freeman01

5 hours ago, jackdd said:

There is no written requirement to have a hotel booking to enter Thailand (if an IO is looking to deny you entry he might of course try to make something up, similar to an imaginary 180 days limit etc.)

If entering at a land border there is no requirement to have a flight ticket out. In case you arrive at an airport (or by ship) and want to get a visa exempt, there is a requirement to have a booked ticket out of Thailand within 30 days.

When entering Thailand visa exempt the required cash is 10k THB, if arriving with a visa it's 20k THB.

 

In your previous post you were talking about visa exempt at a land border, thus no hotel booking, no flight ticket and only 10k THB cash required.

These are the requirements when actually entering Thailand, the requirements to obtain a visa might be different from this, because those can be defined by the embassy in each country.

My bad, I checked and indeed I was on a setv when asked 20k thb.

I understand my statement about "the rules" was wrong, now my point was to help people (think google search) who do frequent crossing that with those documents your chance of getting denied entry are very low.

So to reiterate, our best bet to get through land border on visa-exempt (max 2 per year) you need the following (even at poipet) :

- ticket out the country (bus, ferry, flight)

- hotel booking

- 10'000 thb

With this they will have a hard time to refuse you entry, though it is still possible.

Now the easiest free refundable ticket to get are flight ticket. Bus and ferry ticket are hardly refundable but cost can be negligible like below 10 usd. Expensive refundable flight ticket will weight much more in the eye of the officer, keep that in mind ...

Refundable Hotel booking are dead easy to get on booking.com.

Hope everyone can agree on this.

Given the warning you got from the IO and if you plan to come back you certainly do not want to overstay, they will use the overstay as an excuse to reject you next time.

As stupid as it may sound, all the craze about immigration being annoying is mostly about them following the basic rules of not working without permit and not overstaying.

Also, i could be wrong but i am pretty sure the IO has the power to decide the number of stay on the stamp they deliver so from a purely legal point of view they could very well not be required to change the "wrong" date.

I would give it a try though, likely to work if you bring your best behaviours and a big smile!

Am I wrong in assuming extension of stay is a simple procedure that could be performed anytime with close to zero chance of being denied ?

The only requirements being 1900 thb and address of stay reported to the immigtration by your hotel (tm30), did I miss anything ?

On 1/8/2020 at 5:21 PM, jackdd said:

All three of your points are wrong

No flight ticket required

No hotel booking required

Only 10,000 THB cash required

Care to elaborate a bit ? Your statement is very misleading so a bit more details are required.

Been told those specifics requirements by an IO at bkk airport and got rejected myself at poipet once because of the lacks of those documents (I had the cash in hand), also it is the requirements for a visa so ... "inaccurate" maybe, "wrong" i dont think so.

You are abaolutely wrong and really not helping anyone in implying you only need 10'000 thb to cross a land border.

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

This is why the visa exists.

I wouldn't say so, primarily it is there to give the wealthy 1% of this world a way to enter the country with minimum hassle.

Does everyone considering this as an option for retirement got the part where they have to pay for 5, 10 or 20 years the whole cost upfront ? As opposed to the cost of insurance which is paid monthly or yearly.

For those living out of their retirement income it is not even an option, and i am guessing getting a loan at that age is hardly possible.

And all that money just to save a visit or two a year to the immigration. Damn, boomers are really something ...

For those with families, buy gold or something instead, they will thank you when you are gone.

Only way to undo this is by closing the account.

Would be interesting to know what Cambodia Visa OP was on, long term "business" perhaps ?

Most Thai consider Cambodia like the worst place on earth and can't grasp why would a foreigner go there and take the crappiest land border to cross instead of taking a plane, that's why they are always more suspicious of people crossing there and will deny most of everyone whenever possible.

There is like dozens of people being rejected specifically at Poipet everyday.

The rules state that you need these 3 things to cross a land border successfully visa-exempt (max twice per year) :

- print of flight ticket out of Thailand

- print of hotel booking

- 20'000 THB or equivalent in cash

Without this it's a lottery.

Ahah very nice!

Gonna do something like that so very useful information, thanks for sharing your experience.

4 hours ago, kiever said:

I have  tax id. I don’t make anything illegal. I live in Thailand and in 2019 I spent here in Thailand 9 months. Therefore I have right to get certificate of tax residency. There is not anything wrong here. 

 

i have withholding tax in my home country and I want to get it back. If I have certificate of residency I will get withholding tax back. That is same thing other punters write in this topic. 
I just didn’t understand why thai tax office told me I should pay tax for the money I transferred to Thailand in 2019, doesn’t matter which year I earned this money. Rules are changed ?

Rules have not changed that's for sure.

I suspect there is an issue of communication here, many Thai people don't like certain cultures (muslim) and won't do much effort to understand what you are trying to say. Also certain cultures are terrible at explaining themselves and at speaking English which really won't help here.

I would either try to explain your case to another officer or a superior officer and if you get the same answer then get a local lawyer or accountant to do this for you, should cost you a few hundreds USD in fees.

What job did you performed to get this income that you want to declare ?

Can you be more specific on the discussion you had with the officer ? did you show them anything like bank statement already ?

How much amount do you intend to declare ?

From my understanding of this, a few big immigration offices have set up an "unnoficial" desk to handle the residence certificate specifically and they charge 500thb for each with a dedicated person on it.

They are not supposed to charge for this thats why they don't provide receipt and you got a refund.

Props to you for standing up to them like that ahah ????

Living 6 months per year in Thailand on your savings from previous years is not really a feat.

2 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

It does, and the taxman is welcome, it's all legitimate, i.e. as long as I follow the rules the government back in my home country has implemented, which I do, there is no issue.

I am assuming you are from a top 5 euro country ? Do you get a thai tax certificate every year ?

Being a tax resident is very different from being a resident in a country. Don't mix up the two.

In Thailand the Immigration dept and the Revenue dept do not communicate with each other unless very specific cases.

Immigration don't know if you are a tax resident and absolutely don't care.

Resident : long term visa ( likely above 1 year) and long term stay in the country.

Tax Resident : 183 days or more (above half a year) total days inside the country during the fiscal year with no regard to which type of visa used.

There is only one written rule as of today for tourists visa, no more than 90 consecutive days inside the country, that's all.

Anything else is at the discretion of the immigration officer and they are allowed to pretty much do whatever they want and you litterally have no rights when they deny you entry wathever the reason they give you, this 180 days limit is one of those.

5 hours ago, RloLigor said:

This would make sense. If one couldn't continue to Thailand by train, one would have to pass the other immigration checkpoint anyway. 

Exactly, somehow missed the Thai train once and had to cross the actual border to get a van to Hat Yai and catch the next train.

34 minutes ago, RloLigor said:

Are you sure about this? Can someone confirm please?

The Thailand immigration at the train station is only open a few hours before the Thai train leaves, i think once or twice a day. They sell train ticket as well.

Malaysia immigration is always open.

Did that a few months ago.

If you use an agent for an SETV in Penang they request 10 days hotel reservation.

I would be surprised if any Thai embassy in any country wouldn't accept the same.

in all seriousness, short overstays like that is only a problem for people abusing tourist visas to stay long term in the country, in that case they will instantly use the excuse of overstaying previously to deny you entry the next time you try to get in.

for regular tourist who come once a year or so I sincerely doubt this could be an issue at all, could be wrong though ...

6 minutes ago, damascase said:

As is often the case, the topic starter doesn’t seem to be very much interested in the replies..........

or maybe they can't check the forum from a prison cell ... ????

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

So point of thread is exactly what?

Well If I am not mistaken this is a forum for people to discuss, express opinions, feelings and share information on a list of allowed topic. We are in line to that here otherwise it would have been moderated.

There is kind of a legitimate concern for privacy about having to disclose bank statement information. It is really a shame that this is becoming more and more of a requirements, there is many ways in which this kind of information could be misused.

16 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Why so sympathetic to strange op attitude?

No bank would do what you suggest. In any event the OP has such enormous amount in bank? 

If was half serious would have secondary bank account. Most people have several. 

Seriously just another nonsense thread from stick in the mud type. 

Just wanted to point out that behavior is more important than we might think in Asia, to OP or whoever bump into this later.

I'm pretty certain you can request such a document from most bank exactly for the purpose of not having to disclose a full bank statement. Something similar to a bank certificate.

I would definitely try that if i were paranoid like OP and in need of over 60 days in Thailand ...

I don't agree with you last comment, this thread is full of valuable information that is bound to help someone sooner or later.

9 hours ago, yogavnture said:

i did kind of get angry with the embassy

Never ever get angry at a government workers (or anyone actually...) when in Asia , if you intend to travel there regularly you better understand that and apply it diligently.

Also, at the end of the day getting angry on whatever only impact yourself and your health in a very negative way ...

Requirement to show a bank statement is pretty standard everywhere in the developed world, no surprise they start requesting this in south east asia, nothing to do with people abusing tourist visa, a bank statement is hardly something hard to produce for most of everyone wanting to stay in Thailand ...

Note that If you could get an official paper from your bank stating your name, address and current balance they would likely accept that. Unless of course you behave like an angry old hag in which case they will stick very strictly to their rules and might even invent new ones if they are really pi.ssed.

Penang is much more easy, i would try Cambodia also and using an agent.

Maybe try to find an agent in ho chi minh, might be less strict requirements.

If I may, is it a real company or just a shell to get the visa ?