The apps to install before you board.

Why this is a pre departure job

Almost every app on this list wants to send a verification code by SMS to your phone number. If you land, buy a Thai SIM, put it in your phone and then try to register, the code goes to a number you have just taken out. If your home number is still active on roaming or in a second SIM slot, everything is easy. Do the installations and the registrations at home, on hotel or house wifi, with your usual number in the phone, and you will land with a working toolkit rather than a phone full of half configured accounts and a queue of failed codes.

The second reason is storage and bandwidth. Several of these want offline data packs, and downloading an offline Thai language pack or a Bangkok map region over airport wifi at eleven at night is a poor use of your first hour. Ten minutes at home saves an hour on the ground.

The list, in installation order

Transport: Grab and Bolt

Grab is the default. Install it, verify the number, and add a payment card while you are still somewhere you can telephone your bank if the authorisation is declined, which happens often enough to be worth pre empting. Grab covers Bangkok comprehensively and reaches most provincial cities and holiday destinations, and beyond rides it will deliver food, send a parcel across town and collect a forgotten passport from a hotel, which is more useful than it sounds. Bolt is the price competitor and worth having as a second option in Bangkok and the larger cities, where a difference of a hundred baht on a routine journey is common. Our comparison guide sets out where each one wins.

One habit worth forming immediately: check the quoted fare, not just the estimated arrival time. Both apps price dynamically and the same journey can vary widely across ten minutes. Having both installed means you can compare in twenty seconds.

LINE, which is not optional

Thailand runs on LINE rather than WhatsApp, and this is the single piece of cultural infrastructure most visitors underestimate. Your driver will send you a LINE message. Your hotel concierge will offer a LINE contact rather than an email address. The tailor, the villa manager, the private chef, the hospital's international desk, the school admissions office and the property agent all work through it. A visitor without LINE is a visitor everybody has to work around.

Install it, verify with your home number, set a display name that is recognisably you, and add a profile photograph, because Thai business contacts identify people visually in a long contact list. Set a searchable LINE ID so that people can find you without exchanging phone numbers. We treat LINE properly in its own guide; for now, install it before you fly, because re verifying a LINE account after a SIM change is the single most common technology headache we untangle for arriving clients.

Delivery: LINE MAN and foodpanda

LINE MAN is the Thai market leader for food delivery and grew out of the LINE ecosystem, which means it works naturally alongside the messaging app and carries the widest restaurant coverage in Bangkok, including a long tail of small kitchens the international platforms never list. It also does groceries, pharmacy items and a messenger service that will physically fetch something across the city. foodpanda is the other broad platform, with its own coverage and its own promotions, and it operates in provincial cities where the alternatives thin out. Grab's food service sits inside the app you already have.

For a short stay, having Grab plus one dedicated delivery app is plenty. For a longer stay, having two means that when one platform's restaurant list is thin in your neighbourhood, the other usually is not. Coverage, ownership and city availability in Thai delivery have shifted considerably in recent years, so check what is actually live at your address rather than assuming. Our delivery guide covers the hotel and condominium reception rules, which are the part that actually trips people up.

Google Maps, and its Thai quirks

Google Maps is the right navigation tool in Thailand, and it is excellent on the things that matter most: the BTS and MRT networks, driving routes, and finding a business by name. Before you fly, download the greater Bangkok area for offline use, plus whichever province you are visiting. It costs a few hundred megabytes and it means the map still works while you are standing in an arrivals hall with no data.

• Rail transit is well mapped and the station names match the signage. Trust it.
• Bus routing is approximate at best and should not be relied on for timing.
• Walking routes sometimes cut through sois that do not actually connect, or that connect through a private compound with a locked gate. Check the satellite view before committing to a fifteen minute walk.
• Motorcycle taxis, which are how Bangkok actually solves the last kilometre, do not appear at all.
• Business opening hours are frequently out of date. Telephone or message before travelling across the city.
• The pin sharing function is the single most useful feature in Thailand. Share your live location or a dropped pin into LINE and the driver navigation problem disappears.

Translate, bookings and the practical remainder

Google Translate with the offline Thai pack downloaded does three jobs well: reading signs and menus through the camera, producing a Thai sentence to show a driver, and handling a short exchange at a pharmacy counter. It is imperfect on nuance and unreliable on anything legal or medical, where you want a person. Download the pack at home.

Klook is the established booking platform for attraction tickets, day tours, airport transfers and rail passes across Asia, and in Thailand it is genuinely useful for skipping ticket queues and pre booking the things that sell out. Gowabi is the Thai booking platform for spa, massage and wellness, and it solves a specific problem elegantly: it shows you which reputable establishments have availability this afternoon, with transparent pricing, in a category where walking in blind is unsatisfying. Neither is essential; both remove friction.

Finally, your own bank or card application, with push notifications enabled. Two reasons. Foreign card use in Thailand triggers fraud holds, and being able to release one from your phone at a shop counter is worth more than any travel tip. And Thai ATMs charge a flat foreign card fee per withdrawal, currently in the region of two hundred and twenty baht, on top of whatever your own bank charges, which makes real time visibility of what each withdrawal actually cost genuinely useful. Withdraw larger amounts less often.

The arrival card, which is a website and not an app

The Thailand Digital Arrival Card is completed online, through the official immigration portal, within seventy two hours before you arrive. There is no legitimate paid app for it and there is no need to pay anyone to file it. It takes a few minutes per traveller and you will want the passport, the flight number and the accommodation address to hand. Airlines departing from India and the Gulf have been checking it at check in. File it for every member of the party, including children, save the confirmation to your phone, and screenshot it in case you have no data on landing.

App availability, ownership and coverage in Thailand change regularly, and the arrival card process is set by the Thai authorities and has been revised more than once. Verify the current arrival card requirement and the official portal address with the Thai Immigration Bureau or the Royal Thai Embassy in your country before travelling, and confirm each app is operating in your destination before relying on it.

This briefing is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Thai rules change frequently and individual cases differ. Verify current requirements with the relevant authorities, including the Immigration Bureau, the Board of Investment, the Land Department, the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, and take advice on your own facts before acting.