Somewhere over the Andaman Sea, on every flight into Bangkok, a passenger is hunched over a phone trying to remember the postcode of a hotel they booked in March. That person did not file their Thailand Digital Arrival Card, and their holiday is now beginning with administrative panic at 11,000 metres. None of it is necessary. The TDAC is a five-minute form, it costs nothing, and once you understand what it is — and what it is not — it loses all power to frighten. I have filed more Thai immigration paperwork than any human should. This one is easy.
The short version: the Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) is a free online form that every foreign national must complete before entering Thailand by air, land or sea. You file it at the official portal, tdac.immigration.go.th, within three days of arrival, and a QR code lands in your email. It replaced the paper TM6 card on 1 May 2025. It is not a visa, there is no approval step, and anyone charging you money for it is having you on.
What Is the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, Exactly?
Veterans of Thai arrivals will remember the TM6: a small paper card handed out mid-flight, completed with a borrowed pen against a seat-back tray, then lost somewhere between the toilet and passport control. The TDAC is that card moved online and made compulsory before you travel. Since 1 May 2025 it has been the standard arrival record for Thailand, run by the Immigration Bureau, and the paper version is gone.
What it collects is unremarkable: passport details, a few personal particulars, occupation included, your arrival flight or border crossing, the address where you are sleeping on night one, and a short health declaration covering countries visited in the previous fortnight. What it produces is a QR code, emailed to you, which gets scanned when you arrive. That is the whole transaction. Nobody reviews your answers, nobody rejects you, and the actual decision to admit you is still made by a human at the counter, same as it ever was. Think of the TDAC as the queue ticket, not the verdict.
Two rules worth tattooing somewhere handy: it is free, and it is one card per entry. Leave for Laos on a visa run and come back three days later, and you file a fresh one.
Thailand Digital Arrival Card vs Thailand ETA: Two Different Things
Here the internet has made an honest mess. Through late 2024 and 2025, Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs floated an Electronic Travel Authorisation — a genuine pre-screening system in the mould of America’s ESTA, under which visa-exempt travellers would apply and wait for approval before flying. Headlines merged it with the TDAC, and confused forum threads have been breeding ever since.
They are different animals. The ETA was a screening proposal; the TDAC is a form. As of August 2026 the ETA has never launched — the government quietly folded its ambitions into the TDAC instead, which is why the card asks nosier questions than the paper TM6 did. You file one thing, and one thing only.
| TDAC | ETA | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Digital arrival record, replacing the paper TM6 | Proposed ESTA-style pre-travel screening |
| Run by | Immigration Bureau | Ministry of Foreign Affairs (proposal only) |
| Status, August 2026 | Live and mandatory | Shelved, absorbed into the TDAC |
| Do you file it? | Yes, before every entry | No |
For the full saga, plus everything else that moved this year, our Thailand 2026 travel rules round-up keeps score.
Who Needs a Thailand Digital Arrival Card in 2026?
Everyone who is not Thai, near enough. The card applies to every foreign passport holder entering by air, land or sea, regardless of age — yes, your six-month-old needs a TDAC, a magnificent piece of bureaucratic completism — and regardless of visa status. Arriving on the 60-day visa exemption? TDAC. Tourist e-visa, DTV, retirement extension, work permit, permanent resident popping back from Singapore? TDAC, every time.
The exemptions are narrow: transit and transfer passengers who stay airside and never pass through immigration, and holders of a border pass at land crossings. That is the list as of August 2026. If your Bangkok layover involves collecting a bag, changing airports or a night in a hotel, you are clearing immigration and you need the card.
What the TDAC cannot tell you is which visa you should be travelling on in the first place. For that, start with our complete Thailand visa guide, which walks you from tourist exemptions to long-stay options without the forum folklore.
How to Fill In the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, Step by Step
Set aside five minutes, have your passport and first-night address in front of you, and assume the form will not save your progress halfway, so gather everything first and do it in one sitting.
- Go to the official portal. Type tdac.immigration.go.th yourself. Do not search “Thailand arrival card” and click the first advert — the top results are routinely third-party sites charging for a free form.
- Choose individual or group. One group submission covers a whole party — up to ten travellers as of August 2026 — turning a family of five from five chores into one.
- Enter passport details exactly as printed. Name spelt as in the machine-readable strip, number copied character by character. Typos here are the most common source of grief at the counter.
- Add the trip information. Arrival date, flight or vehicle number, purpose of visit, and the full address of your first night’s accommodation. Not booked anywhere yet? Sort that first — our guide to where to stay in Bangkok will get you a real address in ten minutes.
- Complete the health declaration. Countries visited in the past fourteen days. Answer honestly; for the average tourist it is a formality.
- Submit and collect the QR code. It arrives by email. Save the PDF offline, screenshot it, print it if you enjoy paper. Any of those scans fine.
Made a mistake? The portal’s “Update Arrival Card” function lets you correct everything except your name, passport number, nationality and date of birth. Fluff one of those four and you simply file a new card — the latest valid submission is the one that counts.
When to File the Thailand Digital Arrival Card: The 72-Hour Window
The window opens three days before arrival, counted on Bangkok time, and the system will not accept anything earlier. Land on Friday and you can file from Wednesday. At the other end there is no cut-off before the immigration counter itself — you could, in theory, file in the taxi to the airport. More on why you should not, below.
My advice, from someone who has done this form in too many departure lounges: file it when online check-in opens. Same trigger, same session, done. If the flight later changes, the update function swallows new dates and flight numbers without drama.
The only field demanding actual thought is the first-night address, so pin it down early. If the wider route is still a sketch, our two-week Thailand itinerary is a sensible skeleton to steal — though for the TDAC, only night one matters.
Landing Without a Thailand Digital Arrival Card: What Actually Happens
Now the panic question. First, at departure: airlines have been checking for the TDAC at check-in on Thailand-bound routes the same way they check onward tickets. As of August 2026 enforcement is inconsistent — some carriers ask everyone, some spot-check, some wave the whole queue through — but treat being asked as the default. Worst case at the desk is a staff member pointing at your phone and waiting while you file it on the spot.
Second, on arrival: turning up without a TDAC is not a crime, and as of August 2026 there is no fine attached. What happens instead is slower and more mundane. You join the wrong sort of queue, wrestle with airport Wi-Fi that has opinions about loading government websites, and fill in the form at the back of the hall while everyone who did it on the sofa sails past. Major airports have signage and staff steering the unprepared towards the portal; small land crossings have less patience and worse signal.
Once you are through, the TDAC’s job is done. Domestic connections involve no further immigration — fly Bangkok to Phuket an hour after landing and nobody mentions the card again until you next leave the country.
Thailand Digital Arrival Card Tips Before You Land
The distilled version, learnt the tedious way:
- Pay nobody. The TDAC is free at the official portal. Sites charging twenty dollars to “process” it are selling you a stamp for a letter you could post yourself, and the nastier ones exist purely to harvest passport data.
- Check the spam folder. The QR email has a talent for landing there. Nothing within the hour? Log back into the portal and re-download it.
- Keep the QR offline. Screenshot plus saved PDF. Airport Wi-Fi is a lottery, so it pays to have an eSIM sorted before wheels-down — data from the moment you land beats hunting for signal in a queue.
- One entry, one card. Border runs, a side trip to Angkor, a weekend in Penang: every return means a fresh TDAC. Five minutes before each re-entry, not once a year.
- Long-stayers: this replaces nothing else. The TDAC does not stand in for your TM30 registration or 90-day report. Those obligations carry on regardless, to widespread but irrelevant annoyance.
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Thailand Digital Arrival Card FAQ
Is the Thailand Digital Arrival Card a visa?
No. It is an arrival record, the digital descendant of the paper TM6, and it grants nothing. Your right to enter still comes from your visa or visa exemption, and the officer at the counter still makes the decision. The TDAC merely tells Thailand who is on the way.
Do I need both a TDAC and an ETA for Thailand?
No. As of August 2026 there is exactly one pre-arrival form, the TDAC. The ETA was a separate pre-screening proposal that never launched and has been absorbed into the TDAC system. Any website inviting you to “apply for your Thailand ETA” is out of date, or worse.
When exactly should I file the TDAC?
Any time in the three days before arrival — the system opens 72 hours out, on Bangkok time, and refuses anything earlier. Filing when online check-in opens is the habit that never fails. It stays possible right up to the immigration hall, but that is a contingency, not a plan.
Do transit passengers need a TDAC?
Not if you stay airside and never pass through immigration on the way to your onward flight. The moment a layover involves clearing immigration — collecting bags booked on separate tickets, switching airports, sleeping in a hotel — you need one like everybody else.
What happens if I did not file before landing in Thailand?
You will not be turned around. You will stand at the side of the arrivals hall filling it in on your phone while your queue position evaporates — and at Suvarnabhumi, after three wide-bodies land together, that is its own punishment. File it in the departure lounge and arrive smug instead.
