BritTim

In case the agent cuts corners, and does not use the available legal loopholes correctly. It insulates you further from the process. In the unlikely event that action was taken against the official and the agent, you can still validly point out that you did nothing illegal, and neither did you ask anyone else to engage in illegal activity.

If the deliberate loopholes in the law are used correctly. Anyway, the reason an official prefers you to use a third party is because it provides both you and the official with plausible deniability. You pay an agent (nothing illegal in that) and the agent gets a legal extension for you. How the agent does that is of no interest to you. Anyway, the incentives to the official to waive certain requirements should, if done carefully, breach no Thai laws.

Following the official's promotion, he reads further posts on Asean Now and becomes aware that there are some Thai women involved in prostitution with foreigners. Raids are mounted on hotels around the country leading to many of these evil women being caught and prosecuted, along with their customers. Again, it is only due to the vigilance of this fine official that the crime wave was halted.

This could be the basis of a great comedy. A low level Thai official sees the post. He talks to his superiors and explains that a foreigner is planning on leaving Thailand before an automatic ban on returning to Thailand would be imposed. This could only be prevented by arresting the foreigner first. Based on this, a task force is created with the objective of stopping every bus on roads into Korat, checking the passports of all foreigners for people with overstays. The police are distracted at one point and the foreigner slips into Korat undetected. Knowing that the foreigner would be safe once he reaches the airport, the task force sets up road blocks on all roads into international airports, carefully checking the passport of everyone on the way to the airport. As a result, 7,823 people are incarcerated in the Immigration Detention Centre within three days. The lowly official who precipitated this is commended for his observational skills without which the RTP would never have been aware that some foreigners leave Thailand while on overstay.

I believe the comparison I made was apt, and the dubious difference you cite ignores my point. In both cases you have a choice. You can go to the trouble of visiting an immigration office before going to the airport, based on the erroneous (from experience) belief that paying an overstay or getting a re-entry permit at the airport risks you missing a flight. I am not arguing that using the immigration office is wrong, and it could even be advisable for those with anxiety disorders. I was just pointing out that the 15 minutes it takes to get a re-entry permit does not result in missed flights in practice. If inconvenient, the immigration office visit is unnecessary.

Just for your information, some agents can do the Non O visa application followed by the annual extension of stay with only about 16 days left on your current permission to stay.

You will be fine coming in visa exempt (45 days). I say that as someone who is very cautious when it comes to using visa exemptions by air. No rational immigration official is going to questions your status as a genuine tourist. I assume you already have your return ticket to Europe sorted out.

Yes, thinking about it, that is the most likely explanation (assuming he is doing what the agent recommended after looking at his passport). He is not currently here on an annual retirement extension, but thinks that is what the agent is planning to give him. To the OP: the agent will initially get you a 90-day Non Immigrant "conversion" visa, followed later by a 12-month extension. This costs significantly more than just the extension. If you can meet the conditions, consider applying for the 90-day Non Immigrant visa in Vientiane. This will save on agent fees (assuming you do not want to do the extension yourself).

OK, that is a good point. I was not aware that PUB machines had that limitation. In general, the machines have become pretty capable the last few years.

I am sorry. I gave you too much credit. My immediate thought was: if it was as easy to avoid showing your passport as walking 10 metres to a machine instead, you would have done so rather than complain. The obvious conclusion is that the machines you use have been modified to refuse to work unless shown your passport.

Interesting. I have yet to have a PUB (Passbook Update Machine) demand to see my passport before it will update my book.

On that route, as a well groomed Westerner, if the bus is stopped, you would not be checked. The roadblock would not be for people in your situation. Your risk would be low. If your trip to Korat is just to pick up documents, is there any way you could have someone else get you the documents?

No one else seems puzzled by your question, but I am really confused. If you are currently in Thailand on an annual extension of stay and planning another arranged by an agent, the last thing you would normally want to do is leave Thailand and return visa exempt. Perhaps, you could clarify, or someone else can tell me I am stupid, and that is not what you want to do. If you really just want an annual retirement extension, where are you currently located, and when does your current permission to stay end?

The insurance requirements for all foreigners that you are referring to indeed went into effect. It caused chaos. They were enforced for almost 12 hours before the requirement was rescinded via an emergency order.

Let's say you will be leaving Thailand with a two-day overstay. Would you say the correct procedure is: Pay the overstay at the airport; or Go to immigration; pay the overstay there; get seven days to leave the country; go to the airport. In the first case, some might say there are a multitude of reasons why there may not be time. Apart from flight changes we have also had delays due to flat tyre and accidents on the motorway. Catching a flight may not be the simple exercise that some would make out. However (as with re-entry permits at the airport) experience has shown that people with short overstays never miss flights because they need to pay overstay fines.

Right. Most people, by the way, will refer to your visa exemption as a visa (commonly a visa on arrival) causing all kinds of confusion with a visa acquired at the airport when you are not entitled to a visa exemption. A failure to understand the system, and insistence on using incorrect terminology makes it extremely difficult to clearly explain the rules. The fact that Thai immigration officials also find it easier to use "wee-zah" to describe any stamp in your passport just exacerbates the problem. Many people here in Thailand for many years have only the haziest idea of how the system actually works.

The visa policy of other countries is one of the main factors that trips up even experienced travellers when they encounter the Thai immigration system. Very often, other countries make no distinction between your visa and your permission to stay. Your visa is your permission to be in the country, and you generally can extend the validity period of a visa. Never assume that knowing how immigration rules of other countries work provides any insight into the system in Thailand. Indeed, the system here often seems completely irrational to Westerners. Show many, for instance, the Thai law that indicates that airport immigration does not have the right to arbitrarily cancel or refuse to honour a visa issued by an embassy/consulate (they are just given clear rules on when to deny entry, otherwise being obliged, legally, to admit you) and people are incredulous. They feel that officials at airports must legally have that power, regardless of what Thai law states.

The post you were looking at is old, and now completely out of date. Ignore it. The Thailand pass and associated insurance are now long gone.

My instinct would be to check the current schedule for the international bus from Vientiane Capital Bus Station to Udon Thani (the bus station near Central). A few years ago, the last two buses left at 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm which I assume would fit in with your plans. This is a cheap and fairly comfortable option. Also reasonable is to use a taxi from Vientiane to the Friendship Bridge, cross using the shuttle bus, and then look for the van from Nong Khai to Udon Thani airport. That assumes you do not have a lot of luggage, and do not mind being a little cramped for about an hour.

The penalty for a late 90-day address notification is usually 2,000 baht at worst. It is considered an administrative error, not like an overstay. Do not panic. However, this could be a good time to learn the difference between "visa" (you currently have no unexpired visas), date of entry into Thailand, permission to stay (the period during which you are considered legally in Thailand if you do not leave) and extension of permission to stay (which currently allows you to stay until 29 December 2023). The 90-day address notification is due: 90 days after the date of entry into Thailand if you recently re-entered. 90 days after a first extension of a 90-day Non Immigrant permission to stay (you may have received this when applying for a visa, note visa, at immigration or when entering Thailand with a Non Immigrant visa acquired outside Thailand) 90 days after your last 90-day address notification In a few cases, Immigration might be helpful and automatically do a 90-day address notification any time you apply for a new extension. However, unless you have a slip to prove this was done, you need to do the notification 90 days after your previous one.

This is what the "van" (international bus) from Udon Thani to Vientiane is supposed to look like (and it operates on a schedule, costing about 100 baht all the way to Vientiane). However, as you do not have a visa in advance, you would not be able to use it. What was suggested to you is an uncomfortable, overpriced van to the border, and you are correct to reject that option.

Actually, the OP is correct about the letter of the law on notification of foreigners residing in your property. According to the actual law, notification within 24 hours is a requirement. However, to the OP: this is Thailand, and the law as it is expected to be followed differs from the law as it is written. The experienced posters on here are correct that Immigration expects you to ignore the plain language of the law in this case.

My own assumption is that it will be possible to get a re-entry permit, probably at the same desk that handles overstay fines. It may not be specifically marked, and you would then need to ask. Since they will provide re-entry permits infrequently (compared to the Bangkok airports) you can expect them to be slow. I would suggest an email to [email protected] to ask. This email does not go to immigration, but the airport information people can quickly get the answer to the question. Word your question(s) clearly in case the person reading it does not know what a re-entry permit is. EDIT: Alternatively, use their contact form at https://www.utapao.com/en/contact-us, but you will need to circumvent browser warnings about the page being insecure. Also, the contact form might not work (I have not used it).

At Suvarnabhumi, it is immediately to the left of the immigration line in immigration zone 2. If you forget until inside immigration zone 1, you are still able to double back once airside to get the re-entry permit. At most other airports (including Don Muang) the re-entry desk is close to or combined with the overstay desk, immediately behind the immigration line.

That is why I do the following: I have a generalised travel checklist that I go through the night before a journey to make sure I have not forgotten anything. To deal with the specific issue of a forgotten re-entry permit, I insert post-it note into my passport where I am certain to see it to remind me.