THIM: Thailand's Immigration App, Explained (2026)
THIM is the Immigration Bureau's official mobile app for foreign travelers. It started as an optional pilot in June 2026, and the Immigration Bureau announced its official launch in September 2026. Using it is optional: what you need is the TDAC, and the app is one way to file it. Here's what the app does today and how to use it well. For the whole process from start to finish, see the Thailand Digital Arrival Card guide.
Verified: October 28, 2026
Skip the transition headaches
What THIM is
THIM is the Immigration Bureau's official mobile app for foreign travelers. Its core job today: scan your passport with your phone camera, auto-fill your details, and generate a verified Thailand Digital Arrival Card (TDAC) before you travel — the same card you'd otherwise complete on the TDAC website.
The timeline so far
The app entered a voluntary public pilot in June 2026, with downloads on the App Store and Google Play. The Immigration Bureau announced its official launch in September 2026. No official notice makes the app compulsory: the TDAC is still the requirement, and the TDAC website still works. Check an official source close to your travel date.
THIM vs TDAC: not a replacement, a new front door
The TDAC remains the underlying arrival card. THIM changes how you submit it: instead of typing everything into the web form, the app reads your passport photo page and pre-fills the data. Fewer typos, faster filing — but the output is still a TDAC with a QR code, checked at the same immigration desks.
Language support is still limited
At launch the app supported English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, with at least 15 more languages announced. If you're more comfortable in another language, the TDAC website — or an assisted filing service in your own language — remains the practical route.
What is planned next
The Immigration Bureau lists more services for a later phase, without dates: queue booking at immigration offices, certificates of stay, visa extensions, 90-day reporting and Visa on Arrival. Most of them matter to long-stay visitors. Until the Bureau announces them as live, use the existing channels.
What you should do before your trip
Download THIM from the official app store listing before you fly (airport Wi-Fi and app downloads don't mix), try the passport scan at home, and keep your TDAC QR code saved offline whichever channel you used. If the app misbehaves, the TDAC website and assisted services still work.
Families, older phones, and other rough edges
Early-phase realities worth knowing: each traveler still needs their own arrival card (a parent's app account filing for children works, but every person gets an individual QR code), older phones may struggle with the passport scan, and support queues for a brand-new government app will be long. Build in slack, or have someone file for you.
The distinction almost every article gets wrong
The sentence to hold on to: what is mandatory is the arrival card, not any particular way of submitting it.
THIM is a front door. The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is the thing behind it, and it is the card immigration checks. Filing through the app, filing through the web portal, or having it filed for you all produce the same record and the same QR code.
This matters because "THIM is mandatory" is repeated on many sites, although no official notice says so, and travellers read it as "you must install an app to enter Thailand". If you cannot install it — an older phone, no storage, a device that will not run it, a shared family phone — you are not locked out of the country. You need a valid card.
App or web portal: which suits you
| THIM app | Web portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Data entry | Scans your passport, fills the fields | You type everything |
| Typos | Far fewer, because the scan reads the machine-readable zone | The commonest source of problems |
| Repeat trips | Profile saved; update the flight and date | Start from scratch each time |
| Languages | English, Russian, Japanese, Chinese at launch, more announced | Its own limited set |
| Needs | A recent phone, storage, a working camera | Any browser |
| Families | One account can file for others; each still gets a card | Same, one form at a time |
The passport scan is the genuinely useful part. Most cards that cannot be found at the desk fail because a name or a passport number was typed by a human from memory; a camera reading the machine-readable zone does not do that.
If you are travelling in the next few weeks
- Install it before you fly, not at the airport. App downloads over airport Wi-Fi, with boarding under way, is the worst possible moment to discover a storage problem.
- Try the passport scan at home, in good light. If it will not read your passport, you have found that out with time to use the web portal instead.
- File inside the 3-day window either way. The app does not change the window.
- Save the QR code offline regardless of the route you used. Screenshot it into your photo library and print a copy. An app that needs a signal in an arrival hall is not a plan.
- Do not delete the app before you land. If a check happens, the record is easier to produce from the app than from an inbox.
What is planned next, and who it is for
The Immigration Bureau names further services for a later phase but has given no dates: queue booking at immigration offices, certificates of stay, visa extensions, 90-day reporting and Visa on Arrival. Most of them serve people who live in Thailand rather than people visiting it.
For a two-week holiday, none of that touches you. For a long-stay resident, in-app 90-day reporting is the headline — that is a queue this app potentially replaces.
The rough edges worth knowing
Language coverage is still narrow. English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese at launch, with more announced. If you are more comfortable in Spanish, Turkish or Arabic, the app is not yet the easy route it is meant to be — and this is precisely the group most likely to make a typo on an English web form too.
Older phones struggle. The passport scan needs a decent camera and a device recent enough to run the reader smoothly.
Every traveller still needs their own card. A parent's account can file for children, but each person receives an individual QR code. There is still no family card.
A new app changes quickly. Features, behaviour and requirements can change at short notice. Whatever you read — here included — check the position close to your travel date rather than relying on a page written weeks earlier.
If the app will not work for you
Nothing here is a dead end. The order to try:
- The web portal, in a browser, inside the 3-day window. It remains the underlying system, and the field-by-field guide covers it.
- Somebody filing on your behalf, if the barrier is language or time rather than technology.
- A kiosk on arrival, which is the slow, queue-bound version and the reason to have done one of the first two.
The one option that does not exist is arriving without a card and explaining that the app would not install.
New to the arrival card itself? Start with the 10 most common TDAC mistakes — they apply whichever channel you file through.
Sources checked
- Tourism Authority of Thailand: THIM app pilot (11 June 2026) · October 28, 2026
- App Store: THIM - Thai Immigration Bureau (Royal Thai Police) · October 28, 2026
- Immigration Bureau: TDAC frequently asked questions · October 28, 2026
