History of Thailand Immigration? Old-timers please

[Arkady]

An older friend arrived in the late 60s intending to go on to Australia but never made it there. He described Thailand at that time as the last country in Asia you could still walk in, look for a job and start working without any fuss about work permits or NON-B visas.  Permanent residence was readily available to foreigners who could demonstrate they had a profession through which they could support themselves in Thailand.  Work permits came in by the early 70s but anyone who was working and already had permanent residence was given a life-time work permit, valid as long as they didn't change occupation.  The current list of protected occupations came in about the same time but foreigners who were already working in those jobs were given life-time exemption.  I used to know some foreign lawyers who had this but all retired or dead now. 

 

When I arrived in the late 80s it was already much the same as it is today for work permits and NON-B visas, although things have tightened up somewhat all round.  I remember having to get a tax clearance certificate to leave the country, which was a pain, if you needed to go on a trip at short notice. Thankfully that went quite quickly. I remember talking to someone who was on retirement extensions in the 90s.  The amount he had to show was less than 400k.  I think it was 100 or 200k without any seasoning required.  The pension letter amount was also less without any hassles with embassies or Immigration.

[rickudon]

Not really 'old times' but 10 years ago (2008) you could get a visa for Thailand in the uk from a consulate easily, didn't need any proof of funds, just sign a form saying you had enough to support yourself. And if under 50, triple entry tourist visas. This was a period when the GBP/Thai baht rate was at a high and the imminent recession in the UK saw a lot of people taking early retirement.

 

The internet was really opening information about Thailand up, and many of these retirees took a calculated guess that Thailand offered prospects of a really comfortable retirement. When i came in 2008, about half the British people i met had been here less than 3 years. 

 

Over the next few years quite a bit changed - more sex tourists rather than retirees, the friendliness of the locals, the exchange rate and the embassies/consulates racked up the requirements on the visas practically every year (first by imposing financial requirements on the longer term visas, the upping the limits, and also get rid of triple entry and then double entry tourist visas). The number of long term expats in Udon plateaued around then, and has remained pretty static, or only grown slowly since. The local sex industry, limited as it was, has been driven largely out of sight, and the sex tourists do not come here anymore.

 

Although the rules on extensions haven't changed during this time, certainly scrutiny at immigration and enforcement has increased. There has also been a tightening on the visa rules at Thai embassies and consulates in neighbouring countries so very few 'loopholes' left.  And now we have the embassy letters. 

 

Many applauded the crackdown on illegal workers, visas runners and over stays. But now one does wonder where it will end up? Who will speak for you when the rest have gone, one category at a time?

 

 

 

[thedemon]

From a booklet published in 1953

 

 

[balo]

10 hours ago, PoorSucker said:

8 years ago.

No need to leave the country, fixers went down to the border with hundreds of passport, you stayed home.

So corruption was up and running . 

[balo]

200k , 250k, 400k and then 800k . 

 

Now its time to raise it I guess, 1.2 million baht next. 

 

[PoorSucker]

[Cricky]

18 hours ago, gamini said:

the expats who were mostly well educated , cultured and well-behaved. Things started to change with the massive influx of tourists and would-be residents, many of whom were poorly educated, uncultured sexpats. Also there was a huge amount of criminals on the run and other undesirables pouring into the country.

Too right.

 

Back when I arrived (2002) the police would knock off at midnight and wouldn’t be back until 8am. I couldn’t believe it, my girlfriend would say don’t worry about your helmet it is after midnight – no police.

If you fell over because you were drunk the police would help you back on your bike (this is what encouraged the bad behaviour). Now the police take advantage of the expats, probably a good thing considering how many low life’s are here.

 

In traffic expats are first to jump on the horn and abuse someone, these people need to grow up, drive passively, if someone pulls out in front of you let them in. 

 

I'm embarrassed to be a foreigner sometimes when i see this immaturity.

Edited November 4, 2018 by VYCM

[pieeyed]

I can remember meeting a man with a stamp in Nana Plaza and getting a retirement stamp for 1000 baht. I was 35 years old. This was a regular service years ago.

[bandito]

On ‎11‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 9:51 AM, worgeordie said:

There was no requirement to do 90 day reporting,but I believe

it was a law,they did not seem so paranoid where you were and

what you were doing, but before leaving the country you had to 

do a tax report,which was a joke,as all they required was 200 or

300 THB,

regards worgeordie

 The tax exemption had to be done when leaving Thailand after 90 days and was free.

Done them since 1976 until Prime Minister Anand made an end of it.

[bandito]

10 hours ago, balo said:

So corruption was up and running . 

It was and still is.

I gave my passport to a "fixer" who send it to Hawai Thai Consulate which stamped a multiple non-immigrant visa in my passport and this got send back to Thailand.

Took about a week.

[bandito]

13 hours ago, thedemon said:

From a booklet published in 1953

 

 

Where did you get that from?

[delphioracle]

Visa's ! !

The name ''George,'' springs to mind.

 

Many a passport seemed to exit Thailand, but the physical presence of the named persons remained here !!

[bandito]

On ‎11‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 10:03 AM, JaiLai said:

I used to come get stamped in and stay as long as I felt like, just paid the overstay fine on the way out.

I’m sure it was only 200 baht a day though....may be wrong??


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Wrong it was Baht 100- a day.

Sometimes I did the same until I got a warning from the Thai Consulate in Penang that if it happened again i would not get a visa.

This was end of 1970s

So i got to be a law abiding citizen.

[bandito]

On ‎11‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 10:11 AM, lopburi3 said:

Only been doing 18 years but copies and bank letters have always been required.

Not in the '70s.

Nothing was required.

Did'nt have to go to Penang either as I got a non-immigrant visa from the Immigration at Suan Plu gratis.

The first 5 months I stayed in Thailand on a 2 months tourist visa which got extended by 3 months at the Suan Plu Immigration free of charge.

No papers or whatever were required or asked for.

Paid only one baht for a stamp, that's right, one baht.

Aaah, the good times.

[worgeordie]

39 minutes ago, bandito said:

 The tax exemption had to be done when leaving Thailand after 90 days and was free.

Done them since 1976 until Prime Minister Anand made an end of it.

It was not free, if you owed tax.

regards worgeordie

[worgeordie]

20 hours ago, fifelad55 said:

I've been here 13 years and there has always been a requirement to report my address every 90 days since I last entered the country

( at Jomtien).

 

Alan

I am talking 25-30 years ago.

regards Worgeordie

[bandito]

1 minute ago, worgeordie said:

It was not free, if you owed tax.

regards worgeordie

What tax.

I always got stamped out without question.

[worgeordie]

1 minute ago, bandito said:

What tax.

I always got stamped out without question.

I was always charged 200-500 THB, maybe the officier

was keeping it for herself,who knows,who cares now.

regards Worgeordie

[HAKAPALITA]

I can remember when it was fun. Years ago there was always a German in front of you arguing they were right, a friendly Thai IO would fill in forms for me cause i thought they were printed by an idiot. You got a Coffee off them if you were early.

[thedemon]

50 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

I was always charged 200-500 THB, maybe the officier

was keeping it for herself,who knows,who cares now.

regards Worgeordie

That is also my recollection. Some small but seemingly arbitrary amount of money had to be paid to make the problem go away, even for those with no income.

 

I think it may have been a case of pay this and you can go now or wait a few more hours in this crappy un-airconditioned room while we do a proper investigation. 

[lopburi3]

It was not that long ago, when doing extensions at Suan Plu, you had to wait for your file to be found.  When time got down to about 2 weeks they would bring files into main processing room and stack against the walls (many were as thick as Bangkok phone books so they took up a lot of space - you just hoped they could find yours).

[hobobo]

Between 2005 and 2010 I didn't even bother with a retirement extension. As I was going back to the UK every summer for 2 or 3 weeks I'd just get another Multy-Entry Non-Immigrant O visa (1 year). As far as funds were concerned, I just had to self-certify that I had sufficient funds for my one year stay. There were already signs in the air that the ease of getting annual Non-Immigrant O was on the way out, so I put the money into a Thai bank and joined the retirement battalion.

[tgeezer]

 

I retired in 2005 at 60, apparently had I retired ten years earlier I would have been on the 200,000 deal now.
Considering that The Baht was devalued overnight in the 80s it isn’t surprising that increases were necessary.
I wonder if there is anybody who regrets fiddling and farting about with visa runs or agents now.
These ‘grandfather’ clauses must reveal the history of the income and cash requirement increases.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[lopburi3]

3 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

I retired in 2005 at 60, apparently had I retired ten years earlier I would have been on the 200,000 deal now.
Considering that The Baht was devalued overnight in the 80s it isn’t surprising that increases were necessary.
I wonder if there is anybody who regrets fiddling and farting about with visa runs or agents now.
These ‘grandfather’ clauses must reveal the history of the income and cash requirement increases.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

I would have loved to have known about extensions of stay - had no idea when moved here in 1992 and did the visa runs to Penang for many years.

[Issangeorge]

 
Do you  recall if that was before or after 9/11?

The raise in funds had nothing to do with 9/11, it happened around 1998, and had everything to do with the devaluation of the baht. All of a sudden $1,000 US went from being worth around ฿25,000 to around ฿50,000. So they raised the income and money needed to stay in the country. Never made much sense to me. The US dollar may have been worth a lot more baht, but in Thailand a baht still bought about the same. Of course that was 18 20 years ago. Inflation has eaten into the amount a baht will buy and the US dollar at the present time is worth about 70% of what it was in 97/98.

Sent from my BLL-L22 using Tapatalk

[scorecard]

On 11/3/2018 at 9:51 AM, worgeordie said:

There was no requirement to do 90 day reporting,but I believe

it was a law,they did not seem so paranoid where you were and

what you were doing, but before leaving the country you had to 

do a tax report,which was a joke,as all they required was 200 or

300 THB,

regards worgeordie

I was assigned to Thailand about 1985, for the first seven or 8 years I was on a WP, never heard of any reporting etc. Then I got PR, then no 90 days etc.

 

But there was a requirement to get a tax clearance certificate before you could exit the country.

 

Even to go to Singapore for the day for a meeting I had to go to a Gov't office (I forget where) with a bag full of documents to get the tax clearance, often took at least 2 hours waiting and often the officers would say 'I don't believe the income Baht numbers on your form' and some would up the number / double the number, no discussion possible, then you lined up to pay the tax number and get the clearance certificate.  And you had to attend personally to get the tax clearance. 

 

One of the positive things about PR is that there's no annual renewal, no 90 days reporting, no showing money in accounts etc. 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by scorecard

[Cricky]

Wow, what a great article.

First time I’ve read every post, as usual a few that aren’t genuine but all in all lots of good reading.

I can’t imagine how you guys can spend so long here. There would be a big percentage that go back home occasionally, what about the ones that haven’t been back home for decades, how do you do it? I love Thailand but I also love to get away regularly.

I’ve been living here for 16 years but working offshore, so most of the time here for a month and away for a month.

I have teenage children and always avoided the family/marriage visa, couldn’t bring myself to drag the kids out of school to sit with the odd balls (foreigners) at immigration.

I turned 50 a couple of years ago so now it’s a retirement visa / extension for me, what an ease.

I’m off to the rig in a couple of days, the internet is slow and the work is hectic so when I return I shall look forward to checking out the posts I miss out on whilst at work.

 

Cheers and well done watcharacters

[JaiLai]

57 minutes ago, VYCM said:

Wow, what a great article.

First time I’ve read every post, as usual a few that aren’t genuine but all in all lots of good reading.

I can’t imagine how you guys can spend so long here. There would be a big percentage that go back home occasionally, what about the ones that haven’t been back home for decades, how do you do it? I love Thailand but I also love to get away regularly.

I’ve been living here for 16 years but working offshore, so most of the time here for a month and away for a month.

I have teenage children and always avoided the family/marriage visa, couldn’t bring myself to drag the kids out of school to sit with the odd balls (foreigners) at immigration.

I turned 50 a couple of years ago so now it’s a retirement visa / extension for me, what an ease.

I’m off to the rig in a couple of days, the internet is slow and the work is hectic so when I return I shall look forward to checking out the posts I miss out on whilst at work.

 

Cheers and well done watcharacters

I have not been back to the UK since 2003. When i went home then i had planned to stay for 3 weeks and left after 1 week.

Proir to that i'd not been back since 99'

 

Note - i'm in and out of Thailand regurlary for work commitment

[HAKAPALITA]

Remember its replies from some who like me are over 70 with Kids now 50 and many Grand-kids. Hence clashes at times with those we consider entitled snowflake kids in other posts. 

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, VYCM said:

Wow, what a great article.

First time I’ve read every post, as usual a few that aren’t genuine but all in all lots of good reading.

I can’t imagine how you guys can spend so long here. There would be a big percentage that go back home occasionally, what about the ones that haven’t been back home for decades, how do you do it? I love Thailand but I also love to get away regularly.

I’ve been living here for 16 years but working offshore, so most of the time here for a month and away for a month.

I have teenage children and always avoided the family/marriage visa, couldn’t bring myself to drag the kids out of school to sit with the odd balls (foreigners) at immigration.

I turned 50 a couple of years ago so now it’s a retirement visa / extension for me, what an ease.

I’m off to the rig in a couple of days, the internet is slow and the work is hectic so when I return I shall look forward to checking out the posts I miss out on whilst at work.

 

Cheers and well done watcharacters

 

"I suspect many folks will wonder 'how you can stay here so long'." 

 

I've been here well over 3 decades, I got posted here, fairly quickly met a wonderful Thai lady (a doctor of medicine, spoke perfect English, sadly now passed on), we married and had a wonderful happy marriage bringing one Thai son. I gained Thai PR many many years back. 

 

Today I live permanently with my Thai son who is now 36 years old, he has a professional career as does his great Thai wife, they are happily married and have 3 kids. Everybody in the house speaks perfect Thai and very advanced English (except me, my Thai is about Intermediate + level), our household language is English at the insistence of my son so that his kids get total / every day immersion in English as he did when he was a kid.

 

My son is my best buddy in life.

 

I was posted here, I had to connect to lots of Thai folks (not hi-so folks) and I developed many wonderful friendships, I was head hunted a couple of years after arriving and ended up in a very senior regional position in a great to work for multinational.

 

My entire family in my birth country passed away many years back, my last visit to my country of origin was about 20 years ago.

 

As mentioned by others I now have short-term memory problems but 99% of the old memories are still solidly in place.

 

Thailand is home! Life, for me, in Thailand has been great, my job description now, keeps me very busy and very happy and brings some challenge, is grandfather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by scorecard