BritTim

It should be possible to get border passes for your family. For the kids, their birth certificates should be sufficient to get the border passes. The border passes allow, as I recall, a three day (two night) stay in Savannakhet and they must return through the same crossing. There are limits to how far from the crossing they are allowed to stray.

... where there is also often the requirement for flights into and out of Thailand (admittedly, may not always be enforced).

You are being given the correct advice. If your passport has not already expired, leave for home country if possible while the passport is still valid. This might be tricky if you cannot take a direct flight, because transit via another country will often require that you have a passport with six months remaining validity. If you cannot leave for home country before the passport expires, you should talk to your embassy about an emergency travel document (again as soon as possible, and with the intention of using it to return to home country). Pay any overstay fines on the way out. Return to Thailand after you have sorted out your situation and have a new passport.

Flights to and from Thailand are, indeed, a requirement. It is obviously pointless to turn up and complain about this. That said, there are people who like to visit multiple countries in South East Asia, travelling overland. It is unfortunate that they are unable to get tourist visas when planning to do so, especially if their nationality does not allow visa exempt entry.

In 2019, your concern would have been justified. We have yet to see any airports refuse to honour actual tourist visas recently. If you do have trouble, please post your experiences.

I must admit that those reviews seem strange. Did the people who posted them have appointments? I am not trying to defend the surly officials, but I have a feeling that part of the problem is people arriving without appointments and expecting to make applications.

4,100 baht each seems very high. Have you considered getting a Laos e-visas (US$50 each) and the international bus from Udon Thani to Vientiane (about 100 baht each)? If travel into Udon town is convenient for you, this could be an economical and relatively comfortable solution.

If you satisfy the requirements for a tourist visa from the Thai consulate in Penang, there should be no problem. I assume your passport does not show significant time in Thailand as a tourist.

There are three aspects to this: the legal situation, the moral considerations, and practical consequences. Morally, I do not see him as being in the wrong if he can find a way to safely avoid the normal legal penalties for his overstay. He is the victim of an accident that could affect him quite seriously. In practical, terms if he could at this time financially afford to leave by air with a termination letter revealing the overstay, pay the overstay fine and leave, this has the merit that it wipes the slate clean. There can be no further penalties later. (Note that trying to terminate the permission to stay at an immigration office when already on 50+ days of overstay would be inadvisable. Although unlikely, a really vindictive official could decide to have him arrested, deported and blacklisted. This would never happen at the airport.) In his current situation, trying to avoid the overstay penalties and dealing with any residual issues that may arise later at that time, seems worthwhile (probably). It is not clearcut.

At land crossings, you are correct. Without a cancelled permission to stay or a termination letter from the company, immigration will generally not allow you to leave. However, experience has shown that immigration at the airports will usually stamp you out without demanding proof of your continued employment or termination date. He must leave by air.

Yes. Technically, your permission to stay should have been terminated as of the day you stopped working. This would normally have been done by visiting immigration with a termination letter confirming your last day of employment, and having the permission to stay terminated as of that date. You are now technically on overstay. However, the labour department and immigration are not in routine contact with each other. Immigration is unaware that you have stopped working, and there is no evidence of your terminated employment in your passport.

Are you sure you made a day trip from Chiang Rai to Mae Sot and not Mae Sai? If so, that must have been exhausting assuming you drove yourself with virtually no stops (leaving home around, perhaps, 3:00 am and getting back to Chiang Rai about 9:00 pm at night).

As others have stated, you will need to leave by air, paying 20,000 baht on exit. One option is a one-way ticket to Vientiane, returning by land via the Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai. You can fly to Vientiane and crossing back into Thailand the same day for a 45-day visa exempt entry (assuming you are from a country eligible for visa exemptions). It is then cheap to get back to Bangkok (or wherever you are staying) overland. If you do not have around 25,000 baht to cover this, borrow it. It seems to be important to you to stay in Thailand. Do not jeopardise your long term stay here by getting arrested on overstay. Is it certain that the work permit has been cancelled? Sometimes, the school can be slow to do this, and you might be able to negotiate the school giving a February 15th termination letter which would solve all your problems.

There are some interesting items in that visa fee list. I thought the ACMECS visa died many years ago. I seem to remember enquiring about it with the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok around 2015 to ask if it was possible to apply for it in Bangkok, using it to return to Thailand after an overseas trip. The answer was yes, except that the visa was no longer offered. Sad, as that was a wonderful potential option if planning to travel overseas somewhere that had no consulate offering Thai tourist visas. This is also the first time I saw price quotes for the 3-year Non Immigrant visa, which I assume is only for Non B visas under restricted circumstances.

Perhaps, you could share the suitable phone numbers to call at each border crossing for up to date information in English on the status of crossings for foreigners, and whether this includes those wanting visa exempt entries. Indeed, I think it would make a good sticky post. It is surprising that availability of such a simple solution has not before been well publicised.

I agree it is not the best option, and there should still be time to apply for the METV. Even if the 45-day stay from visa exemptions ends as of March 31st, it will still be possible to eke out nine months with extensions on visa exempt entries. However, border bounces will become stressful.

Did you do the border bounce with a multiple entry visa or to receive a visa exempt entry?

For marriage extensions, you can use bank deposits or income (not a combination of the two). For retirement extensions, the rules explicitly state that a combination is possible (although many immigration offices are very restrictive in how it can be done, and a few will deny the possibility even exists). Lealy!

Your use of a re-entry permit to come back to Thailand neither removes nor adds an entitlement to the 60-day extension. Did you ever use a 60-day extension to visit your Thai spouse? If so, was this after your last regular entry (visa exempt or with a visa) to Thailand? You are only entitled to a single 60-day extension per regular entry to Thailand.

The e-visa can be a good option, but the thread is mostly about Chiang Kong/Huay Xai, a crossing where the Lao e-visa cannot be used.

You have that backwards. Combination is supposed to be possible for retirement extensions (though some immigration offices will tell you otherwise). Combination is never possible for marriage extensions. To the OP: check with Surat Thani immigration office. It should be possible, depending on whether you can show the deposits into your bank account came from abroad. As someone else advised, they will probably want to see your wife, even though you are switching to a retirement extension.

Don Muang immigration can be tough. However, if you have not been a long stay tourist (you seem to have been on retirement extensions) a visa exempt entry should be no problem.

Entering Laos is not the same as entering Malaysia. With very few exceptions, foreigners need a visa to enter Laos. For most nationalities, easiest is a visa on arrival costing US$40.

Although not clear, I interpret your OP as indicating that you entered Thailand visa exempt (receiving a 45-day permission to stay expiring February 24th) on January 12th. At most immigration offices, you can apply for a Non O visa at immigration with 15 days left on your permission to stay. It is not clear to me what your problem is. Where are you trying to apply, and what are you trying to apply for? Do you think you can apply directly for a one-year retirement extension from a visa exempt entry?

There is stronger evidence that the authorities have no interest in targeting digital nomads. Many of them use co-working spaces, of which there are hundreds around the country. Eight years ago, one of these in Chiang Mai was actually raided. In the end, no one there (most of whom were easily proven to be remote workers) was ever prosecuted. It is widely believed that the raid was a mistake. At any rate, there has never been such a raid on a co-working space for nearly a decade.