Onward Ticket Rules for Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia

All three countries want to see that you are leaving again, but they ask for it in three different ways and at three different moments. Thailand and Indonesia write the requirement into their entry rules, while Vietnam mostly lets your visa dates do the talking. In practice the person who stops you is a check-in agent in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, not an officer in Bangkok, Hanoi or Denpasar.

At a glance: Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia compared

Your passport changes the answer more than your destination does. The table below covers the nationalities most common among UAE residents, and every figure in it comes from an official source linked further down.

What you need before you get to the airport

• Passport valid at least six months from your arrival date, for all three countries
• The right visa or visa-on-arrival eligibility for your passport, not your residence visa
• Evidence of onward or return travel, in a format the airline can read and look up
• Thailand: the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, completed online before you fly
• Indonesia: the All Indonesia arrival card, and the Bali levy if you are landing in Bali
• Vietnam: your e-visa, printed, with the entry border gate you actually plan to use
• Enough accessible funds to answer a question about money if one is asked

What are Thailand's onward ticket rules?

Thailand asks for it directly. The UK Foreign Office entry requirements for Thailand state that you may be asked to show proof of enough money for your stay, at least 10,000 Thai baht per person or 20,000 per family, and evidence of onward or return travel. Travellers have been refused entry for not producing it.

From 15 September 2026 the visa exemption gives 30 days for tourism, down from the longer stay many people remember. That matters for onward travel, because your exit date has to sit inside the stay you were actually granted, not the one a two-year-old blog post described.

The bigger change for UAE residents is who qualifies. Emirati and Filipino passport holders remain on the visa exemption list. Indian passport holders moved onto the visa on arrival list rather than the exemption list in the same revision, which is a different process at a different counter with a fee. If you hold an Indian passport, confirm your position with the Thai Immigration Bureau or the Royal Thai Embassy in Abu Dhabi before you book anything, because this changed recently and English-language sources have been slow to catch up. Pakistani passport holders are not on either list and need a visa arranged before departure.

Everyone flying in also needs the Thailand Digital Arrival Card, which is free and is submitted online in the days before arrival. Anything charging you for it is not the official site.

Does Vietnam ask for proof of onward travel?

Not as a published condition, and this is where honest reporting beats a confident answer. The Foreign Office entry requirements for Vietnam cover the e-visa, the 90-day stay and passport validity, and make no mention of a return or onward ticket requirement. Nothing on the Vietnam national immigration portal that we could verify sets one either.

Vietnam opened its e-visa to every nationality, so Emirati, Indian, Pakistani and Filipino passport holders all apply through the same online system. The e-visa runs up to 90 days, single or multiple entry, and you must enter through a designated international border gate. Filipino travellers may have a short exemption under ASEAN arrangements, but we could not confirm the current terms from the national portal, so treat the e-visa as the safe route unless a Vietnamese mission tells you otherwise.

What does bite people is the stamp. The Foreign Office warns that your permitted departure date is set when you are stamped in and immigration will not change it once you have left the airport. So the practical function of proof of onward travel for Vietnam is showing an airline that your plan fits inside your visa, rather than satisfying a written rule.

Airlines still apply their own judgement. A one-way flight to Hanoi on a passport with no strong travel history is the kind of booking that gets a second look at the desk, even where the destination country has not asked for anything.

What does Indonesia require for visa on arrival?

Indonesia is the strictest of the three on paper. To obtain a visa on arrival you must have proof of your onward or return journey, according to the Foreign Office entry requirements for Indonesia, which also put the VOA at 500,000 rupiah, single entry, valid 30 days and extendable once by a further 30 days at an immigration office.

The Directorate General of Immigration's own e-VOA page puts it more bluntly still and advises travellers to have the return ticket printed, because officers reserve the right to ask for it at entry. Your passport needs six months of validity and two blank pages.

Eligibility is the trap here. The e-VOA list runs to dozens of countries and includes the United Arab Emirates, India and the Philippines, but Pakistan is not on it. A Pakistani passport holder living in Dubai who turns up in Denpasar expecting to buy a visa at the counter has a serious problem, so that visa has to be arranged before departure.

For everyone else, the wording is proof of a journey, not proof of a purchase, which is exactly what an onward ticket reservation is built to answer. Have it printed as well as on your phone, because the VOA counter queue is not the place to be hunting through email.

If you are landing in Bali, budget for the tourist levy of 150,000 rupiah as well, and fill in the free All Indonesia arrival card within 72 hours of arriving.

Why does the airline at DXB or AUH decide, not immigration?

Because the airline carries the cost of getting it wrong. If you are refused entry, the carrier that flew you is the one that has to fly you back, and it can be fined on top. That is why the check-in agent in Dubai is more cautious than the officer in Bangkok.

Airline staff work from Timatic, the IATA database of entry rules, rather than from the destination's website. Timatic condenses a long rule into a short instruction on a screen, and the agent follows it. Arguing that Vietnam publishes no onward ticket requirement will not move someone whose screen says to see one.

So the useful question is not what the country requires. It is what the airline will accept at 2am at Terminal 3 with a queue behind you. Having a verifiable onward reservation in your inbox turns a debate into a scan of a booking reference.

Where do travellers get caught out?

The exit date falls outside the stay granted. A 45-day gap between arrival and departure does not work on a 30-day Thai exemption, and an agent who spots it will hold you at the desk. Match the dates to the stay your passport actually gets.

The passport, not the residence visa, sets the rule. A UAE residence visa is excellent proof that you have a life to come back to, and it is worth carrying for that reason, but it does not change whether Thailand or Indonesia lets your nationality in.

A screenshot instead of a reservation. Agents want something they can look up. A cancelled booking, an expired hold or a picture of a search result all fail the same way, which is why our reservations sit under a live PNR that can be checked in Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport.

Assuming a reservation covers every situation. It does not. Where an airline or an officer insists on a fully paid onward ticket, an unpaid reservation is not a substitute and we will not pretend otherwise. Nothing you carry obliges an officer to let you into a country. If you have been told in writing that a paid ticket is required, buy the ticket.

What does it cost?

Government fees and our fee are separate things. The figures below come from the official pages linked in this article, and the conversion into dirhams moves with the exchange rate, so treat the foreign currency amounts as the real number.

The tier you pick buys validity, not distance. A Dubai to Bangkok reservation and a Dubai to Denpasar reservation cost the same, and a one-way costs the same as a return. Pick the 2-day option if you fly tomorrow and the 14-day option if a visa decision has to land first. If you are unsure which validity fits, the FAQ sets out how validity, verification and free reissues work.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Thailand entry requirements
• Thai Immigration Bureau, Thailand Digital Arrival Card
• Thai Immigration Bureau
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Vietnam entry requirements
• Vietnam Immigration Department, national e-visa portal
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Indonesia entry requirements
• Direktorat Jenderal Imigrasi, e-VOA information
• IATA, Timatic

Entry rules for all three countries change at short notice and English-language pages lag behind the local announcement. Check your own nationality against an official source in the week you travel, and ring your airline if anything is ambiguous.