Indonesia and Thailand visa-on-arrival: the actual queue
TL;DR
- The queue you stand in at Bangkok or Bali is decided before you board, by what you filed from your sofa.
- Thailand: Indians need no visa for stays up to 60 days, but every foreign national must file the Thailand Digital Arrival Card online within 3 days before landing.
- Indonesia: the visa on arrival costs IDR 500,000 for 30 days. Buy it online as an e-VOA before you fly and you skip the payment counter entirely.
- Passport valid six months, onward ticket ready, documents open before you reach the desk. The line moves at the speed of its least-prepared member.
Contents
The rule
Your immigration queue is decided before you board. For Thailand, file the digital arrival card in the three days before you land. For Indonesia, buy the e-visa on arrival online and land with it done. Then arrive at the desk with everything already open.
Why this rule exists
Both countries have moved their paperwork online so their arrival halls can move. The traveller who cooperates with that gets the short queue.
Thailand first, because the old advice is now wrong. Indian ordinary passport holders currently need no visa at all for stays up to 60 days, for tourism and short-term business. The Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi says the exemption holds "until further announcement", which is also your cue to re-check it the week you book. What Thailand does require from every foreign national, visa or not, is the Thailand Digital Arrival Card. File it at tdac.immigration.go.th within 3 days before arrival; it has been mandatory since 1 May 2025.
Indonesia still wants money at the border. India is on the visa-on-arrival list: IDR 500,000 for 30 days, extendable once for another 30 at an immigration office. You can pay at the airport counter, one more queue before the immigration queue. Or buy the same visa beforehand as an e-VOA at evisa.imigrasi.go.id and walk past the payment counter. The officer will still want a passport with six months' validity and a ticket out of the country.
What happens if you don't follow it
Immediate. Two wide-bodies land together and the payment counter grows a forty-minute tail. The e-VOA holder walks straight past it.
Practical. No TDAC means filling it on your phone at the hall on airport Wi-Fi, with a queue forming behind you. A desk that takes four minutes instead of forty seconds slows every person behind it.
Legal. Overstaying in Indonesia brings fines, deportation and other legal charges. Sixty days is the ceiling, not a suggestion.
Social. The queue is a shared machine. The person who arrives with documents open keeps it running for two hundred strangers.
Quick reference
- Thailand: no visa for Indians up to 60 days, tourism and short business. Re-check the week you book; it holds "until further announcement".
- Thailand: TDAC at tdac.immigration.go.th, within 3 days before arrival. Every non-Thai national needs one.
- Indonesia: visa on arrival, IDR 500,000, 30 days, one extension of 30 more.
- Buy the e-VOA at evisa.imigrasi.go.id before flying. Same visa, minus one queue.
- The official portals end in go.th and go.id. Anything else is a middleman with a markup.
- Indonesia checks a passport with six months' validity and an onward ticket. Sort both before the trip.
- Save the TDAC confirmation and e-VOA as screenshots. Airport Wi-Fi is not a plan.
- Documents open before you reach the yellow line. The desk is not where you unpack.
Quick check
1. A friend planning your Bangkok trip says, 'Indians queue for visa on arrival, carry cash for the fee.' Is that the current picture?
Select an answer.
2. Bali, ten days, tickets booked. What do you do about the Indonesian visa?
Select an answer.