Chiang Mai Immigration Office

The Chiang Mai Immigration Office most people mean is the provincial office at 71 Moo 3 on Sanam Bin (Airport) Road in Suthep, which its own history page puts about 200 meters from the airport. It has been at this address since 1984 and handles every service the province offers, from a tourist's 30-day extension to retirement and marriage extensions, residence certificates and TM.30 for landlords.

It opens at 08:30, Monday to Friday, closes for lunch from 12:00 to 13:00 and stops at 16:30. One visa service's guide says queue numbers are handed out from 08:30 and can run out for extensions by 15:00 on busy days, so I'd arrive before opening.

The mall branch opened on 6 June 2022 on the 2nd floor of Central Chiangmai, by Gate 2/1 next to the elevator on the SuperSports side. Central Chiangmai is the big mall on the Chiang Mai–Lampang Superhighway in Fa Ham that was called Central Festival until it was renamed, so a guide sending you to Central Festival means the same place. It isn't the airport mall, which is Central Chiang Mai Airport.

Its own list of services is short and covers what most visitors need, tourist extensions, re-entry permits and 90-day reports, plus extensions for teachers and students, accompanying family members and former Thai nationals, and moving stamps into a new passport. It opens at 09:00 on weekdays, closes for lunch from 12:00 to 13:00, and its Google listing shows a 16:30 close.

Visitors' accounts describe it as quieter than Airport Road, with one reporting a tourist extension done in about 20 minutes and another nearly three hours after arriving at 13:00. Google's busy-times chart for the branch is lowest at 09:00 and peaks on Friday afternoons.

Both offices extend a visa exemption stamp or a tourist visa by up to 30 days for ฿1,900, once, at the officer's discretion. The mall branch is the easier walk-in. Applications made online through e-Extension are stamped at Airport Road, the address VFS Global gives for Chiang Mai, so plan on the main office if you apply online.

My extension page for Chiang Mai has the documents, the steps at the counter and when to go.

Anyone permitted to stay longer than 90 days has to report their address every 90 days on a TM.47. You can report from 15 days before the due date to 7 days after it. Late, you must report in person and pay a ฿2,000 fine, according to the Immigration Bureau's handbook. A tourist on the exemption plus one extension never reaches 90 days and doesn't report.

In Chiang Mai you can report at either office, and the mall branch is the quicker one by visitors' accounts. The handbook also allows someone else to report for you (except when you're late), reporting by registered post from 15 days before the due date with signed copies of your passport pages and a stamped return envelope, and reporting online. Chiang Mai Immigration's website links the Immigration Bureau's online TM.47 system and a downloadable TM.47 form.

Bring your passport, a completed TM.47 and your last 90-day receipt. There's no fee, and the handbook times the counter work at four minutes.

TM.30 is the notice that whoever houses a foreigner files with immigration within 24 hours of the guest moving in. A hotel files it for you. In a condo, apartment or house rental the owner or landlord is responsible, in person at Airport Road, by post or online through the Immigration Bureau's TM.30 system, which Chiang Mai Immigration says replaced the old one on 15 September 2023 and needs every owner to register again.

Extensions sometimes go more smoothly with a copy of your TM.30 receipt, so if you rent privately, ask your landlord for it before you go. Some guides say the TM.30 must be entered into the TDAC. The TDAC is the arrival card you file before you fly, and the TM.30 is a separate notice from your host.

Retirement and marriage extensions aren't on the mall branch's service list, so they go to Airport Road. Education extensions for teachers and students and extensions for accompanying family members are handled at both, and visa services say DTV holders can do the 180-day extension at the mall. The requirements for each visa are on my visa requirements guide.

Both offices work Monday to Friday only. Airport Road opens at 08:30 and the mall branch at 09:00, both break for lunch from 12:00 to 13:00, and both close at 16:30. The Immigration Bureau's handbooks give 08:30 to 16:30 with a lunch break for every service and say each office's own hours apply.

Both offices close together on Thai public holidays and on substitution days when a holiday falls on a weekend, and they've closed for up to six days running over long holiday weekends. Chiangmai Immigration posts each closure on its website and Facebook page.

Visitors report that Mondays, Fridays and the first day back after a holiday closure are the busiest. I'd go Tuesday to Thursday, at opening time, and never leave a deadline to the last working day before a long weekend.

Older guides and forum posts send people to an immigration counter at Promenada mall. That counter closed, and the mall branch has been at Central Chiangmai since June 2022. If a page calls the branch Central Festival, it's the same mall under its old name.

You'll also find hours of 08:00 to 16:00 for Airport Road. The office's handbooks and its listing give 08:30. Pages written before 15 September 2026 describe extending a 60-day visa exemption; the exemption is now 30 days, and the extension still adds up to 30. Accounts of a drive-through window for 90-day reports at Airport Road date from 2020 to 2022, and I found no current notice of one.