THIM App for Thailand: What It Does and How to Fill In the TDAC With It

Contents of this article6 sections

1. What THIM can already do
2. The app is not mandatory
3. How to fill in the TDAC in the app
4. If the passport scan does not work
5. What happens to your data
6. What is still to come

Since August 2026 the Thai immigration authority has had its own app: THIM. For now you will mainly use it for one thing, the digital arrival card, the TDAC. I have put together what the app can do today, how filling it in works and when you are better off sticking with the website.

In short

• THIM is the official app of the Immigration Bureau, published by the Royal Thai Police. It is available for iPhone, Android and Huawei.
• You can fill in the TDAC in the app or, as before, on tdac.immigration.go.th. Both are valid, the app is not mandatory.
• The app is not available in German yet. It runs in English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
• Extension of stay and the 90-day report have been announced, but do not work yet.

What THIM can already do

The core is the TDAC. You photograph your passport, and the app reads your name, passport number and date of birth by itself. Then you enter your flight, accommodation and purpose of travel. This takes three minutes at most per person.

Handy for families: you can register up to 10 people in one go, and the passport scan saves a lot of typing.

There are also two extras. Through the app you can reach the tourist police hotline around the clock. And under “Explore Thailand” there are vouchers from partners such as Grab, The Mall or Minor. The vouchers are nice, but no reason to download the app.

The app is not mandatory

The TDAC is mandatory, not the app. The website keeps running, and THIM is just an additional route. What speaks for each option:

How to fill in the TDAC in the app

1. Download THIM from the App Store, Google Play or the Huawei AppGallery. Make sure the publisher is the Royal Thai Police or the Immigration Bureau.
2. Choose the TDAC and scan your passport. The app reads the chip in the passport via NFC and does a short face match with the camera.
3. Enter your flight, your first accommodation and the purpose of travel. If you are travelling with others, add them now as a group.
4. Submit the card 3 days before arrival at the earliest. Save the confirmation as a screenshot and, ideally, print it out as well.

If the passport scan does not work

In the reviews on Google Play, some users complain that the passport is not recognised or that the NFC scan is interrupted. Do not waste too much time on it. The website only takes a few minutes to fill in.

What happens to your data

The app processes passport data, the chip photo and an image of your face. The data is stored with Amazon Web Services in a data centre in Bangkok and is protected under the Thai data protection law, the PDPA.

When you enter the country you hand over your passport data and your face anyway, as a photo is taken at passport control.

What is still to come

The plan is to expand THIM into a central app for everything around your stay. This is how things stand at the moment:

At least 15 more languages are also due to be added. There is no date for any of it. Until then, extensions continue to be handled as usual at the immigration office. If anything changes, I will write about it in the news.

What else you need for entry is in the guide Entering Thailand 2026, including a printable checklist. You will find the news item on the launch of the app in the news. If you are travelling with children, the guide Thailand with children will help.