own submission, and each entry into Thailand needs a fresh one. We answer TDAC questions in the chat at no charge and we do not offer to file it for you: there is nothing to charge for.
Official government portaltdac.immigration.go.thFreeHow to file the TDAC before landing in Phuket
One device, one passport, ten minutes. You will need your flight number and the name of your hotel or villa, so have the booking open.
Open the government portal, three days out
Go to tdac.immigration.go.th and pick individual or group submission. Group covers up to ten people on one email, which is the easy route for a family. If the site refuses your dates, you are outside the three-day window — that is the system working, not an error.
Fill in the passport page
You can photograph the passport and let the form read the machine-readable strip, or type everything by hand. Either way, check what came out against the passport itself: a scan that misreads one letter is the most common reason people are sent back at the counter.
Add the flight and where you are staying
Flight number and arrival date exactly as on the ticket, then the hotel, villa or address you are heading to. If you have several hotels, name the first one — the form asks where you enter the country, not the whole itinerary.
Answer the health questions
A short declaration about the countries you have been in over the last two weeks and how you feel. Answer honestly; a false declaration is an offence under Thai law, and nobody at the airport is going to reward creativity here.
Submit and save the QR code
Give an email address you can actually open on the road — the confirmation and the QR code arrive there. Save the PDF to your phone and take a screenshot as well: the terminal at Phuket has Wi-Fi, but you do not want to be looking for it in the queue.
TDAC window: three days before landing
The window is three days before arrival, counting the day of arrival itself. File it earlier and the system simply will not take the date. This catches people who plan everything a month ahead and then land without the card.
Set a reminder for the day before the flight. That is late enough for the system to accept it and early enough that a problem with the site is not a problem with your boarding.
Who does not need a TDAC
Thai nationals, and travellers who transit through Thailand without passing immigration — if you never leave the international zone, there is no arrival to declare. Holders of a border pass are also outside the scheme.
Everyone else does need one, whatever the visa: exemption, visa on arrival, tourist visa, work permit, retirement — the TDAC is a separate requirement and not a visa itself.
TDAC scams and common mistakes
Two mistakes cost money, and both are avoidable.
- Paying a middleman. Any site charging a fee for the TDAC is selling you a form that the Thai government gives away. There is no expedited option and no premium version.
- Skipping the children. Infants need their own card. It is one of the most common reasons families are held up at the counter with everyone tired at two in the morning.
- Reusing an old submission. It is valid for a single entry. Fly to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend and come back, and you file again.
- Trusting the passport scan. Recheck the fields it filled in — the name has to match the passport exactly.
- Filing from a VPN. If the portal misbehaves, turn the VPN off, clear the cache and try a different browser before you assume the site is broken.
Landing at Phuket airport without a TDAC
You are not turned around. There are kiosks in the arrivals hall at Phuket where you can file it on the spot, and you can fill it on your phone right up to the immigration counter.
What it costs you is the thing you were trying to avoid: time. Filing at a kiosk with a queue behind you, at the end of a night flight, with a child asleep on your shoulder, is exactly the twenty minutes fast track exists to remove. If you booked us and forgot the card, tell the agent — they will point you to the kiosk and stay with you, but they cannot file it for you, because the declaration is yours to sign.
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