Red Phoenix

The on-line Visa application website is not very transparent (to use a euphemism), but applying for a Type O Non-ImmIgrant Visa is definitely possible on the website, and many people have done this already. However, in your case with already a personal Thai bank-account opened in Nan - the province where you would apply - it would be far easier to simply enter Thailand VisaExempt (without a Visa) and apply at your local Imm Office in Nan for the Non Imm O Visa from such VisaExempt entry. NOTE that there is one possible snag: there are indeed a few rogue Imm Offices that refuse to do the 'change of Visa' process as such application is called. One of them being Chiang Rai, that Office then refers applicants to get hold of the 90-day Non Imm O Visa at the Vientiane Thai Embassy! So it would be wise to get confirmation that the Nan Imm Office is not one of those rogue offices that refuse your legit application for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa. And if that should be the case, you could indeed apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa using the eVisa website and that needs to be done when you are still in your home-country.

Yes, at most Imm offices the standard to apply from a VisaExempt (or Tourist Visa) entry for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa, is that the application needs to be done when you still have at least 15 days left on your Permission to stay. The reason for this is that such 90-day Non Imm O Visa application needs Divisional Immigration Headquarter's approval. As the local Imm Offices dread to have an application which they issued to Div HQ rejected or questioned, when your application is approved at local Imm Office level, that Div HQ approval is merely a bureaucratic process. But it is wise to inform yourself in advance about the required number of days left on your Permission to stay at the local Imm Office where you plan to apply for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa. At some Imm Offices (e.g. Chiang Mai) they require 21 days and in Phuket they require 15 WORKING days. Normally not a problem, because when not having sufficient time for preparing your application you can always apply for a 30-day extension of stay at your local Imm Office, those extra days will be added to your Permission to stay expiry date and the 30-day extension is provided on the spot (cost 1.900 THB).

A somewhat different but related question for @BritTim > I re-entered Thailand yesterday with a new passport. I showed the border-immigration official my old passport (corner clipped) which contains the original 90-day Non Imm O Visa (retirement), my 1-year extension valid until 20 Dec 2023 based on that Non Imm O Visa, as well as the re-entry permit I bought before leaving the country. All of these stamps in my old passport were issued by my SiSaKet Imm Office. The border-immigration official did stamp me in till 20 Dec 2023 and invalidated the Re-Entry Permit in my old passport with 2 stripes and a 'USED' stamp. So I now need to have the original Non Imm O Visa transfered to my new passport by my SiSaKet Imm Office which issued that original one. QUESTION > WHEN do I need to have this done? Having entered Thailand yesterday my next 90-day report would be due 25 October. I will try to do that 90-day report on-line so that I do not have to make the long journey to my SiSaKet Imm Office, but I am not sure whether that would be possible given the fact that I have a new passport that only contains my Admission stamp valid till 20 Dec 2023. If I am able to do that 90-day report on-line I will have the stamps transferred when my next 1-year extension is due (Dec 20). Or should that stamp-transfer process be done asap?

If the moment he slipped under +800K was more than 2 months prior to such 1-year extension for reason of marriage, his application will be rejected (as he breached the conditions under which the 1-year extension for reason of retirement was provided). Also during those 2 months prior to application the balance on his account should not have slipped under +400K. When not meeting those conditions it would actually be risky to go to the local Imm Office, as he is technically on overstay from the moment he did not meet those financial conditions anymore.

It is actually quite normal that Immigration does not ask for your TM-30 (or in your case for your TM-28). Once you submitted it, and you stay on a continual series of extensions from your initial Permission to stay, without moving to a different address, your address for immigration purposes (for which you submitted the TM-30) stays the same, even when doing domestic travel or international travel with a Re-Entry permit. And by issuing your 90-day reports you confirm to Immigration that you are still living at the same address for which you submitted that initial TM-30 (in your case the TM-28 which has been superseded by the TM-30 at most Imm Offices).

As one of the posters mentioned, you are on overstay from the moment the funds on your bank-account slipped below 800K. So it would actually be risky to apply for the upcoming 1-year extension for reason of marriage. Such application for reason of marriage only requires +400K seasoned during the last 2 months before moment of application for the extension. However when changing the reason for your 1-year extension from retirement to marriage, you need to meet the +800K requirement during the fist 10 months and would be OK with +400K during the last 2 months. But if you slipped below +800K more than 2 months earlier than your date of application for the 1-year extension for reason of marriage, your application will be rejected. If that is the case, there is still an alternative solution, and that is to exit Thailand (if you bought a Re-Entry Permit, you would need to wait till final days of your current permit to stay, to do so). Such exit will 'kill' your present Permission of stay based on your original Non Imm O Visa (retirement). And then you have 2 options: #1 - Simply return VisaExempt (without a Visa), which can be done same day as exit and will provide you with a 30-day permission to stay. And that will allow you to re-apply for a NEW Non Imm O Visa, where you can choose to apply for reason of marriage or for reason of retirement. Obviously that requires that you get hold of the required funds which only need to be on your personal Thai bank-account at moment of application (+800K for retirement, or +400K when applying for reason of marriage). In case you do not have sufficient funds on such short notice, you could apply for a 30-day extension at your local Imm Office on top of the 30-days permission to stay you got when entering Thailand Visa Exempt, and you also have the option on top of that to apply for a 60-day extension of stay for reason of visiting your wife. #2 - Another simple and attractive option is to exit Thailand at Mukdahan. The Laos Savannakhet consulate is just at the other side of the river, and there you can apply for a 1-year MultipleEntry Non Imm O Visa for reason of marriage. Such Visa only costs 5.000,- Thb and the ONLY requirement is that you provide official evidence of being married to your wife. The slight drawback of that 1-year ME Non Imm O Visa is that it only provides you with a 90-day Permission to stay when entering Thailand. But you can apply for a 30-day extension as well as for a 60-day extension for reason of visiting your wife at your local Imm Office. But then ou would have to leave Thailand, but can return same day which will once again provide you with a 90-day permission to stay which can be extended. This means that that Visa can provide you with 17 months of stay in Thailand without any financial requirements to be met (and no need to make 90-day reports). >> Feel free to ask for more information if you are interested in one of these options.

It is not new, but depends on the Imm Office whether that Office requires the bank statement letter to be issued on the same day as the 1-year extension application. Some offices are more lenient, and allow that the bank statement letter (or Passbook update) was issued the day beforehand or even a couple of days beforehand.

Yes, keeping your passport during the 'under consideration' period is standard practice. And it's strange that some 2-3 months ago Immigration of Jomtien and SriRacha kept the passports of two friends of mine when they applied for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa (retirement ). Immigration kept their passports during the whole under consideration period and did not even provide them with a receipt. For sure this must have been an exception, but it was not clear why Immigration did so and their passport was only returned with the 90-day Non Imm O Visa (retirement) at the end of the under consideration period.

If you intend to stay stay in Chonburi province and apply in either of those two rubbish offices (Jomtien or SriRacha) for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa from your VisaExempt or TouristVisa entry, it is quite relevant to know that the Immigration Office there can hold your passport for the full under consideration period, which can take more than 10 days. Knowing this it would be wise to make copies of your Passport ID-page and latest entry stamps, in case your passport gets lost in that chaos office, and ensure that for that period you do not have to do any business at your Thai bank branche or other service that requires your passport.

Two cases: #1 - A friend of mine that stayed several years in Thailand on a Non Imm O-A Visa wanted to get rid of the for him unnecessary health-insurance requirement for the 1-year extension of that original Non Imm O-A. He did a border-run without re-entry permit in the final weeks before expiry of his permission to stay and returned Visa Exempt. When applying for the 90-day Non Imm O Visa (retirement) at his SriRacha Imm Office, they kept his passport for the full 'under consideration' period (almost two weeks). And he didn't even get some form/document stating that Immigration kept his passport, which made it impossible for him to do any in person bank-transactions during that period. #2 - Similar case with another friend, but this time at Jomtien Imm Office. Without a receipt they also kept his passport for the full under consideration period of approx two weeks. >> Is this even legal? What if they get stopped by Police and have to explain that their Passport is at Immigration and don't even have a receipt for it? Or if they need to leave the country for a family emergency abroad and they are informed about on a Friday with Immigration closed till monday?

Are you not doing any 90-day reports? The purpose of the 90-day report is to notify the local Imm Office of the province where you are residing, that you are STILL staying at the same address for which the Imm Office has a record on file. Without such record of your official address for immigration purposes, you would not be able to do your 90-day report.

Hi! How can I do it if I have 1-2-3 years fixed deposit in a bank? Does the Chonburi (Jomtien) office accept fixed deposits? Some Imm Offices want to see the balance on your personal Thai bank-account (+800K) at the moment of application for your 1-year extension of stay. And at some Imm Offices such update should be done same day as application, other Imm Offices are more lenient and allow the update to be done day before or even up to 1 week before. To provide that evidence > At some banks (e.g. Bangkok Bank) you can simply update your pass-book without making any deposit or withdrawal. At other banks (e.g. Kasikorn Bank) a small deposit or withdrawal needs to be made when you need an updated balance of your pass-book. And to answer your question > Such a small withdrawal/deposit is possible both for a regular Savings Account as well as for a Fixed Deposit account. Note: Some Imm Offices do require on top of the updated bank pass-book also a "Bank Transfer Statement" of all the transactions done on your account during the preceding 12 months. Unless you did not update your pass-book regularly and the Bank consolidated some of the transactions you made, the info on that Bank Transfer Statement is the same as in our pass-book. At some banks (e.g. Kasikorn Bank) they can provide you with that Bank Transfer Statement on the spot, but other banks (e.g. some Bangkok Bank branches) only keep the data of your transactions for 6 months. So in case your Imm Office requires a 12-month Bank Transactions Statement you then need to order that Statement at your Bangkok Bank branche and it can take up to 5 working days before it is available.

The response of @BritTim - see post above this one - is fully correct. There are indeed a couple of rogue Imm Offices that refuse to do the 'change of Visa' process (i.e. handling your application for a 90-day Non Imm O Visa when being on a VisaExempt or Tourist Visa permit to stay, even when you meet all the requirements). They tell you to apply for the Non Imm O Visa in an Embassy/Consulate of a neighbouring country, which is of course very inconvenient for the applicant. One of those rogue offices is the ChiangRai Imm Office. And the wry thing about it is that the ChiangRai Imm Office website actually mentions the Change of Visa process as one of the Immigration services (and which they refuse to do). Also, the homepage of their website < https://chiangrai.immigration.go.th/en/frontpage-english/ > displays the Core Values of that Office, and their commitment to professionalism, service-mindedness, efficiency and customer satisfaction! 555!

Having moved to new address, your first 90-day report confirming that you are staying at that new address has to be done in person, and cannot be done on-line. This probably to ensure that you have done the required TM-30 notification of having moved to that new address, which needs to be done within 24 hours of arrival at the new address. Note that most Imm Offices are lenient on the time for that TM-30 notification, but do strive to do it in 1-2 weeks after arrival. As usual there will be also some Offices/officers that will make use of the opportunity to fine for you having done it 'late'. Note that while the first 90-day report needs to be done in person, that the TM-30 notification can be done on-line either using the App or the IO TM-30 website.

Hi Liz, You wrote "I have been asking my landlady to complete a TM30 form for months now." For what purpose do you need your landlady to do your TM-30 notification or provide you with the underlying documents for doing so? Immigration will NOT provide you with any service when they do not have proof of your address, so when you are staying on a Non Imm O Visa or an extension of such Visa, by definition you have your 'official address' in the province of your Imm Office and are thus in compliance with TM-30 regulations. When you do the TM-30 notification as POSSESSOR of the property, normally a copy of the rental agreement will suffice, as that should contain the ID of the owner of the premises and a reference to the house-book of the place. So when your landlady does not want to provide you with a copy of the front/back page of her Thai ID-card and a copy of the housebook, you can provide Immigration with a copy of the rental agreement and if they also require the other 2 documents you can simply explain that your landlady is not willing to provide them. A telephone call from Immigration to the landlady will then quickly solve the matter. In your case I suspect that you are actually in compliance with TM-30 regulations when you are staying on a Non Imm O Visa or extension. Also, it is impossible to do your 90-day reports without this, as the 90-day report is simply a confirmation that you are still staying at your official address for immigration purposes (for which a TM-30 notification was made).

Being rejected by Div Headquarters for the Marriage extension application will not affect applying for the 1-year ME Non Imm O (marriage) Visa in Savannakhet. Applying for the latter only requires proof of being married and does not require any of the bogus made-up reasons on which Div HQ might now block your application. Also having applied for the ME Non Imm O (marriage) Visa does not prohibit you from applying later again at your local Imm Office for a new Non Imm O Visa for reason of marriage. I would only consider the Retirement extension when there are no other options, because of the work option being cut off and the requirement to semi-permanent keep +800K/+400K funds on your personal thai bank-account. >> Good to hear that Korat did send your application for approval to Div HQ. And I would be highly surprised if Div HQ would not approve your application as the reasons for concern that the Korat Imm Office ladies gave for possible refusal are non-existing requirements.

What is tell-tale is that you wrote: Bottom line is that the two lady officers said they were concerned that our application would be rejected in Khonkaen due to the fact that my wife does not have a job in Korat, nor does she have her Tabien Baan here. @BritTim is fully correct in that there is no such rule of your wife needing to be working or registered in Korat province. So there should be no reason to deny your application for a 1-year extension for reason of marriage, since you meet all the requirements and have done this previous years without any issues. But obviously if the officer handling your application is not willing to process it, you have a problem. I can only advise you to go back to that Imm Office and ask to talk to the manager in charge to plead your case for your application, bringing with you your complete history of previous successful applications. In case they are adamant, you have 3 options: #1 - Applying at Korat Imm Office for reason of retirement. Be aware that this requires you having to show proof of +800K/+400K in the previous 12 months preceding your application, so that might not be an option. And of course a Permission to stay based on retirement prohibits you doing any work. #2 - Moving to a different province and doing the application there. Your Permission to stay expires in 2 weeks, but if you have insufficient time and if you have not used it yet you could , first apply - either in Korat or in the new province - for a 60-day extension of stay for reason of marriage. Once you have your 1-year permission to stay, applied for in another province, you could then even return to Korat (but the same problem might reoccur again next year). #3 - Apply for the 1-year Multiple-Entry Non Imm O Visa for reason of marriage at the Savannakhet consulate in Laos (just over the border from Mukdahan). Applying there has the additional advantage that you get the Visa next day (so no under consideration period), and that it does not have any financial requirements as the only requirement is that you need to provide proof of being married to your Thai wife. Also you would not have to do any 90-day reports. The drawback is of course that that 1-year Visa only provides you with a 90-day permission of stay on entry (which can be extended for 60 days at your local Imm Office for reason of visiting your wife), but then you would have to do a border-run which will provide you once again with a 90-day permission of stay (which once again can be extended for 60 days). So that Visa can effectively provide you with 17 months of stay, without any hassle from your local Imm Office.

@DrJack54 is fully correct. The official updated TM-30 regulation dating from 30-06-2020 is crystal clear: when returning to your official address on the same Permission of stay, there is no need to notify your local Immigration office of your return by re-issuing a TM-30. So for any domestic travel, there is no need to do so. And for international travel, it is only after having exited Thailand without a Re-Entry Permit which will result in you being stamped in on re-entry with a NEW Permission of stay (instead of confirming the previous one) that local Immigration needs to be notified by providing them with a new TM-30 within 24 hours of your return to your official address. IMPORTANT NOTE: the above is the official regulation which is followed by the majority of Thai Immigration offices. But as this is Thailand there are rogue Imm Offices, that are 'doing it their own way' and insist on notifying them again of your return to your official address in their province, and resulting in a fine if you didn't do it. Conclusion > You need to inform yourself how your local Imm Office deals with the matter to avoid unpleasant surprises (ChiangMai being notorious for always requiring a TM-30 re-issue, and also Jomtien after return from international travel even with a Re-Entry Permit).

Hi Hamus, From what you wrote it is clear that your official address for Immigration purposes is still same as 3 years ago when you moved in there. There are however several reports that CW is often not abiding with the June 2020 police order anymore, and want you to do redo your TM-30 notification when having stayed at a Hotel/guesthouse that notified local Immigration that you were staying there. As you are using the TM-30 App you could try notifying Immigration with that App that you have returned to your official address. Normally that's not needed, but since CW has gone rogue on the TM-30 issue it's worth a try. Once your records in the IO TM-30 database are then reset back to your official address, doing your 90-day report on-line should be accepted again as the system compares the 90-day report address with your official address and rejects on-line 90-day reports when they do not match.

@jacko45k > Guideline for TM-30 on-line address registration and notification to Imm Office, sent PM and you are welcome.

Yes, also in my Immigration office (the small SiSaKet Imm Office) they now have an airport-type look at the birdie desk-camera. And when applying for the 1-year extension they handed me back the pass-photo. But experience can and will be different depending on the Imm Office you apply and even the officer processing your application.

Not first-hand information, but I remember a reply from an AN member to a similar post. He wrote that you can buy 'standard rental-agreement forms' at a bookshop, and that it would simply be a matter of changing your current monthly rental agreement into a one-year one but adding the clause that the tenant can terminate the contract at any time during the 1-year period. Obviously that new rental-agreement needs both your signature as well as the signature of the landlord, but as it would not make any difference for him and would ensure that your 1-year extension application is approved, he should have no objections to doing that.

TM-30 guideline sent PM and you're welcome.

You MAY be asked to show, different airlines have different policies Correct, but why take chances of being refused boarding on departure or being refused entry to Thailand by border-immigration for not being able to show an onward-flight ticket-reservation. It costs only 12-15 US $ and is e-mailed immediately after credit-card payment. Note: If you are of the 'save every penny' type, you could indeed prepare the ticket but wait with ordering it on-line when being asked to show it by the air-line at check-in or by the border-immigration officer.

You apply where your TM30 is registered, not just "any" office When on a VisaExempt (without a Visa) entry or on a Tourist Visa, you can apply at any Imm Office in Thailand for a 30-day extension of stay. The requirement for doing so is 'providing proof of the place you are staying' in the Province where that Imm Office is located (TM-30). As a tourist it is thus simply a matter of asking the Hotel/guesthouse where you are staying for a copy of the TM-30 notification that the Hotel is required to make that a foreigner is staying there.