Applying for Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian Visas from the Philippines: Visa-Free Days, Online Filing and Proof of Residence

Before Filing Anything, Check Whether You Need a Visa at All

The most common weekend-travel mistake is hiring an agent before checking the visa-free rules. The three countries treat Chinese and Philippine passports very differently:

The Thai rule changed this year, so read it carefully. The sequence: the China–Thailand mutual visa exemption agreement took effect on 1 March 2024 at 30 days per entry and 90 days in any 180; on 15 July 2024 Thailand unilaterally extended visa-free stays to 60 days; and on 19 May 2026 the Thai cabinet resolved to end that unilateral 60-day arrangement, reverting to 30 days from 15 September 2026. The Chinese Embassy in Thailand confirmed this in a consular notice dated 2 September 2026: visa-free entry continues, but at no more than 30 days per entry and 90 days in any 180, with the bilateral agreement unaffected.

There is a timing gap worth catching: entries before 15 September 2026 still get the 60-day unilateral exemption; entries on or after that date get 30 days. For a trip that straddles the date, the rule in force on your entry date is what applies — but confirm with the Thai side or your airline before you fly, as the border reading may differ from yours. Guides written between July 2024 and May 2026 only cover the 60-day window; planning a post-15-September trip around them puts you in overstay on day 31.

Which means any guide written between July 2024 and May 2026 saying "Thailand is 60 days visa-free" is now wrong. Plan on 60 days and you become an overstayer on day 31.

One more boundary: visa-free entry only covers short visits such as tourism and family visits. Work, study, journalism, settling, or any stay beyond the visa-free allowance requires the appropriate visa in advance — which matters especially for the Chinese community in the Philippines, where "a trip that also happens to involve business" is common.

Plan on the old 60-day rule and day 31 makes you an overstayer — the fine is the small part; the record is the lasting part. Have us verify the current rule before you fly →

Thai Visas From the Philippines: Fully Online, With an Extra Step for Chinese Nationals

The Royal Thai Embassy in Manila announced the launch of its online E-Visa platform on 6 December 2024, with thaievisa.go.th as the official portal. The shape of this route is nothing like Japan or Korea:

• No passport surrender, no visa sticker. The Thai e-Visa is electronic; you upload a scan of the bio page and a photo, and your passport never leaves your hands.
• No embassy visit. The Manila embassy's E-Visa Requirements and Procedures, in the version dated 16 June 2025, states the process is completed online where documents are complete, and only where documents are incomplete might an applicant be asked to supplement and attend an interview. Other embassies in the Thai foreign ministry system put it plainly: do not come to the embassy unless invited for interview.
• No designated travel-agency system. The Japanese arrangement in Manila — where individuals cannot lodge directly and must go through accredited agencies — has no equivalent here. See how the Japanese visa route from the Philippines works.

But there is a hard requirement for Chinese nationals living in the Philippines. The Manila embassy's guidelines list 29 nationalities — including China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria — that must additionally submit proof of residence:

• General requirement: a copy of a valid ACR I-Card showing permanent resident visa status in the Philippines.
• Alternative route for Chinese nationals: copies of the latest entry stamp, the Order issued by the Philippine Bureau of Immigration, and the DOLE card. This is extremely useful for 9G holders — you need not be a permanent resident; the 9G order plus the DOLE AEP card satisfies it.
• All other nationalities: a copy of the Philippine visa.

In other words, the barrier is not paperwork volume, it is whether you can prove you lawfully live in the Philippines. The governing principle across the Thai e-Visa system is that applicants must be residents of that mission's jurisdiction. See the ACR I-Card guide and which status lets you file third-country visas from the Philippines.

The Manila mission's category list is comprehensive: tourist (single and multiple entry), Non-Immigrant B (employment, teaching, conferences and training), Non-Immigrant ED (student, scholarship, internship), Non-Immigrant O (family, Thai family members, volunteers, retirement-related), transit, media M and F, diplomatic and official, plus the LTR long-term residence visa and the DTV Destination Thailand Visa.

Thai Processing Time and Fees: One Timing Warning You Need

The official processing time is roughly 10 to 15 working days where documents are complete, with weekend and holiday submissions counted from the next working day. That is longer than most people assume — start less than two weeks before a holiday departure and you will probably miss it.

Fees need particular care because they have just changed. The most recent complete published schedule is the peso table in the Manila embassy's 16 June 2025 guidelines: tourist visa PHP 1,800 single entry and PHP 3,600 multiple; Non-B employment and teaching PHP 3,600; Non-B conference PHP 3,600 single and PHP 9,000 multiple; Non-ED PHP 3,600; transit PHP 1,450; media and official F PHP 3,600 single and PHP 9,000 multiple; DTV PHP 18,000 (5 years); LTR PHP 90,000 (10 years); and tourist visas free of charge for ordinary Philippine passport holders.

However, the Manila embassy published Revised Fees for Visa, Legalization and Consular Service on 25 May 2026, effective from 31 May 2026. That announcement was released as an image, and the new rates cannot be extracted from public text. So treat the figures above as an order-of-magnitude reference only, never as a budget: the embassy's current announcement governs. If an agent quotes a round lump sum, the first question is how much is government fee and how much is service fee.

One rule worth keeping in reserve: visa on arrival costs THB 2,000 and requires carrying cash of at least THB 10,000 per person or THB 20,000 per family, plus a valid return ticket. Chinese passport holders will not need it — you are visa-free — but travelling companions of other nationalities might.

TDAC: The Arrival Card Visa-Free Travellers Cannot Skip

This requirement arrived in 2025 and currently catches more people than anything else on the Thai route.

Since 1 May 2025, Thailand requires the TDAC (Thailand Digital Arrival Card) from every foreign passport holder entering by air, land or sea, before every entry. Visa-free travellers are included — that is the part most often missed.

Three points:

• The only official site is tdac.immigration.go.th. Nothing else is official.
• It is completely free. Any site charging you to complete a TDAC is a third party.
• Submit within 72 hours (3 days) before arrival. Too early is not accepted; too late does not help.

The practical trap: a substantial share of the TDAC pages ranking highest in search are paid third-party form-fillers. They offer no priority and no expediting — they fill in a free form for you and charge a few hundred pesos. The form takes under 5 minutes. There is no reason to pay.

Back-planning the Thai timeline makes it simple: if you need a visa, start 3 to 4 weeks out (10 to 15 working days plus buffer); if you are visa-free, file the TDAC within 72 hours of departure. Keep the two separate in your head.

Vietnam: Get the Official URL Right First — USD 25 for Up to 90 Days

The biggest risk on the Vietnam route is not approval, it is lookalike sites. Paid intermediaries trading as "Vietnam visa" dominate search results.

The official portal is evisa.gov.vn (the other official domain is thithucdientu.gov.vn), administered by the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Public Security. Note carefully: the former official address evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn migrated to the new domain on 11 November 2024 — many guides still point at the old one.

The official parameters are clear:

• Stay: up to 90 days, single or multiple entry. That is generous by regional standards.
• Fee: USD 25 single entry, USD 50 multiple, paid online, non-refundable if refused.
• Processing: 3 working days where the application is complete and accurate.
• Conditions: be outside Vietnam, hold a valid passport, and not fall under the suspension-of-entry provisions of Vietnam's immigration law. Note that no proof of Philippine residence is required — far more permissive than Thailand, so even tourist-visa holders in the Philippines can file.

Since 15 August 2023, Vietnam has opened e-visas to citizens of all countries and territories. Chinese passport holders may apply.

The Vietnamese Embassy in the Philippines operates at 670 Pablo Ocampo, Malate, Manila, with consular procedures, visa exemption and consular fee sections on its site. The precise scope, fees and timelines of its paper visa service could not be confirmed from public sources and need a direct phone call. What can be inferred from official parameters is that the e-visa caps at 90 days, so stays beyond that or requiring in-country extension fall outside it — but that is inference rather than an official statement, so verify with the embassy for anything long-term.

Three Vietnamese Exceptions: Loose-Leaf Visas, Phu Quoc and Designated Ports

Three details on the Vietnam route can each stop you at the airport.

Exception one: loose-leaf visas for Chinese biometric passports. According to compiled public sources, e-visa holders travelling on Chinese biometric ordinary passports must have the e-visa converted to a free loose-leaf visa at the border, with no stamp placed in the passport — a practice tied to the South China Sea map dispute. This was found only in secondary sources and not confirmed on Vietnamese official pages, so verify with the Vietnamese Embassy in Manila before travelling.

Exception two: Phu Quoc visa exemption. Travellers of all nationalities arriving directly at Phu Quoc, or entering via Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City airports and transferring to a domestic terminal for Phu Quoc, may stay visa-free for 30 days with at least 6 months of passport validity. From Manila this is genuinely useful — a Vietnamese island weekend needs no e-visa at all.

Exception three: e-visas work only at designated ports. The official principle is that foreigners using an e-visa must enter and exit through government-designated international checkpoints. The official portal lists more than 14 air, 27 land and 39 sea checkpoints. Hanoi Noi Bai (HAN) and Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat (SGN) are both included, so direct flights from Manila are unaffected. But if you plan an overland hop into Cambodia or Laos and back, check each crossing against the list.

One unsettled item: the Vietnamese Immigration Department does operate an official pre-arrival declaration portal at prearrival.immigration.gov.vn, which asks travellers to complete the declaration fully and accurately before arrival and says it shortens clearance times. Whether it is mandatory, which airports it covers, its effective date and submission window are not stated on the official page. Travel-industry sources describe it as mandatory at Tan Son Nhat from 15 April 2026, free, submitted within 72 hours of arrival — unconfirmed officially, so check in real time before departure.

Visa approved, flights booked, and then stopped by an arrival card nobody mentioned — Southeast Asia produces a new version of this every year. Have us run the current rules before you go →

Indonesia: The e-VOA Portal Moved — 30 Days, IDR 500,000, and a Careful Note on Extensions

The first trap here is also a URL. The molina.imigrasi.go.id address quoted in many guides is no longer the live portal; the current official gateway is evisa.imigrasi.go.id, with a dedicated e-VOA page.

Official parameters:

• China is on the e-VOA eligibility list — the official page lists 87 eligible countries and includes China explicitly.
• Stay: 30 days, for tourism, government visits, business meetings, procurement and transit.
• Visa validity: 90 days — distinct from the stay period. The 90 days is the window in which you may use it to enter; the 30 days is how long you may remain.
• Fee: IDR 500,000, paid during the application by Visa, Mastercard or JCB, with bank charges on top.
• No proof of Philippine residence is required on the official page — matching Vietnam and more permissive than Thailand.

Extensions need care, because official and secondary sources disagree. The official e-VOA page states the visitor visa itself is not extendable and that longer stays require extending a stay permit at the immigration office. Various third-party sources claim one 30-day extension at the same fee. Where they conflict, the official wording governs; anyone planning more than a month should confirm the current rule on the official portal before departure.

One internal contradiction on the official site is worth flagging: on eligible entry points, one page cites coverage of 16 airports and more than 100 seaports and border checkpoints, while the FAQ on the same site says the visitor visa is currently available only at Soekarno-Hatta and Ngurah Rai airports. The two conflict, so check in real time before departure — especially for secondary gateways such as Lombok, Surabaya or Manado.

On arrival declarations: All Indonesia (allindonesia.imigrasi.go.id) is the immigration authority's official system, positioned as an integrated passenger arrival declaration. Indonesian Customs splits the traffic explicitly: air and sea arrivals use All Indonesia, land arrivals use the e-CD BC 2.2 form. Whether the declaration is mandatory, its submission window and whether it carries a fee are not stated on the official page — verify in real time.

The Indonesian Embassy in the Philippines is at 185 Salcedo Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City. Its visa categories and whether personal appearance is required are not published in a clear public list; call to confirm.

Three More Things on the Philippine Side: ECC, Proof of Status, and the Usual Traps

Getting the destination visa is only half of it. You also have to get out of the Philippines cleanly.

One: the ECC exit clearance. It belongs to the Philippine side and is a separate line from the destination visa, but both converge on the same day at the airport. Per the BI's own guidance:

• ECC-B applies to foreigners holding a valid immigrant or non-immigrant visa and a valid ACR I-Card who are leaving temporarily. A 9G or 13A holder flying to Thailand or Vietnam for the weekend is in this bracket. It is live on BI eServices.
• ECC-A covers temporary visitor visa holders who have stayed six months or more; immigrant or non-immigrant visa holders whose visas have expired or been downgraded; holders of valid visas departing permanently; foreign nationals born in the Philippines departing for the first time; temporary visitors under a departure order; and seafarers who stayed over 30 days with approved disembarkation. Long-staying tourist-visa holders taking a weekend trip often fall under the first of these.
• Timing: apply at least 72 hours before departure; an ECC is valid one month from issue and may be used only once regardless of validity.

Two: have your Philippine status documents ready. Thailand requires the ACR I-Card or the entry stamp plus BI Order plus DOLE card combination outright. Vietnam and Indonesia do not require it officially, but when immigration asks why you are departing from Manila, having an ACR I-Card in hand shortens the conversation considerably. See which BI steps require personal appearance.

Three: do not treat a trip abroad as a fix for your Philippine status. Flying to a neighbouring country to reset your stay is usually neither necessary nor economical — a 9A can be extended in-country. See whether visa runs actually work. If you have a deportation or refused-entry record in the Philippines, see whether a Philippine blacklist affects other countries.

Quick reference:

See also: comparing Southeast Asian long-stay visa difficulty; Chinese visa costs from the Philippines; third-country visa eligibility from the Philippines.

Disclaimer: This article is general information only. The scope of each transaction, the documents required and the fees follow the current announcements of the Bureau of Immigration and the relevant embassies and consulates. All three countries adjusted visa policy or fees between 2025 and 2026 — confirm the current official announcement before travelling.