Pattaya Immigration Office

What everyone in Pattaya calls Jomtien immigration is the headquarters of Chonburi Immigration, the provincial office, which also runs the Pattaya immigration checkpoint from the same building. It's on Soi 5, off Jomtien Beach Road. Immigration first worked out of Soi 6 on Pattaya Beach in 1979 and then from a building on Pattaya Beach Road Soi 8, and the office moved to Jomtien in December 2005, according to its own history page.

The main building is two stories, and two air-conditioned buildings, A and B, were added on the old parking lot in 2023 as waiting areas. Google's listing shows free street parking on the soi and a paid lot nearby.

Chonburi Immigration's website lists no online booking for walk-in services. Its e-services are e-Extension, the online 90-day report and the TM.30 system, so for a walk-in extension you take a ticket on the day. Older articles describe a queue app called Imm-Q that Chonburi Immigration launched in 2018, but today's website doesn't mention it, and I wouldn't plan around it.

The nearest thing to a booking is e-Extension, which decides your tourist extension online and leaves you one visit to collect the stamp.

A visa exemption stamp or a 60-day tourist visa can be extended once, by up to 30 days, for ฿1,900, at the officer's discretion. In Pattaya that happens at the Jomtien office, at one of the extension counters. The 30 days are added from the end of your current stamp, not from the day you apply, so going a week early costs you nothing.

The Immigration Bureau's handbook for a tourism extension lists your passport and one copy, a TM.7 with a photo attached, a form acknowledging the penalties for overstaying, and the fee. The Pattaya City Expats Club, which tracks what this office asks for, adds evidence of where you're staying and of a TM.30 filing, and it reports that the office wants to see a TM.30 on file before it provides any service.

A re-entry permit keeps an extension or a long-stay permission valid while you leave Thailand and come back. It costs ฿1,000 for a single re-entry or ฿3,800 for multiple re-entries, and the fee isn't refunded if the application is refused. You need a TM.8 with one 4×6 cm photo and your passport.

At Jomtien it's done at Counter 2, which the office says takes 15 minutes once you're called. I'd get one here before the day you fly rather than count on a counter at the airport.

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, house or apartment rental the owner is responsible, either at Counters 10 to 13 at Jomtien, by post, or online through the Immigration Bureau's TM.30 system, which Chonburi Immigration's website links. Because this office checks for a TM.30 before it serves you, renters should make sure the owner has filed one, or file it themselves as the occupant. The expats club says the office has usually charged ฿1,600 for a late filing, at the officer's discretion.

A residence certificate, the letter that confirms your address for a Thai driver's license or a bank, is also issued at Jomtien. One expat reported to the club that an online TM.30 wasn't accepted for it, and that the office wanted a paper TM.30 receipt issued at the counter.

Long-stay extensions are handled at the same extension counters, and the office's service commitment puts a long-term extension at 60 minutes once you're called. The expats club says this office will renew an extension no more than 30 days before it runs out, and that retirees using the ฿800,000 bank deposit are usually asked to come back three months after the extension is granted to show the money is still there. The requirements for each visa are on my visa requirements guide, and DTV holders should call 038 252 751 before going.

Chonburi Immigration runs three smaller checkpoints, and none of them is the place for a Pattaya resident's extension. The Sriracha checkpoint has moved to a temporary office at 52/10 Moo 9 in Bang Phra, Sriracha, on phone 038 312 571. The website gives no hours or service list for it, and the Bureau's handbooks say you apply where you live, so a Pattaya or Jomtien address means Soi 5. Koh Sichang checks people and vessels arriving by sea, and the Laem Chabang checkpoint sits at the Eastern Customs Suppression Center; neither lists any public service.

U-Tapao airport, about 30 km south of Pattaya, has immigration for arrivals and departures. It's passport control, not an extension office, and I found no official page offering tourist extensions there.

The office works Monday to Friday only, opening at 08:30, closing for lunch from 12:00 to 13:00 and stopping at 16:30. It closes on weekends and Thai public holidays, and the queue is longest on the first working day after a long weekend, when Pattaya Mail has reported lines stretching into the street. Chinese New Year, which isn't a public holiday, is busy too.

Local guides say Tuesday to Thursday are calmest and that tickets for extensions can run out by about 14:30. I'd be on Soi 5 before 08:30 on a mid-week morning and never leave an extension to the last working day before a holiday.

The office left Pattaya Beach Road Soi 8 in December 2005, so any page sending you to Soi 8, or to Soi 6 on Pattaya Beach, is decades out of date. Several listings give 038 252 750 as the number; the office's own posters give 038 252 751 to 754. A widely shared answer says the office opens 09:00 to 17:00, and its website says 08:30 to 16:30 with a lunch hour. Some older addresses carry the postcode 20260, and the office uses 20150.

Pages written before 15 September 2026 describe extending a 60-day exemption, and the exemption is now 30 days. Older checklists ask for a copy of the TM.6 departure card, which arrivals no longer receive. Articles about the Imm-Q queue app date from 2018, and the app isn't among the office's e-services today.