Getting a Visa Extension in Huahin

I won't hide my disdain for the tourist visa system employed in Thailand. For many passports (UK included) you can enter the country on a tourist visa waiver. Strictly speaking you need an outbound ticket to do so, and although I've always been able to get away without one, you can potentially have problems either boarding your flight to Thailand, or getting through immigration once you're here if you don't have an outbound flight. Despite that, as soon as you're in the country (you can literally do it the same day) you can go to an immigration office and pay 1,900 baht to extend this visa waiver for a further 30 days, thus voiding or needing to pay a rearrangment fee on the flight you needed in order to get into the country in the first place.

Why they can't streamline this process so that you can pay the 1,900 baht at the airport to get the extended visa waiver, save yourself a trip to immigration, and potentially save the cost of having to cancel, miss or rearrange a flight is beyond me. Sadly this is the way it is, and you can't tell the gatekeeper how to guard the gate. In fairness, the hoops that Thais must jump through to go in the opposite direction are even more ridiculous so if anyone has a right to complain, it's them, but that doesn't make it any less absurd.

Anyway, you've made it into the country and you've decided (probably before you got here) that you want to lengthen your stay beyond the date you're currently permitted. That means that you need to go to an immigration office, pay 1,900 baht, and get a new stamp in your passport.

All provinces in Thailand have their own immigration offices, and you must go to the one of the province in which you're currently staying. For example, if the hotel you're presently staying in is located in Bangkok, you can't then go to the immigration office in Samut Prakan because you think it'll be easier (it will). You need to drag your sorry arse all the way to Chaeng Wattana (the Bangkok immigration office) and sit there all day waiting for your number to be called.

Do I sound bitter? I've lived in Thailand twice before, both times in Bangkok and both times on working visas, totalling almost six years. That's meant many, many trips to Chaeng Wattana. I'd arrive first thing in the morning, and I'd be happy to leave by 3pm. It's not my favourite place in the world.

On my visit to Thailand prior to my current one, in 2022, I entered the country on a tourist visa waiver and did the extension in Chiang Mai. They had a strict requirement of a TM30 form, which in short is a way for the government to track the location of foreigners within the kingdom. They want to know where you sleep on every night you're here, and it's the responsibility of the hotel that you're staying at to complete a TM30 form, which tells the authorities that you're staying there.

When I was in Chiang Mai, the place I was staying was very new and run by an elderly gentleman who didn't know anything about this. I called him from the immigration office in Chiang Mai to ask him to fill-in this form online so that I could get my extension. He didn't know how to do it, so the short version is that he had to come down to immigration to do it all in person. That and then getting my visa extension took about six hours in total. I didn't have a good time.

It is because of my previous experiences in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai, which I know having been mirrored by many other people, that I feel compelled to detail how the process works in Huahin.

I'd never been to immigration in Huahin before, but as I knew was coming here and would be in Bangkok both before and after, and as I'd rather be locked in a cage with a bear than go to Chaeng Wattana again, I thought I'd take my chances doing my extension in Huahin. Given my previous experience in Chiang Mai, I'd messaged my hotel in Huahin a week prior to arrival to confirm that they'd complete a TM30 form. I'd caught an 11am minivan to Huahin from Ekkamai bus station in Bangkok with no idea where in Huahin it'd drop me, but as luck would have it, it was only a 5-minute walk from my room, so I got checked-in almost right after getting off the bus. As I was doing so, I again reminded the staff that I needed the paperwork to get a visa extension. The girl on the front desk responded by saying that she'd have it done by the morning.

In another stroke of good fortune my room was only about a 10-minute walk from the Huahin immigration office, located on the basement floor of the Blueport shopping mall, so in order to be doubly prepared, unshowered and stinking after my bus trip from Bangkok, I wandered down there to double check what documents I needed, just to be sure that I'd be able to get the extension the next day.

I'm used to immigration offices being full of dejected looking foreigners who've spent an entire day waiting around, so when I came to this glamorous looking storefront that looked more like a bank than an immigration office, with not a single person who didn't work there in it, I had to do a double-take to check I was in the right place. There was a girl waiting at the door to greet people, so I explained to her that I was just there to check what documents I needed to do a visa extension. She explained to me that I just needed my passport, and a copy of my passport page and entry stamps.

"Can I make those copies here?" I asked her.

"Yes," she responded.

"So I don't need a TM30 form?" I asked.

"A what?"

"How many passport-sized photographs do I need?" I then asked.

"None" was the reply.

"Do I need any money?" I was pushing it a bit by this point.

"Yes, you need 1,900 baht."

Dammit.

So after a quick trip to the ATM, many of which are mere metres from the immigration office on the basement floor of this shopping mall, I sat down to complete the form that she handed me. While I did, she took my passport and made the photocopies I needed, free of charge. I had to pay for them when I made copies in Chiang Mai. Then she sat down and told me exactly what to write on the form, which normally stumps me at least once. I don't know if she wanted to go home or something, but she was rushing me through it so quickly that I almost wished she'd slow down so I could double check what I'd written.

As I was the only one here, there was no queue to see an immigration agent. There were three of them sat there twiddling their thumbs. That's not always a good thing because it means they have more time and motivation to interrogate you. And while I did have to write the addresses of all places I planned on staying for the rest of my trip in Thailand (I've never had to do that before), that was the extent of it. I paid my 1,900 baht, she stamped my passport with an extension, I sat down in the waiting area for about 30 seconds more before someone gave me my passport back, and less than 20 minutes after arriving here with no documents other than my passport, I walked out with my 30-day extension. I'd only been off the bus for an hour and a half by this point and I'd already checked-into my room, unpacked, and got a visa extension.

Given my previous experiences, it was absolutely mad to me how easy this was. To the point that if I ever need a visa extension again, I'm coming to Huahin just to do it. I'd need to pay for a night in a hotel here so that I'm technically staying in Huahin, but considering that a taxi to Chaeng Wattana in Bangkok can be 400 baht each way, compared to 200 baht each way for a bus from Bangkok to Huahin, paying a few hundred more for a room would be money well spent.

To reiterate, I needed no passport photos, I needed no pre-done photocopies of my passport, and I needed no pissing TM30 form. If everywhere was like this, Thailand might not be having such a hard time getting their tourist numbers back up after the pandemic. And now I'm writing this article in the hope that it helps someone else who can't face the burden of another day at immigration in Bangkok, Chiang Mai or wherever else you happen to be.

I went back a few days later and took this photo. This is the immigration office. It's on the basement level of Blueport shopping mall. If you come into the shopping mall from the main road, take the first down escalator that you see (it'll be to the left as you go in). Once you're at basement level, walk forwards in the same direction and the immigration office will be on your left.