Norlund

You are not really wrong because you need to have a visa to stay in Thailand apart from the Visa Extemtion.

You can enter and stay in Thailand without a visa. It's called Visa Exemption. At the moment it is 45 days and probably 45 days more if you apply for an extension at the Immigration Office. If you want a longer stay than 45 + 45 days you can either apply for a change of Visa Exemption to a Non Immigrant Visa form TM87 or leave Thailand and come back again on a visa.

In other words you do NOT loose your visa (shirt) when you enter Thailand. You can change it, but not loose it.

If you come to Thailand with a tourist visa and after 90 days want to stay in the country longer than these 90 days without having to leave the country, there is a form called TM86 that you can fill out and together with various other documents apply for changing a tourist visa into a Non Immigrant Visa. If you are not a magician and can remove the visa stamp and get a Visa Exemption stamp in your passport instead, you must use form TM86 NOT TM87. The requirement is not that you HAD a tourist visa on arrival in Thailand and lost it when you passed the passport control, but that you actually need to have a tourist visa the moment you apply to change your visa. And this is what the Immigration Office says. Please NOTIS the word "has" NOT "had". "1.1 Form TM.86 for the foreigner, who has Tourist or Transit Visa and want to applies for a change of type of visa (from Tourist Visa or Transit Visa to Non-Immigrant Visa);"

You are not "splitting hair" at all because you are absolutly correct according to the immigration office.

I found the answer to my question on the Immigration Office website. And it states clearly that you NEED to have a visa. "1.1 Form TM.86 for the foreigner, who has Tourist or Transit Visa and want to applies for a change of type of visa (from Tourist Visa or Transit Visa to Non-Immigrant Visa);" https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9.FOR-RETIREMENT-PURPOSES-50-YEARS-OLD-NON-O.pdf

It seems like you do not get my point. And the point is that many foreigners in Thailand say that you loose your visa the moment you pass the passport control. And IFF so is true how can you change from a tourist visa to a Non Immigrant Visa at the Immigration Office. IFF you say that you DO NOT loose your tourist visa and you have one when you fill out form TM86 I will agree with you. Because that is the only logical explanation.

The heading says "Change Of Visa" and you think I am "silly" because I can read and understand what it says?

No it is not. Form TM86 is a form you fill out when you want to change a tourist visa to a Non Immigrant Visa. Or do you another idea for what this form is for?

IFF they exchange the tourist visa to a "permission to stay" you DO NOT have a visa. And consequently you can not use form TM86 and change someting you do not have.

It says "Change Of Visa". And that means you MUST have a visa. Whatever that visa is.

I have been told over and over on FB and on fora online that you loose your visa the moment you pass the officer at the passport control. Are they all wrong?

Extending the Non Immigrant Visa? You mean "Extension Of Stay"?

The only logical explanation is that you don't loose your visa at the passport controll.

I know I can apply for a Non Immigrant Visa when I have a Visa Exemption but that's not the point. What I can't understand is why I need a tourist visa when I fill in form TM86 when I loose the tourist visa at the passport controll. It doesn't make any sense.

I don't need a permission of stay I need a tourist visa. Please read TM86 and you will se.

There is a form TM86 you fill out when you want to change a tourist visa to a Non Immigrant Visa. The problem is that "every one" tells me that I loose my tourist visa when I leave the passport controll when I arrive to Thailand. Which means I DO NOT HAVE a tourist visa I can change at the Immigration Office 2 month later. And that doesn't make any sense.

Then again. You do not have a visa when you fill out the form TM86. So I do't understand how you can change someting you don't have.

What happens when you want an "Extension Of Stay"? Because that is based on the visa you arrived with. And that was a tourist visa. It doesn't make any sense.

The forms TM86 and TM87 are not the issue here. The issue is how to change a visa you do not have.

You enter on a tourist visa. A visa you loose the second you step outside the passport controll. So how is it possible to use TM86 when you don't have a visa?

The general attitude is that a visa is a permission to enter Thailand and that you loose this visa when you cross the border. There is a form TM86 which has the following heading "APPLICATION FOR CHANGE OF VISA". So how is it possible to convert a visa that one does not have? https://www.thaiguiden.no/resources/download/tm86.pdf