NOW LIVE: Thailand’s New Digital Arrival Card Mandatory For Foreign Arrivals From May 1, 2025

Last month I reported that Thailand will require all foreign citizens arriving in the Kingdom to fill out a digital arrival card for flights arriving May 1, 2025 and the system has just gone live for the first eligble date.

Passengers are required to fill out and submit the form starting three days prior to the flight and keep a record of their submission handy (there are also stations at the airport to do it there – I don’t recommend using those as there might be hundreds of people waiting to do the same).

You can access the official government website for the arrival card application here.

This comes after the suspension of the paper-based TM6 card in Thailand, which arriving passengers had to fill out for over a decade, the government previously announced that it would soon return in electronic form.

From May 1, 2025, all foreign travelers to Thailand can now expect to fill out the new electronic version, which has become somewhat of a staple for many countries in the Asia Pacific region.

The application for the Digital Arrival Card will be available three days before arriving in the Kingdom and is required for all foreign nationals, irrespective of their visa status and is free of charge.

The first available date you’ll be able to apply is today April 28, 2025:

All this is information that was previously requested on the TM6 paper form, so nothing too out of the ordinary.

The description of the service on the TDAC website is as follows:

Thailand is introducing the new Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) to replace the paper TM6 immigration form for all foreign nationals entering Thailand by air, land, or sea.

The TDAC aims to streamline entry procedures and enhance the overall travel experience for visitors to Thailand.

Here’s a comprehensive guide to the Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) system.

When I wrote about this in January, officials said in a quoted news article that it might take up to a year to run smoothly, whatever that means in practical terms. From what I see here, it works just fine.

This comes as Thailand is working on making adjustments to the immigration process overall, including having installed automatic entry/exit barriers, preparing the implementation of an ETA system and still considering policy regarding the 300 Baht tourism entry levy.

Digital arrival cards have been relatively common in neighboring countries, including Malaysia and Singapore, for several years now. Taiwan has a digital arrival form as well, and it works without a hitch. Implementing this isn’t rocket science, so let’s hope they figured it out properly this time.

At the same time, I read there are already people who complain online that they have to fill out a form like this, requiring them to provide personal information. This is totally normal and appropriate when entering a foreign country so I don’t see any angle why this would be questionable practice.

Conclusion

Thailand will once again introduce an arrivals form for passengers who arrive in Thailand by air, land and sea. This will help the immigration department facilitate the entry process.

The collection of arrival information has been suspended for almost two years now, and it actually worked quite well as the processing was faster. Are these details really that vital for the immigration process though?

I won’t travel to Thailand for another three weeks, so at least I won’t be the guinea pig this time around, like I was with the Thailand Pass during the pandemic.

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