BritTim

If you are asking about Laos, almost all nationalities must pay US$40 for the Laos visa on arrival. You can pay in baht, but the cost then is much higher. If using the Friendship Bridge at Nong Khai, it is possible to use a Laos e-visa, a little more expensive than the visa on arrival, but avoiding queuing and allowing use of the international bus from Udon Thani to Vientiane if you want to use that.

Note that this addresses almost exclusively people working for a Thai employer. The situation for the typical digital nomad, working from Thailand with clients elsewhere, remains the same. The SMART visa is not appropriate for the vast majority of them. It remains a grey area, where your activities are not strictly legal, but are tolerated., with the authorities recognising that your presence in Thailand has no negative consequences, but being unwilling to help you with suitable visas that would clearly be open to abuse

Hard luck. When I last used Hanoi a few years ago, they were pretty good. No issues if it was your first application in Hanoi (with Thai tourist visas from elsewhere) and visa available the following day. At least, unlike what often happens in Phnom Penh, they did not just deny your application out of hand and stick a nasty stamp in your passport. I hope all goes well for you going forward.

Which immigration office would you be using? At some, there are appointment systems that avoid standing in queues for any length of time. I have found that Thais generally are courteous towards those who are elderly or have disabilities. While there are no guarantees, I would expect them to be helpful if you explain the situation to the officials. That said, the disability card will probably not be part of their decision making.

It is worth noting that Phuket immigration is unlikely to believe you are attending classes daily in Korat while living in Phuket. Unless you can patch things up with the existing agent, to avoid trouble, I do think it prudent to leave the country and return visa exempt without delay. You will probably need to do this by air. Under questioning, just tell immigration that the course did not work out, and you are leaving with the plan of moving to Phuket. Try to find out which course at which university you were "studying" at.

I do not think the fact that most of those skipping the OP's classes (a sample consisting of a single class) is a justification for suggesting that Russians (and Chinese) look for ways to game the immigration system, while Westerners do not do so. I cannot see how anyone who reads this forum for a few days can form that impression. Certainly, Westerners are somewhat less represented in this particular manner of circumventing the rules as, for a time at least, they have more options. Even so, I would say at least 50% of the Westerners on this forum asking about Non Ed visas are doing so purely as a way to stay long periods in Thailand.

To expand on this further: If you are in Thailand on an entry from a Non B visa, there is no need to cancel your current permission to stay, and no penalty for staying until it expires whether you are working or not. The permission to stay is independent of the work permit. However, if you are on an extension of stay based on working, your permission to stay ends on the last day of employment. If on an extension of stay based on working, you will probably be unable to leave by land without a re-entry permit. At land crossings, you are usually not able to cancel the extension based on working in that manner. You can leave by air, thus cancelling the extension in effect. However, this can create complications later, especially if you want to later work for a new employer. EDIT: I should have mentioned earlier that you can cancel the extension (if that is what you have) simply with a termination letter from your employer. You take this to the immigration office to get it done. The termination letter can specify a date in the future, and the extension of stay will be terminated as of that date. As mentioned, you can apply for an extension of stay on a different basis immediately after cancelling your permission to stay based on working. If denied, you are than given seven days to leave the country (with the fee for the application for the extension non refundable).

I think it is important to understand what you actually have. This not a visa and extension of stay to study at an informal language school. In that case, your extension of stay would only be for 90 days. The agent has arranged (presumably with a university in Korat) for you to be enrolled in a formal course of study. It is possible that the agent was unable to fix a similar visa for your husband due to his age. Is he significantly older than you? Any cancellation would need to be accompanied by an appropriate stamp in your passport. Give your agent time to cool off after your argument and (if possible) have someone else talk calmly to the agent on your behalf to see what options exist and the implications. Recognise that the agent has almost certainly engaged in some murky practices to get you enrolled in such a course without attending classes. Your agent is probably very worried about the consequences of you sharing details with people who could cause trouble. Unless you are a serious student, you will not be able to arrange anything similar in Phuket. As I understand it, you will end up enrolled in an informal school with extensions (not just address reporting) every 90 days. It is reported that this is very expensive in Phuket.

That is a reasonable hypothesis. Also possible are (i) increased costs for fuel and driver; and (ii) fewer companies providing border bounces meaning less competition to keep prices down. (EDIT: I would also expect some impact from the deterioration of the dollar to baht exchange rate.) I have not seen reports from experienced border runners to Cambodia recently. That may be because they are choosing to go to Laos instead. Anyway, it would be really useful if a couple of people would do it independently and report back.

People who are capable in dealing with the officials (understand their mindset, and can resist unreasonable demands while remaining friendly and polite) should not use the fixers. Those who are inexperienced, and/or hate being hassled, might be better off using a visa run company that builds all the fees into their price. In that case, someone who understands the system has already negotiated reasonable deals with the Cambodian officials and (while you are paying a service fee) you avoid the effort and aggravation (and some uncertainty) involved in negotiating everything yourself.

Kind of legitimately, Cambodian officials will usually not allow same day return to Thailand without payment of a bribe. This is because there is a Cambodian law that, in most cases, mandates that you stay at least one night in Cambodia. Additionally, officials will often try to charge more than the official US$30 for the Cambodian visa on arrival. In my experience, you can usually successfully resist this extra charge for the VOA. Often you will encounter fixers who combine the extra charge for VOA, bribe for same day return, and a service fee for themselves as a single package deal.

If your e-visa is a tourist visa, it provides no greater assurance that you are not an illegal worker than a visa exemption would. Further, on the assumption that this 1,300 or 2,000 or 3,500 baht fee is somehow official, why are you not provided with an official receipt for it? I wish you luck but, when individual crossings start applying rules that do not exist at other crossings, you can only be confident that they will not target you if someone else has recently had no problem under the same conditions as yourself.

There is no law that should prevent your immediate return. However, at least at some crossings, there are strong financial incentives on the officials to find excuses to block hassle free entry. It is hard to predict what will happen at specific border crossings under specific circumstances.

The London embassy's website is updated quite frequently. Unfortunately, the update is done by those who have no clue about the current immigration rules. Some Thai embassies/consulates are way worse than that of the London embassy. Also, do not trust anything a consular official tells you that is not directly related to the services they provide themselves. The officials can be highly convincing misleading you about subjects they know nothing about. People assume that the Thai government's websites and officials are the ultimate authority about all things Thai, but they are horribly unreliable.

In this case, the UK government's advice is correct. However, in general, the UK's travel advice is of dubious value.

Just avoid Poipet. The other Cambodian crossings are OK, though there may be scams to get some money out of you.

One problem with changing provinces is going to be the extensions (usually every 90 days). Even if there is no verification of attendance, I assume you do not want to be travelling to and from Phuket to get the extensions.

Try https://calendly.com/rtehan_consular/pp_idservices?month=2023-01

As long as your girlfriend is Thai (and not Lao) there is no problem.

1) & 2) If you are caught on overstay, you are liable to be arrested, incarcerated in an Immigration Detention Centre, fined, and deported to your home country as soon as you can pay the costs involved. You will also be blacklisted from returning to Thailand for five years. If you can keep a low profile, you have a good chance of escaping this fate, but will still need to leave the country (paying a fine of up to 20,000 baht on departure) with less than 90 days of overstay to avoid blacklisting from Thailand. 3) & 4) You need a letter from the temple that accepted you as a monk that states the date on which you were defrocked. Based on this, Immigration will cancel your extension of stay based on being a monk. Do this without delay as the clock is running. You then do a border bounce for a visa exempt entry. If the overstay is short, you will be able to pay the overstay fine of 500 baht per day at a land crossing, and return at many crossing points without difficulty (currently receiving a 45-day permission to stay which can be extended for 30 days at immigration). Once you are accepted by another temple, the process you must follow is basically the same as for your application to your first temple. If you leave by air, without cancelling your existing extension, you can probably avoid the overstay fine. However, as Immigration warned you, applying for future visas and extensions is liable to be complicated.

In late 2019, just prior to Covid, it was becoming more and more difficult to acquire Thai tourist visas at embassies/consulates in countries neighbouring Thailand. The limitations imposed varied from location to location. Vientiane and (especially) Savannakhet had historically been easy places to get serial tourist visas, but had been steadily tightening their requirements. I am not sure of the limits they are now applying. I have seen one report (not confirmed) that they will allow you two tourist visas, but block any attempt to apply for a third. In 2019, the best places to apply were Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Yangon. Even there, you would risk a denied application if your passport was full of Thai tourist visas.

Historically, the officials there have been reluctant to deny entry, only doing so when their guidelines on visa exemptions clearly identified someone as "using visa exempt entries to stay longer than is compatible with normal tourism". Unlike some other airports, there are no cases I am aware of where they ever refused to honour an actual tourist visa, wherever it was issued.

Indeed, or sometimes "land visa on arrival". It is better to use the correct terminology, though, as it reduces the likelihood of your words being misinterpreted.

If entering by land from Vientiane, you will not need to do anything else that is special. You would receive a visa exempt entry without so much as a flicker of interest from the official. If entering by air at Suvarnabhumi, your entry is probably still going to be uneventful, but you might run into questioning if you hit the wrong official.

A year ago, a couple of agents were able to do it at CW, with you attending for the photo (VIP queuing) but other requirements flexible. The cost when lacking financials was about 3,000-5,000 baht higher than if willing to go with an up country extension. News I have heard within the last month is that retirement extensions at CW through an agent are not currently possible at CW. The situation there is changeable.