Royal Thai Consulate-General in Kolkata

No Indian metro sits closer to Thailand than Kolkata — Bangkok is barely two and a half hours' flying time across the Bay of Bengal, nearer than Mumbai is to Delhi — and that geography defines the Royal Thai Consulate-General on the 19th floor of Acropolis Business Towers in Kasba. Its public splits neatly in two. Outbound, eastern India's travellers use Thailand as their default international getaway, boarding short flights on the strength of the 60-day visa exemption for Indian passports with only the online arrival card to register. Inbound, the consulate supports the steady movement of Thai pilgrims for whom this region is sacred ground: the Buddhist circuit of Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, and Kushinagar lies within the consulate's world, and Kolkata has been the traditional gateway to it since Thai pilgrimages began arriving by steamer. The city's own Thai connection is old — Siamese trade moved through the Hooghly in the nineteenth century — and its present catchment reaches from West Bengal and Odisha through Bihar and Jharkhand to the North-East states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, whose capital Port Blair is closer to Phuket than to Chennai. The post works under the Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi alongside its sister consulates-general in Mumbai and Chennai.

Indian passport holders in eastern India rarely need this consulate for a holiday: the 60-day visa exemption covers tourism, family visits, and short business trips, with the Thailand Digital Arrival Card — free, online, within three days before arrival — as the only requirement. The consulate's visa work runs through Thailand's exclusively online e-Visa system at thaievisa.go.th, which assigns applicants resident in eastern and north-eastern India to Kolkata: Non-Immigrant B for employment, ED for study, O for family and retirement, and the Destination Thailand Visa for remote workers. The visa section answers at thaivisa.ccu@gmail.com; fees are paid online and are non-refundable, so apply ahead of fixed dates.

Thai nationals across eastern and north-eastern India — including pilgrimage groups travelling the Buddhist circuit in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — turn to this consulate-general for passport services, document legalisation, civil registration, and emergency assistance. The consular section is reached at thaiconsular.ccu@gmail.com; the chancery handles official correspondence at thaiconsulate.ccu@mfa.go.th.

The consulate-general in Acropolis Business Towers on Rajdanga Main Road, Kasba, is open Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00, closing for Thai and Indian public holidays. Contact the right desk directly: thaivisa.ccu@gmail.com for visa matters, thaiconsular.ccu@gmail.com for consular services, thaiconsulate.ccu@mfa.go.th for the chancery, or +91 33 2440 7836 by phone. Writing ahead is strongly advised as counters are small and demand peaks before the cool-season travel months.

The consulate's three email addresses are strictly departmental — visa, consular, and chancery — and messages sent to the wrong desk take longer to answer. Visa applications are submitted only through the online e-Visa portal, never over the counter. The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is compulsory for every traveller, and the 60-day exemption for Indian passports is subject to periodic review, so confirm the current rule before booking.