My wife and I will need a re-entry permit soon.

The application (TM-8) asks for date of departure. But requests ABOUT what date for return. Must we have a specific date of departure, such as an airline itinerary or is approximate departure date adequate?

Thanks in advance.

It doesn't seem to be very important to immigration what you put there. They will not ask to see any evidence. The answers to those questions don't seem to have any bearing on anything else.

Put down a departure and return date to the best of your knowledge at this moment. Don't lose any sleep over it if your plans change.

The departure and return dates are not important as long as the return is before your permitted to stay date. Some offices even allow you to leave them blank.

Now that I think about it, a reason for the question does occur to me. Let's say your current extension of stay gives you a permission to stay until 1 July 2015. If you were to apply for a re-entry permit and put down that your departure date is 25 June 2015 and your return date is 10 July 2015, maybe the helpful immigration officer would point out to you that the re-entry permit you are applying for is not going to do you any good.

A re-entry permit preserves your permission to stay until the date your extension ends if you use the re-entry permit to re-enter before that permission of stay date passes.

In other words, your re-entry permit is only valid until your current permission to stay ends, after that it's essentially worthless. So if an applicant were asking for re-entry permit that couldn't be used given their departure and return dates, perhaps it allows the immigration officer to explain that to you. Better to find out about that while your applying for your re-entry permit than to have a nasty surprise awaiting you on your return to Thailand. Sort of a sanity check.

I always leave the date fields blank . Never any problem.

Thanks all.

I will make sure my return date is before my permission to stay expires.