Which Route Do I take?

[thailen]

My extended stay retirement visa expires in November. I'll be in the states, but the Thai Embassy in Washington will NOT renew it. They insist I apply for a new visa, like  did 10 years ago. A few years ago, I returned from a trip to Europe after my O-A visa expired and I simply went to my Immigration office in Jomtien, they held it for 30 days, I returned and they kept my passport for another 30 or 60 days,during  which time they sent it to Bangkok and issued me the extended stay visa. If memory serves, the total charge was around 3,000 baht. Does this sound like the easiest way to go? At least I wouldn't have to get a single-entry visa, sving me 1,000 baht.

Since I  plan to return to Thailand in June of 2020 for 4 months(an annual plan), should I consider another way to stay in Thailand?

 

[ubonjoe]

Embassies and consulates cannot do extensions of stay. The only issue new visas.

You best option may be to apply for a OA long stay visa. It will allow unlimited one year entries for a year from the date of issue. You can get a total stay of almost 2 years from it by getting a new one year entry just before it expires.

See: https://thaiembdc.org/consular-services/non-immigrant-visas/non-immigrant-category-oa/

Not sure what you did at immigration before since immigration do not hold your passport any longer than perhaps overnight. 

If you enter without a visa you could apply for a 90 day non immigrant visa (category O) entry for a fee of 2000 baht. Then during the last 30 days of the 90 day entry apply for the one year extension of stay for a fee of 1900 baht.

[BritTim]

The Royal Thai Embassy does not process extensions of permission to stay. They only issue visas. Your obvious choices are:

• get an O-A visa; or
• enter Thailand on a tourist visa, and do the conversion to non immigrant (retirement) at an immigration office in Thailand, preparatory to applying for a one-year extension of stay.

[KhunBENQ]

1 hour ago, thailen said:

return to Thailand in June of 2020 for 4 months(an annual plan), should I consider another way to stay in Thailand?

Single tourist visa would give you 60 days, extend once for 30 days.

For the remaining time you would have to do a border run/flight for a final 30 days.

[connda]

4 hours ago, thailen said:

My extended stay retirement visa expires in November.

What is an 'extended stay retirement visa?" 
 

You stay based on yearly extensions such as marriage, support of a child, retirement, being a monk, etc.

Just curious. but what are you talking about?

[fordguy61mi]

25 minutes ago, connda said:

What is an 'extended stay retirement visa?" 
 

You stay based on yearly extensions such as marriage, support of a child, retirement, being a monk, etc.

Just curious. but what are you talking about?

I was wondering that, too. I was thinking if everyone just gets that why bother with the whole monthly income/800,000 baht in the bank requirement? lol

[Suradit69]

7 hours ago, thailen said:

I simply went to my Immigration office in Jomtien, they held it for 30 days, I returned and they kept my passport for another 30 or 60 days,during  which time they sent it to Bangkok and issued me the extended stay visa.

Sounds like you applied for a non-imm O entry at Jomtien prior to applying for an extension of stay based on retirement since your previous extension expired while you were out of the country.

 

Presumably when you returned to Thailand without a valid visa or extension they gave you a 30 day visa exempt entry and then you went to Jomtien to change to the non-imm O entry. At times Jomtien has or has not had to send that application to Bangkok for approval.

 

I doubt they actually held onto your passport that long.

 

You would have been given the 90 day non-imm O permission to stay and towards the end of that period you applied for the extension.

 

Embassies do not renew visas or issue extensions of stay. What you did was start the whole process over again in order to get the extension of stay (which is not a visa)

 

You'll have to go through that process again as several others suggested above.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2019 by Suradit69

[KCPhuket]

Phuket will accept application for extension 45 days in advance. Are you still here then?

[graemeaylward]

Yet another person trying to use a visa based on retirement for a 4 month holiday! I strongly believe that a visa based on retirement should be for that purpose alone, I.e. Thailand should be your place of residence!


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[BritTim]

1 hour ago, graemeaylward said:

Yet another person trying to use a visa based on retirement for a 4 month holiday! I strongly believe that a visa based on retirement should be for that purpose alone, I.e. Thailand should be your place of residence!

I do not believe all retirees (especially those who are financially secure) restrict themselves to a single place of residence. In fact, I know of one wealthy retiree who spent four months last year in Thailand, with the rest of his time split between six other countries. This was more or less true for several prior years. He has now elected to give up his Bangkok apartment, and will likely not spend much time in Thailand in future.

[JackThompson]

3 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

Yet another person trying to use a visa based on retirement for a 4 month holiday! I strongly believe that a visa based on retirement should be for that purpose alone, I.e. Thailand should be your place of residence!

Unfortunately, immigration at bad entry points (including both Bangkok airports) is now making problems for those staying just a few months on tourist-entries.   We have seen several reports from snowbirds being interrogated.  As we have seen before, the next step bad IOs take with their a targeted-victim-class is to begin denying entry.

 

Immigration know that those not staying the whole year will find the "new rules" qualifications for "retirement extensions" troublesome (sending income monthly or locking up money year-round), so the hope is that you will pay an agent to "handle" everything - avoiding the financials entirely - in exchange for a fee shared with immigration. 

 

Corruption is the only logical point of the so-called "crackdowns" - since all we do is spend foreign-sourced money into their economy - and there is no corruption money to be had for immigration from tourist-entries.  Sadly, the vast majority of those targeted for corruption-extortion by immigration will simply leave - but the loss of income for Thais is not a concern to those pushing the "pay us off or go away" agenda.

[Suradit69]

3 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

Yet another person trying to use a visa based on retirement for a 4 month holiday! I strongly believe that a visa based on retirement should be for that purpose alone, I.e. Thailand should be your place of residence!


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He apparently would be seeking an extension of stay based on retirement eventually, not a visa.

 

There's no requirement that implies you should spend all your time here. Retirees who have the money should be able to spend some of their time back home with friends and family or to winter here and spend summer months where the temperature is milder, etc.

 

i do wonder if someone spends less than twelve months per year here and is accustomed to using the income method to meet the financial requirements for an extension , under the new method, will le still need to show Baht 65,000 per month going into a Thai bank. Under those circumstances it might make more sense to get an O-A visa and stretch it for two years.