Work Permit expires - how to stay in Tland for another 5 or 6 weeks?

[robsamui]

Let me try to put this as clearly as possible!

I have a Non-im B multi visa that was issued in Kota Bharu and is dated to 13th March 2019.
 

This can then be extended for a further 90 days if I do a border run before the current extension date on my passport - I just came back from a border run so this is now the 12th March.

 

My Work Permit expires on 22nd February and I plan to finish work at this point

 

If I do a border run before my WP runs out and get a further 90 days extension, will this remain valid, even though I have resigned from my current employment? (Is my visa still in place, as it show in my passport?)

I'm leaving Thailand, but it might take another month or so to finish selling all my worldly goods before I finally go - perhaps even longer. As far as I am aware, because my visa was issued outside of Thailand, then the extension stamps remain valid right up until the final date - in my case doing a border run would make this 90 days after my next and final extension, with a border run on the 11th March 2019 nailing this in place for 90 days more.

 

Can anyone confirm this, please?  

 

Thanks in Advance.

Edited December 16, 2018 by robsamui

[jackdd]

Afaik the multiple entry visa has nothing do to with the work permit, it stays valid even after your work permit expires, so you could even do a visa run on the day it expires and then stay until june.

[robsamui]

41 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Afaik the multiple entry visa has nothing do to with the work permit, it stays valid even after your work permit expires, so you could even do a visa run on the day it expires and then stay until june.

Thanks for this. But, alas, Thailand is now too expensive. Although good to know if, somehow, I need to!

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by robsamui

[elviajero]

59 minutes ago, robsamui said:

If I do a border run before my WP runs out and get a <deleted>rther 90 days extension, will this remain valid, even though I have resigned from my current employment? (Is my visa still in place, as it show in my passport?)

Yes you’ll get another 90 days and can stay even though your work has finished.

[robsamui]

Thanks to you all for the heads up.

 

The final straw was that, after working and paying tax for 14 years, 3 months ago I was ill and for the first time ever had to extend my stay at the local immigration dept. I got a week for 1,900 baht. But the kid in front of me on a tourist visa got 30 days. I've not only been paying tax (which 75% of Thai people don't do) but have been putting an average of 50K baht into the Thai economy every month for the last 21 years.

 

I can grit my teeth when the immigration officials here sneer and make life hard, or throw my stamped passport at me like I'm a dog, or when every immigration post has different ideas about what the rules are - and they now seem to change these every month.

 

But dammit! A bakpacking kid gets 30 days for the same price as they make me pay for a week. The straw and the camel's back.

 

I'm off to Vietnam. It's cheaper right across the board, there's NO immigration nastiness, every immigration post across the nation is on the same rule-book - and the Vietnamese, ordinary people and officials, are easy and pleasant with foreigners. They LIKE foreigners.

 

But then this is off topic. Sorry!

 

"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hitch Hiker's Guide to Thailand. Douglas Adams. 1984/2018.

 

Edited December 16, 2018 by robsamui

[PoorSucker]

2 hours ago, robsamui said:

A bakpacking kid gets 30 days for the same price as they make me pay for a week. The straw and the camel's back.

Sorry Rob, there has never been possible to get a 30 day extension on a NON-B, unless you're married to a Thai then you get 60 days.

 

After 14 years you should have known this.

[Kieran00001]

2 hours ago, robsamui said:

Thanks to you all for the heads up.

 

The final straw was that, after working and paying tax for 14 years, 3 months ago I was ill and for the first time ever had to extend my stay at the local immigration dept. I got a week for 1,900 baht. But the kid in front of me on a tourist visa got 30 days. I've not only been paying tax (which 75% of Thai people don't do) but have been putting an average of 50K baht into the Thai economy every month for the last 21 years.

 

I can grit my teeth when the immigration officials here sneer and make life hard, or throw my stamped passport at me like I'm a dog, or when every immigration post has different ideas about what the rules are - and they now seem to change these every month.

 

But dammit! A bakpacking kid gets 30 days for the same price as they make me pay for a week. The straw and the camel's back.

 

I'm off to Vietnam. It's cheaper right across the board, there's NO immigration nastiness, every immigration post across the nation is on the same rule-book - and the Vietnamese, ordinary people and officials, are easy and pleasant with foreigners. They LIKE foreigners.

 

But then this is off topic. Sorry!

 

"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hitch Hiker's Guide to Thailand. Douglas Adams. 1984/2018.

 

 

Why the 90 day border runs and 1 week extention, if you're working then why do you not have an extension of stay relative to your contract?

[Kieran00001]

2 hours ago, robsamui said:

Thanks to you all for the heads up.

 

The final straw was that, after working and paying tax for 14 years, 3 months ago I was ill and for the first time ever had to extend my stay at the local immigration dept. I got a week for 1,900 baht. But the kid in front of me on a tourist visa got 30 days. I've not only been paying tax (which 75% of Thai people don't do) but have been putting an average of 50K baht into the Thai economy every month for the last 21 years.

 

I can grit my teeth when the immigration officials here sneer and make life hard, or throw my stamped passport at me like I'm a dog, or when every immigration post has different ideas about what the rules are - and they now seem to change these every month.

 

But dammit! A bakpacking kid gets 30 days for the same price as they make me pay for a week. The straw and the camel's back.

 

I'm off to Vietnam. It's cheaper right across the board, there's NO immigration nastiness, every immigration post across the nation is on the same rule-book - and the Vietnamese, ordinary people and officials, are easy and pleasant with foreigners. They LIKE foreigners.

 

But then this is off topic. Sorry!

 

"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hitch Hiker's Guide to Thailand. Douglas Adams. 1984/2018.

 

 

Quote

They LIKE foreigners

 

I used to live there, foreigners do not get treated well by everyone, I've seen foreigners have things thrown at them in the street, be pushed by someone who was just walking past them, and be physically pushed to the back of a queue in the supermarket, there is a hardcore of communist supporters who hate Westerners.

[overherebc]

7 hours ago, Kieran00001 said:

 

Why the 90 day border runs and 1 week extention, if you're working then why do you not have an extension of stay relative to your contract?

Simply because some prefer a multi visa that is under your control. You finish work and your visa remains valid.

With an extension it finishes the day your job finishes and you go through the apply for 30 days, get that rejected and get 7 days to leave Thailand.

I've always used multi O visas and we enjoy the weekends in Vietnam, Malaysia etc every 90 days.

OP, Enjoy Vietnam.

Edited December 17, 2018 by overherebc

[hobobo]

12 hours ago, robsamui said:

Thanks to you all for the heads up.

 

The final straw was that, after working and paying tax for 14 years, 3 months ago I was ill and for the first time ever had to extend my stay at the local immigration dept. I got a week for 1,900 baht. But the kid in front of me on a tourist visa got 30 days. I've not only been paying tax (which 75% of Thai people don't do) but have been putting an average of 50K baht into the Thai economy every month for the last 21 years.

 

I can grit my teeth when the immigration officials here sneer and make life hard, or throw my stamped passport at me like I'm a dog, or when every immigration post has different ideas about what the rules are - and they now seem to change these every month.

 

But dammit! A bakpacking kid gets 30 days for the same price as they make me pay for a week. The straw and the camel's back.

 

I'm off to Vietnam. It's cheaper right across the board, there's NO immigration nastiness, every immigration post across the nation is on the same rule-book - and the Vietnamese, ordinary people and officials, are easy and pleasant with foreigners. They LIKE foreigners.

 

But then this is off topic. Sorry!

 

"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hitch Hiker's Guide to Thailand. Douglas Adams. 1984/2018.

 

Good luck Rob! After 12 years of happy retirement here I'm beginning to think along the same lines and have had three month-long trips to Vietnam this year to see if I can handle such a move at my age. So far about 65:35 in favour of Vietnam!

[robsamui]

12 hours ago, Kieran00001 said:

 

Why the 90 day border runs and 1 week extention, if you're working then why do you not have an extension of stay relative to your contract?

Because, for several reasons (as overherebc has pointed out) I choose not to.

Edited December 17, 2018 by robsamui

[robsamui]

12 hours ago, PoorSucker said:

Sorry Rob, there has never been possible to get a 30 day extension on a NON-B, unless you're married to a Thai then you get 60 days.

 

After 14 years you should have known this.

The fact that it's never been possible somehow makes it fair and equitable? That was my point and you missed it entirely.
And, no, never having had the need to extend before, I didn't know it was a 7-day extension.

[robsamui]

12 hours ago, Kieran00001 said:

 

 

I used to live there, foreigners do not get treated well by everyone, I've seen foreigners have things thrown at them in the street, be pushed by someone who was just walking past them, and be physically pushed to the back of a queue in the supermarket, there is a hardcore of communist supporters who hate Westerners.

I imagine it depends how long ago this was, and what region(s) you were in. I've never seen this, and there is no hint at all of it in the several Vietnam forums I've been studying.

[robsamui]

3 hours ago, hobobo said:

Good luck Rob! After 12 years of happy retirement here I'm beginning to think along the same lines and have had three month-long trips to Vietnam this year to see if I can handle such a move at my age. So far about 65:35 in favour of Vietnam!

Thanks Hobobo!

I wrote in the OP that it was the last straw with Thailand, so of course it wasn't only the Visa/red tape aspects which decided me - this has been brewing for over a year now.

The turning point came in October last year when I had my bag stolen, with my passport, WP, driving licence and all my cards in it. The subsequent dealings with the pig-headed, pompous, self-important Labor Department took eventually 5 months to restore the status quo, costing me an overall total of 55,000 baht and involving two trips outside Tland to get firstly a 3-month visa and then the full one-year version.

 

And then I've been here for coming up to 22 years now. It's not that I'm hankering after the way thing used to be - the majority of the social and environmental changes I actually prefer. And the ordinary Thai people are still just as lovely as they ever were, shy, friendly, hospitable and generous.

 

No, it's a whole series of gradual changes which have accumulated to tip the balance: the continually rising cost of living here; the Brexit fiasco murdering the value of my pension; the horrific quality of education; the social inequality and the increasingly-loud blustering of the powers that be as they keep trying to resist being part of the global economy which is now sucking at their national pride . . .  I've been here too long.

 

Better I head off to a place I don't know so well, where it's cheaper and so much easier to stay, and where the climate/weather is the same as that to which I've become accustomed. I'll be 70 next year and if I don't go now then I'm never gonna do it!

Happily, as has been confirmed by other posters here, I've landed on the easy side of being able to stay awhile after I stop working. And this also allows me time to collect the Thai pension in a lump sum that all those years of paying tax and social security has qualified me for. 

 

It's been a terrific 20-odd years and I'd do it all again, if I could. But it's now time to move on!

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by robsamui

[hobobo]

5 minutes ago, robsamui said:

Thanks Hobobo!

I wrote in the OP that it was the last straw with Thailand, so of course it wasn't only the Visa/red tape aspects which decided me - this has been brewing for over a year now.

The turning point came in October last year when I had my bag stolen, with my passport, WP, driving licence and all my cards in it. The subsequent dealings with the pig-headed, pompous, self-important Labor Department took eventually 5 months to restore the status quo, costing me an overall total of 55,000 baht and involving two trips outside Tland to get firstly a 3-month visa and then the full one-year version.

 

And then I've been here for coming up to 22 years now. It's not that I'm hankering after the way thing used to be - the majority of the social and environmental changes I actually like. And the ordinary Thai people are still just as lovely as they ever were, shy, friendly, hospitable and generous.

 

No, it's a whole series of gradual changes which have accumulated to tip the balance: the continually rising cost of living here; the Brexit fiasco murdering the value of my pension; the horrific quality of education; the social inequality and the increasingly-loud blustering of the powers that be as they keep trying to resist being part of the global economy which is now sucking at their national pride . . .  I've been here too long.

 

Better I head off to a place I don't know so well, where it's cheaper and so much easier to stay, and where the climate is the same as that to which I've become accustomed. I'll be 70 next year and if I don't go now then I'm never gonna do it!

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Rob, for your answer. It's amazing how many things from your reply I can personally relate to; in fact, I could say all of them, and personal safety on top of it. I've only been here on my retirement extensions for the past 12 years, but I've been coming to Thailand most years since 1979 (my first visit to Koh Samui!). The last few years I've been feeling that Thailand and (most) Thais have become rudderless, not really knowing or caring which way to go. Vietnam, on the other hand, has a real "direction", and it shows how the country developed over the past ten years and more.

 

I do have a lot of friends here, both Thai and foreign. But Vietnam is only an hour away, and it would be great to be coming to Thailand for holidays again.

 

Once more, good luck with your exciting new venture. Drop us an update once you've settled in!

[PoorSucker]

1 hour ago, robsamui said:

The fact that it's never been possible somehow makes it fair and equitable? That was my point and you missed it entirely.
And, no, never having had the need to extend before, I didn't know it was a 7-day extension.

Actually it's not an extension per see.

Your application was denied and you got 7 days to leave.

[JackThompson]

6 hours ago, robsamui said:

And this also allows me time to collect the Thai pension in a lump sum that all those years of paying tax and social security has qualified me for. 

You could also choose to keep paying into the very inexpensive Thai health-ins system - unless you have a better alternative already.  It might be worth keeping it active, even if not living here full-time, just to be able to return and use it for anything serious.

[robsamui]

1 hour ago, JackThompson said:

You could also choose to keep paying into the very inexpensive Thai health-ins system - unless you have a better alternative already.  It might be worth keeping it active, even if not living here full-time, just to be able to return and use it for anything serious.

Afraid not. I'm only able to use it where I'm registered in Surat Thani - and for what I need I'll have to go to BKK. The Premium Clinics in the major BKK hospitals are affordable, maybe 25% of going private, and I can use some of my lump-sum pension if I need something ????