Thailand TDAC: How to Fill the Digital Arrival Card

The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is free, mandatory for every non-Thai national entering Thailand, and must be submitted 3 days before your arrival date. You complete it at tdac.immigration.go.th, you get a QR code by email, and you show that at immigration. It takes about ten minutes.

The one thing worth knowing before you start: three fields cannot be changed after you submit. Get those wrong and you have to start a fresh submission. They are covered below.

The TDAC is not a visa and does not replace one. For entry rules, fees and how long Indians can stay, see our Thailand visa guide.

📌 Quick facts

⚠️ Use only tdac.immigration.go.th. Several paid lookalike sites charge for what the Thai government provides free. There is no official fee, no expedited option, and no agent you need.

What to have ready before you start

The official guide lists five categories of information. Gather these first and the form takes ten minutes instead of thirty.

Passport information. Passport number, full name exactly as printed, nationality, date of birth, expiry date.

Personal information. Date of birth, gender, occupation, country of residence, phone number.

Travel information. Arrival date, flight or vehicle number, the country you boarded from, your mode of travel, and your purpose of visit.

Accommodation information in Thailand. The type of accommodation and its full address. Have your hotel booking open. If you are moving between hotels, you need the first one.

Not booked yet? You cannot complete the TDAC without a confirmed address.

We can put together your Thailand hotels and transfers around your dates, and send the confirmations you need for this form. Plan my Thailand trip →

Health declaration information. Only triggered in some cases, covered below.

Everything must be entered in English. The form will not accept other scripts.

⚠️ The three fields you cannot change

Once you submit, these are locked:

1. Full name, as it appears in your passport

2. Nationality or citizenship

3. Date of birth

Everything else, including your flight, arrival date and accommodation, can be updated later. These three cannot. If you get one wrong you must complete a brand new submission.

So before you click Submit, read your name character by character against your passport. Indian passports frequently carry a surname in a separate field, initials rather than a full middle name, or a name printed differently from how you normally write it. Copy the passport, not your habit.

Step by step

1. Go to tdac.immigration.go.th and click "Arrival Card". There is a brief security check on the page before the buttons become active. Wait for it to clear.

2. Enter your personal and passport information, then click Continue. Rather than typing your passport details, you can scan the MRZ (the two lines of machine-readable text at the bottom of your passport photo page) or upload an image of it, and the system fills the fields automatically.

This is the single best time-saver in the form, and it also reduces typos in exactly the fields you cannot later correct. The official guide does add one warning: always recheck the data after retrieving it from the MRZ. Auto-fill is not always perfect.

3. Enter your trip and accommodation details, then click Continue. Dropdown tip from the official guide: type three characters and the system filters the options for you. Much faster than scrolling a list of every country or province.

4. Enter your health status information, if prompted. This step only appears if the Ministry of Public Health has listed the country you visited in the two weeks before arrival, the country you boarded from, your nationality, or your flight. Most travellers flying direct from India will not see it. If you do, answer it and click Preview.

5. Review everything. Click Edit on anything that needs fixing. This is your last chance on the three locked fields.

6. Enter your email address. This is where the card gets sent. Use an address you can access on your phone while travelling.

7. Tick the Terms and Conditions box, then click Submit.

8. Download your Thailand Digital Arrival Card. Save the PDF to your phone and screenshot the QR code as well. You can re-download it from the email at any point during your stay.

Save it offline. Airport wifi at Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang is unreliable, and the immigration queue is a bad place to discover you cannot load your email.

Travelling as a family or group

The TDAC supports group submission of up to 10 people per submission, which saves considerable time for families travelling together.

Every traveller needs their own card, including infants and children. There is no combined family card. Group submission simply lets you complete them in one session rather than starting over ten times.

If your group is larger than 10, split it across multiple submissions.

How to fix a mistake

You can update a submitted card any time before you travel, as long as the error is not in one of the three locked fields.

1. Click "Update Arrival Card" on the homepage

2. Enter your TH Digital Arrival Card number, date of birth and nationality

3. Click Search

4. Correct the details, use Previous to step back or Cancel to exit without saving

5. Review, enter your email, accept the terms and submit again

6. Download the updated card

This is what you use when your flight changes or you switch hotels. Both are common and neither is a problem.

If the error is in your name, nationality or date of birth, do not try to update. Start a new submission.

Common mistakes

Leaving it too late. The requirement is 3 days in advance. Do it when you check in online, or set a reminder.

Paying a lookalike site. If you were charged, you were not on the government portal.

Assuming children are exempt. They are not. One card per person, whatever their age.

Name mismatches. The most expensive mistake, because it cannot be edited.

Not saving it offline. A QR code you cannot open is a QR code you do not have.

Thinking it is a visa. It is not, and it grants you nothing. The official guide states this explicitly.

One more thing: the 90-day rule

The same official notice that sets out the TDAC requirement carries a rule most travellers never see, because most trips are short.

If you stay in Thailand longer than 90 days, you must notify the nearest Immigration office in writing about your place of stay, as soon as your 90 days expire, and repeat that every 90 days.

Irrelevant for a one-week holiday. Important if you are on a long-stay visa.

Sources

• Thailand Immigration Bureau, official TDAC portal. Submission requirement, 3-day window, and confirmation that no fee applies. Checked 17 August 2026. https://tdac.immigration.go.th

• Thailand Immigration Bureau, TDAC User's Guide version 1.18 for application version 2026.08.00. Step-by-step process, required information categories, group submission limit, and the list of non-editable fields. Checked 17 August 2026. https://tdac.immigration.go.th/manual/en/index.html

• Immigration Act B.E. 2522, as cited in the official TDAC notice, for the 90-day reporting requirement.

This guide is for general information. Entry rules change without notice, so always confirm on the official portal before you travel.