BritTim

Have you spoken to a good agent to see if they can facilitate a work permit and extension for you without leaving Thailand? If your salary will be at least 50,000 baht per month, and your employer will provide the necessary paperwork, there are few conditions under which leaving Thailand for a Non B visa is absolutely necessary.

As a general rule, embassies/consulates have not the slightest interest in your history of extensions granted by Immigration in Thailand. Frankly, they usually only have the haziest understanding of Immigration's processes and rules.

Also, a few agent assisted extensions. However, in general, you raise a very good question.

I think it is true that hospitalization will always occur if you are tested positive while in ASQ. However, both home isolation and community isolation outside hospital has become common where people test positive in the community.

Let's try again ... Visa exemption: allows nationals of certain countries to enter Thailand without a visa. Previously, this allowed an initial 30-day permission to stay, with the possibility of a 30-day extension. Since visa exempt entry was allowed again, after the original lockdown, the initial stay on a visa exempt entry was increased to 45 days to compensate for the time spent in quarantine. When using a visa exemption, all you receive in your passport is the regular entry stamp. Visa on arrival: (not currently allowed) permits nationals of certain countries not eligible for visa exemption, to apply for a visa on arrival at selected entry points, especially the international airports. Allows a 15-day permission to stay. With a visa on arrival, you have both a visa sticker and the entry stamp in your passport. A visa on arrival is not eligible for extensions of stay. Regular visas: generally issued by Thai embassies or consulates abroad. There are special cases where a visa can be issued by Immigration in Thailand, but (with the exception of the visa on arrival) they are never issued at the airport. With a regular visa, you have both the visa sticker and the entry stamp. Your initial permission to stay depends on the type of visa you hold. If you are a US citizen, and did not apply for a visa in advance from a Thai embassy or consulate abroad, then you entered Thailand visa exempt. If you do not have a full page visa sticker in your passport, you did not apply for an receive a visa. You entered visa exempt. I hope this clarifies your understanding.

You need to learn the difference between the entry stamp in your passport (giving a permission to stay for a specified period in Thailand) and a visa (issued prior to your entry into Thailand). You receive an entry stamp (what you call "an on arrival stamp", regardless of whether you enter with a visa or have a visa exemption. A visa is separate and is commonly a full page sticker affixed to your passport.

If they offer Sinovac followed four weeks later by AstraZeneca, be aware that this is a good combination (unlike Sinovac alone).

If your STV expires, you may still be able to get 60-day Covid extensions. If those are no longer available, your best bet is probably going to be to return visa exempt, and look for extensions based on your Thai spouse. One of the downsides of the STV is that they do not allow the usual extensions of stay. Only extensions based on exceptional situations, such as medical issues or Covid, are allowed.

Under normal circumstances, you could (i) exit Thailand by air without a re-entry permit; (ii) re-enter visa exempt with your NZ passport; and (iii) apply for the Non O visa in-country at Immigration. Right now, that is difficult and expensive to accomplish. However, if you are fully vaccinated, I suspect there will be viable ways of doing this within a few months (possibly via Singapore).

As from Monday, Thailand is on the UK government's red list. Make sure this does not impact your Covid insurance.

Frankly, the only easier solution than Non O retirement (money in bank) is the Thailand Elite visa. The investment visa requires you to make low quality investments while still extending each year.

If you find the forums frequented by Burmese students, I am sure you can get a clear picture on this. There are language schools that teach Thai, English and Chinese that might be more affordable than a degree course. The downside of these is that immigration treats such schools with suspicion unless they are paid to cooperate.

A salary of US$1,000 per month is significantly more than many Thais (whole families) live on. Almost anywhere in Thailand, it could be enough, but staying away from popular foreign tourist areas like Phuket, Pattaya and Koh Samui would make your money stretch further. If you would be satisfied with a quiet beach area with little infrastructure, this can be cheap. Just getting (legally) from Myanmar to Thailand under the current circumstances is expensive. Read up on the requirements for a Certificate of Entry which right now involves many costs that do not exist normally. As far as visas are concerned, border bounces are absolutely out right now, both because land borders are closed, and because of the costs associated with any new entry into Thailand. Best for you might be an education visa. Ask around on Burmese oriented Thai forums to see if there is advice on getting an education visa from Myanmar to come to Thailand.

Anyone can do the report for you until the due date. The 7-day grace period, however, is only available if you do your own report. At least, that seems to be the established practice at most offices.

Generally, yes. Sometimes they will accept an itinerary where you claim you will be leaving Thailand overland, but it is unlikely they would buy that under the current circumstances.

That is accurate. However, at most embassies, they now mandate an onward ticket before they will issue a tourist visa.

You can only apply for a visa from the US if you are actually in the country at the time you apply. Indeed, in most cases, you must use the correct embassy/official consulate depending on the state you are in.. Even if that were not true, I would shudder at the idea of sending my passport through the mail from Eastern Europe, hoping to eventually get it back through Covid disrupted mail services.

Be aware that a tourist visa (if you can get one) only gives you an extra 15 days over entering visa exempt. The tourist visa has zero other benefits. It is questionable whether the extra 15 days is worth the hassle. All the extensions available for those who enter with a tourist visa are available to those who enter visa exempt.

If you do not qualify for another kind of extension, you can currently apply for the "Covid" extension of 60 days. You basically sign an affidavit to the effect that Covid-19 prevents you from returning to your home country. No proof of this claim is currently required.

If determined to come, you might also want to read up on the "sandbox" options that are a little less onerous than strict quarantine. Note that at some point in the next six months, I expect Thailand to "reopen" with far fewer restrictions (but maybe not a lower Covid risk). Especially if coming for a relatively short visit, wait until it is a cheaper and lower hassle proposition.

It is "amazing how slow" the process of liquidating investments and transferring funds can be. You are, no doubt, still waiting for that 400k to become available and be transferred to your Thai bank account.

I think something might have been lost in the translation here. The only related item I can think of is that those coming to a sandbox, in addition to being vaccinated, cannot be from a red list country. That probably means that you cannot pop from a red list country to a lower risk country and immediately get a COE to travel into a sandbox.

I think you should stop taking any notice of rumours from unreliable sources. People reacting to everything they read or hear (regardless of source) is what leads to the irrational behaviour that has become even more common over the last few years. If any "rumour" is not covered by mainstream sources, it is rarely accurate.

If you send a PM to @Mike Teavee, he can give you details of the agent he uses. That agent appears to be good, but will not engage in any illegal activity. They may well want you to attend Immigration with them for an extension (this is an official requirement) but the agent will transport you there and back, as well as getting you VIP queuing which minimises the overall time involved.

I wonder if a photo of a large monitor showing all the employees together on a Zoom call might be acceptable. You can make a good case that a virtual office is where you are all working, as mandated (more than just recommended) by government regulations.