guyfromtheweb2

Update: Everything worked out fine. Here is an update: Jan. 31st - My WP, non-B visa extension stamp, and job contract all expired. I exited Thailand on this day and visited another country for a week. Feb. 7th - I re-entered Thailand and received a 60-day tourist visa-exemption stamp with no issues. The immigration officer did ask me to confirm that I was not working, which I confirmed with no more details. Apr. 2nd - I exited Thailand for good with all of my bags and moved back to my home country. I gave my Thailand job the proper 30-days notice on January 1st and left on good terms. However, I DID NOT make any trips to the labor office or immigration to cancel my WP and visa extension stamp. My job said they would cancel the WP for me, with just copies of it, but I'm not sure if they did. I still have the physical WP in my possession even though it expired. I will keep the WP as a souvenir. I also did not pay my taxes this year (they only check this when renew your WP). I did not do any recent 90-day reporting (they only check when you renew a long-term visa). I did not submit a new TM-30 when moving my residence for the final two months. I know people will say that I may have trouble in the future if I come back to Thailand to work again or get a long-term visa (like retirement), but I don't care. This is not in my plan. If it does happen several years from now and Thailand prevents me from doing such because of all these things I didn't do in present day, I will just bust out laughing. With all the slow bureaucratic processes and outright scams I have endured in Thailand over the years, it feels nice to finally shove it up Thailand's ass. One last thing. From this day forward, all of my signatures will be in black ink or digital, like the modern world. I never want to see a blue pen again.

Your non-b-extension expires on January 15, 2025, but you have a re-entry permit that expires on November 27, 2025?! How is this possible? I thought re-entry permits always expire the same day a visa or visa-extension expires. I am assuming that your original non-b-extension from your job was set to expire on Nov. 27th, which is shown in your passport. You previously got a re-entry permit that also expired on Nov. 27th. Then you decided to quit the job before that expiration, so your job cancelled your non-b-extension (in some Thai immigration system) effective on Jan. 15th, which is NOT visibly shown in your passport. Is this the case? Do you have proof that your visa-extension was cancelled effective Jan. 15th? If so, then that immigration officer (IO) should be able to see in some system that your visa expires on Jan. 15th, after which date you will be on overstay.

In your first sentence, are you talking about me, the OP of this thread? Or the OP of the thread that DrJack54 quoted? If you were referring to me, I think I made it clear in this thread title and in my first sentence that I was on a non-b-extension. I was hoping to skip the hassle of getting termination letters from my job, labor dept., and immigration. My job contract, visa, and WP all expire Jan. 31st. Do I really need to get termination docs if everything expires anyway? I think I will just risk it, not do anything, exit Thailand on Jan 30th, and try to return as a tourist in Feb after all my stuff expired. I won't even bother to pay my taxes or do any more 90-day reports because I am done being an expat. Back to being a tourist. lol. I doubt they will turn me away at the border. I will update this thread with how it all pans out.

My non-b-visa-extension, work permit, and job contract all end on January 31st this year. I do plan to return to my home country, but in a couple of months when it gets warmer. I would like to stay in Thailand for a couple of more months before I go home. Is it possible to do the following: Simply exit Thailand on January 30th or 31st (no overstay) to visit a nearby Asian country for a few days to a week. Re-enter Thailand in early February, maybe Feb. 5th, on a 60-day-tourist-visa-exempt stamp. (My country gives us citizens 60-day visa exemptions for Thailand now.) Resume my normal life, not working of course, but staying in the same condo that I rented while on my non-b and work permit without any additional paper work. Exit Thailand for good to my home country within the allowed 60-days of my tourist visa-exemption, maybe April 2nd. Will this work? Any bureaucratic steps that I may be missing? Do I have to go to immigration and the labor office to cancel my non-b-extension and work permit before I Jan. 31st or will they automatically cancel when they both expire on that date?

@Old Croc Don't rush it. Now that you are late, you are late. There is no penalty for being "even more late." After the 7-day post-due-date grace period for in-person submission of your 90-day, it doesn't matter if you are eight days late or eight months late. The fine will be the same: 2000 baht. Don't waste your energy rushing to immigration. They will make you pay the exact same fine when you renew your visa in April. Just wait and pay in April at the same time you do your visa extension.

Update: After submitting my 90-day forms through EMS snail-mail, following my re-entry into Thailand, and getting the receipt 11 weeks later, I completed my next 90-day report online. It was approved within a day. Now I guess I can resume online reporting every 90 days, until I leave the country again . . .

I only paid by CDM when I first got here years ago before I set up my Thai bank accounts and PromptPay. Now of course I use bank transfer.

Yep. I used to make cash deposits at the cash deposit machines (CDM) to pay my landlord when I first got here, but now I need to insert some form of ID like a Thai bank card before I can do any sort of deposit. What really doesn't make sense is that with Bangkok Bank, you don't need a debit card for withdrawals (if you want to avoid the annual 300 baht debit card fee) because you can just make withdrawals using the phone app. However, you cannot make deposits using the phone app. This means you can only make cash deposits by physically seeing a bank teller, with your passport, or if you use the CDM you need another Thai bank card that can verify your identity. It would be nice to use the app for deposits as well. As we move into the future, we should be ditching cards, bank tellers, all customer service people, and letting computers do everything with ease.

Update: I finally received my receipt for my recent 90-day report. It took about 11 weeks from the date I mailed it through EMS! Just in time for my next 90-day report that is due in a few weeks. 😔

Thanks for this timeline @zappalot. I heard the 90-day queues at Chaengwattana in Bangkok are ridiculously long now since they are making everyone report in-person for the first 90-day report after leaving and returning to Thailand. I decided to mail mines in through EMS as well. It has been about a month since EMS tracking says it has been delivered and I still have not received my 90-day receipt yet. I guess I will continue to wait. I don't really care because I have the mail tracking receipt. I will add that I mailed it in about 12 days before my due date. I tried to submit online 15 days before the due date and that is when I was rejected. So after rejection, it was about 12-days out before I mailed it. During Covid when I had issues with the older online system, I would mail in my 90-days as late 7 days before the due date and it was never an issue. I'll update if/when I finally get my 90-day receipt back.

Is there an upcoming national alcohol ban on July 20-21, 2024? I haven't seen anything in the news about this. If so, can someone point me to the current relevant news source?

@Celcius Thank you for the definitive response. What if your wife, after going to Canada, returned to Thailand to visit sometime in the future after she reached age 55. Could she then go to the SS office and ask for her SS lump payment/refund?

It appears that you have to be age 55 AND have made social security (SS) contributions for at least a year (but less than 15 years) to get a lump sum payment, or refund, of your SS contributions over the years. Any exception for people under age 55 who have been paying SS tax for over a year but will be quitting their job and leaving Thailand for good? Any way to get a SS payment?

I have a similar question. I would have posted here but that thread is locked. Let's say that a person has been working as a teacher here for several years, with a consistent work permit and Non-B visa-extension stamp each year, paying Thai social security (SS) tax each month, but is not yet retirement age (< 55 years old). Now this person plans to leave Thailand for good and return to his or her home country. The person does not plan to ever work in Thailand again. Can he or she still get a full lump payment of all the SS paid over the years? Or should the person just suck up that SS money as loss that he or she will never get back? What if the person leaves Thailand but returns some many many years later as a tourist when they have reached age 55; could they collect the SS payment then?

It looks like Thailand is encouraging people to take July 31st off. "This year’s configuration of public holidays offers an unprecedented and extended break to those who wish to partake. The national Public Relations Department leverages this unique scenario, advising people to take an extra day off on July 31. A full six-day break can be enjoyed with little disruption to the standard working week." https://thethaiger.com/news/phuket/extended-thai-public-holidays-offer-rare-six-day-break-amidst-kings-birthday