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TM.7 is the official application an immigration office uses to extend your permitted stay in Thailand. You file it at an immigration office — in Phuket, at the local immigration office — together with documents that support your basis for staying: a visa exemption, a family or retirement extension, or another lawful status. An immigration officer decides the application, and the form itself guarantees nothing.
Where TM.7 comes up
You meet this form whenever you ask immigration to extend a stay you already have, rather than apply for a new visa: a Thai embassy issues the visa, and the local immigration office extends the stay. This is the form behind, for example, extending a visa-exempt stay — check the length and availability of this extension with your immigration office, since it depends on your nationality and basis of entry — and the one-year extensions available to a family member of a Thai national and to a child living with a parent, subject to the family-basis conditions (Immigration Act s. 35).
For a one-year retirement extension, you file the same TM.7 with the financial evidence required for that basis. Check the expiry date of your permission to stay, and work out your basis for extension first: the documents follow from that, not from the form. A related situation is covered in the typical case Visa exemption extended in Phuket in one visit.
How TM.7 differs from TM.30 and the 90-day report
Travellers often mix up three different forms:
- TM.7 is filed by the foreign national who is asking to extend a permitted stay.
- TM.30 is a notification of a foreign national's residence; under the Immigration Bureau's TM.30 reporting requirements, it is filed by the person responsible for the accommodation — the house owner, landlord, occupier, or hotel manager.
- The 90-day report is a periodic notification of where you live during your stay; it is not an extension of anything.
Read more about TM.30 and the 90-day report in TM30 and the 90-day report in Thailand.
What to check before filing
Before your visit to immigration, our lawyers recommend checking a few points:
- the documents for your basis of extension — you supply these yourself; the TM.7 form does not replace them;
- the expiry date of your current permission to stay: file before it, or you fall into overstay, an offence under Immigration Act s. 81; Royal Thai Embassy guidance describes a settlement fine of THB 500 per day, capped at THB 20,000, on voluntary surrender when leaving the country;
- that your name and details on the form match your passport exactly.
The Immigration Act does not provide an appeal procedure against a refusal to extend a stay.
If you are extending your stay in Phuket, our lawyers can check your documents against your basis before your visit to immigration — more on Visa extension support in Phuket.
