Thailand extends foreigners' visas for a second time as coronavirus cases slow

[stament]

10 hours ago, Peter Denis said:

You are correct that the amnesty does not apply to those on 1-year extensions of stay of their original Non Imm O or O-A Visa.

So you DO need to visit your local IO when the permission of stay on the basis of your present 1-year extension is due to expire. 

Since the cost for an extension is same (1.900 THB) whether it is an emergency extension only valid for a limited time (which needs an embassy letter) or a 'regular' 1-year extension, it is of course strongly recommended to simply apply for the 1-year extension.

 

Only 1900b for a one year extension? That's a bargain

[DrJack54]

5 minutes ago, stament said:

Only 1900b for a one year extension? That's a bargain

Along with 800/400k baht kept in Thai bank for the year. Not all beer & skittles.

Edited April 22, 2020 by DrJack54

[ubonjoe]

25 minutes ago, capo 5 said:

Sorry Ubon Joe i should of said i applied for the covid extension on the 3rd April and went to immigration yedterday (should have been  18th but is was a Saturday and also at that time they had not not received confirmation to give me the extension of stay).So i phoned and they told me to come in yesterday and gave me the extension of stay stamp till the 2nd May.It says on the stamp i have to leave the country before the 2nd May.

You can stay until July 31st. No need to go to immigration for anything.

[capo 5]

Thanks for the quick reply UbonJoe. Capo 5.

[ouagadougou]

My METV expired March 2nd.  I did a border run before that date and was given permission to stay until the end of April.

 

I understand it's semantics and hopefully straightforward, but do I qualify for the automatic visa extension? 

 

Technically, my visa expired before March 26.

 

 

 

[Maestro]

10 hours ago, jackdd said:

What is so difficult to understand about "all visa types"?

 

I haven't found the text "all visa types" yet in the English translation of the Ministerial Notification of 7 April 2020. Can you help me?

[jackdd]

3 minutes ago, Maestro said:

 

I haven't found the text "all visa types" yet in the English translation of the Ministerial Notification of 7 April 2020. Can you help me?

It's the wording used by the Immigration Bureau and can be found here: https://immigration.go.th/content/visa_auto_extension

[rumak]

2 hours ago, bkkguy1970 said:

the most commonly handed out advice here is "contact Immigration" to be sure of your actual case - I have contacted Immigration, and even without mentioning my health concerns their response was no need to do the extension, yet you still have your doubts - why? what am I missing? or do you think the advise from Immigration just wrong?

Also a very common COMPLAINT  is that somebody (farang)   asked somebody ( thai person at

immigration)  a question.  The answer given at that time was either incorrect or not understood

by one of the parties .    VERY COMMON  ,  and more so when asking for information on the phone.     

I have always asked my questions to an experienced immig officer,  not just someone who is a helper or  assigned to an information desk.    In busy offices there can be confusion as answers are hastily given.    As anywhere..... you must choose whose advice you wish to follow.

There are some experienced persons here giving good info.    Then there are a few that want to 

prove they are right.    Your choice

[Tanoshi]

42 minutes ago, jackdd said:

It's the wording used by the Immigration Bureau and can be found here: https://immigration.go.th/content/visa_auto_extension

Immigration refer to everything as a Visa, even annual extensions.

The Ministerial notification is worded 'For an alien who has been permitted a temporary stay in the Kingdom'.

 

The validity of a Visa and the validity of permission to stay are totally different.

 

[connda]

On 4/21/2020 at 6:34 PM, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Foreigners whose visas had expired since March 26 will be permitted to stay until July 31 without having to apply for an extension, said Narumon Pinyosinwat, spokeswoman for the Thai government.

So the government is expecting to keep the population locked-down until August? 
Stick a fork into the Thai economy - it's done.

[ouagadougou]

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

Immigration refer to everything as a Visa, even annual extensions.

The Ministerial notification is worded 'For an alien who has been permitted a temporary stay in the Kingdom'.

 

The validity of a Visa and the validity of permission to stay are totally different.

 

Yes, exactly.  This is why I'm slightly confused.

 

-------

 

My METV expired March 2nd.  I did a border run before that date and was given permission to stay until the end of April.

 

Technically, my visa expired before March 26; but my permission to stay expires after March 26th.

 

I understand it's semantics and hopefully straightforward, but do I qualify for the automatic visa extension? 

 

 

[Tanoshi]

25 minutes ago, ouagadougou said:

Yes, exactly.  This is why I'm slightly confused.

 

-------

 

My METV expired March 2nd.  I did a border run before that date and was given permission to stay until the end of April.

 

Technically, my visa expired before March 26; but my permission to stay expires after March 26th.

 

I understand it's semantics and hopefully straightforward, but do I qualify for the automatic visa extension? 

 

 

It's not semantics.

The validity of the Visa is the date you can last enter the Country and is displayed on the Visa.

The validity of permission of stay is granted by an Immigration officer on entry and is stamped in your Passport.

 

If your permission of stay is dated later than 26th March then that stay is now automatically extended to July 31st

Edited April 22, 2020 by Tanoshi

[watthong]

5 hours ago, bkkguy1970 said:

I am sure according to Immigration official rules there is no "valid" reason for me not to be able to do the extension but as a 65 yo diabetic with high blood pressure and coronary artery disease I am what local and international government and health authorities class as a "high risk" group that should be protecting themselves and avoiding contact as much as possible so I am keeping my trips out limited to minimum supermarket visits at time where they are not crowded and my preference is not to spend most of a day at CW Immigration in crowded conditions where social distancing is not well respected

 

 

Most of long-term farangs living in Thailand either in "extended temporary stay" or permanent residency status are so used to be under the  whip and chains of immigration that when we are told to jump, or in this case of amnesty extension NOT to, we still ask how high. 

 

We rather forget that:
- It's a plague/pandemic that we are living under. Hard to believe but it's true.
- The virus is invisible, highly infectious and "quite" lethal. There is neither cure nor vaccine at the moment, and we don't know when there will be a "yes" to either.
- Those in the high risk group (such as "65 yo diabetic with high blood pressure and coronary artery disease") are the virus low-hanging fruits. And if you survive, you might have to live the rest of your life with permanent lung damage (any doubt just youtube "Chris Cuomo", NY governor's normally fit, muscleman younger brother who is fighting a hard battle agaisnt covid and has now dragged his wife into the fray.)'
- such environment as Immigration at Chaeng Wattana (in particular, since that the only Immigration office I know) is a perfect petri dish. People who frequent that place come from god knows where all over the world (Wuhan, does that still ring a bell?) spend long period of time in enclosed, cool trapped air cabins, the virus farovite habitat, and are kept like herds in large enclosures at airports, custom queues etc. - and from those recent photos that have caused such uproar, in appalling waiting condition at CW.
- Testing is still not a widely carried out practice in most parts of the world... Closer to home, how many IOs in CW have been tested, how many transferred in/out due to staff fallen to the disease? Nobody knows. The applicants who show up at the door are let in after a customary thermo check. How effective or rather ineffective it is everybody already knows. Simply another mask-on-the-chin approach.
- Authorities in most places/countries, are still acting like they don't know what has hit them. The most they can do is mitigate, as opposed to fighting off the disease. Can't blame them. Scientists often announce "we still don't know" a la Fauci, whom we have all the reason in the world to trust. So to ask what to expect after amnesty deadline a few weeks/months from now is like asking for the moon. We don't know, they don't know, nobody knows. It's a living day by day situation that folks can't seem to be able to handle. 

 

But one thing I know for sure is one of the reasons mentioned by Immigration regarding the amnesty extension is to stop the spread of the virus. So if to obey them is to go against their rule, then it's their problem,  not mine. I for once am not in any rush to jump, like lemmings, off the cliff. My take on this is I might have chosen to live in Thailand, but not to die of the disease, neither to live in any kind of paradise on earth with a pair of damaged lungs. 

[watthong]

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

It's not semantics.

The validity of the Visa is the date you can last enter the Country and is displayed on the Visa.

The validity of permission of stay is granted by an Immigration officer on entry and is stamped in your Passport.

Obviously a visa is valid during its validity (good from such to such date) period.  You can go from one (kind of) visa to another. You can finish one and get a new one. However there is no such thing as extension of a visa. A permission of stay on the other hand is what can be extended. So when Immigration says no need to extend visas, they mean no need to extend permissions of stay. Under amnesty extension, permissions of stays that fall behind a demarcation date (such as March 26th) are automatically extended until the designated date (such as April 30th and now July 31st.) Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[BritTim]

24 minutes ago, watthong said:

Obviously a visa is valid during its validity (good from such to such date) period.  You can go from one (kind of) visa to another. You can finish one and get a new one. However there is no such thing as extension of a visa. A permission of stay on the other hand is what can be extended. So when Immigration says no need to extend visas, they mean no need to extend permissions of stay. Under amnesty extension, permissions of stays that fall behind a demarcation date (such as March 26th) are automatically extended until the designated date (such as April 30th and now July 31st.) Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You are not wrong, but you make the mistake of being logical. In terms of the Ministerial Order in question, there is an underlying logic, but it only has to do with the motivations of the senior immigration officials who drafted it. They have done their best to produce an order that can be interpreted in just about any way they please, depending on the target audience at the time. A simple "anyone with a legal permission to stay as of March 26 has an automatic extension until 31st July" would make clear that nobody with a confirmed permission to stay needs to attend immigration. While that is the message to foreign embassies, TAT, and likely the PM, senior immigration officials are concerned about the hit to their incomes if agents were not in a position to convince their customers that they still needed their agent assisted extensions. Different interpretations for different audiences. Pretty clever, actually.

[Maestro]

6 hours ago, jackdd said:

It's the wording used by the Immigration Bureau and can be found here: https://immigration.go.th/content/visa_auto_extension

 

Thank you. I finally found it, in the last of the nine images on the linked web page.

 

 

In the Thai text I see the text (การตรวจลงตรา) that has been correctly translated as "visa". This the same text for "visa" which is also used in section 12(1) of the Immigration Act and which also there translated correctly as "visa". However, there is nothing about "ALL".

 

If these are the only internal instructions and guidelines the immigration officials have received regarding the application and implementation of the Ministerial Notification of 7 April I can understand why, according to one post I have seen on this forum, an immigration official said that no permission to stay at call is being automatically extended.

[fraggleRock]

cool

Edited April 22, 2020 by fraggleRock

[cleopatra2]

6 hours ago, watthong said:

Obviously a visa is valid during its validity (good from such to such date) period.  You can go from one (kind of) visa to another. You can finish one and get a new one. However there is no such thing as extension of a visa. A permission of stay on the other hand is what can be extended. So when Immigration says no need to extend visas, they mean no need to extend permissions of stay. Under amnesty extension, permissions of stays that fall behind a demarcation date (such as March 26th) are automatically extended until the designated date (such as April 30th and now July 31st.) Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The authorities are using powers granted under section 17 of the immigration act to permit certain group of aliens to stay as a special case

These powers also allow the authorities to declare this same group of aliens do not have to comply with some of the regulations in the immigration act.

[BangnaBound]

15 hours ago, Jajazazajaja said:

spoke to 1178

 

said “yes, no problem, you can stay until 31st July”

 

”for multi entry B?”

 

”yes for sure”

Just called 1178

 

Got passed around a few times.

 

Told him I have a 1 year Multiple Entry Non-B Visa expiring in September 2020 and my current permission to stay stamp expires May 6, 2020.

 

Put on hold for 5 minutes.

 

He then returns and say the current order on April 7 is for permission to stay stamp expiring after March 26 to be extended to April 30.

I ask him about the latest announcement on April 21.

Reply: Yes, that announcement is for permission to stay stamp expiring after March 26 to be extended to July 31, but it’s not official yet, please call back next week.

 

So he gave me no answer if the extension would apply to me, or if this announce will become official.   I’m obviously calling back tomorrow.  This is why everyone on the forum keeps asking the same questions over and over. We get different answers from immigration depending on who you talk to and there mood.

[jackdd]

10 minutes ago, BangnaBound said:

Reply: Yes, that announcement is for permission to stay stamp expiring after March 26 to be extended to July 31, but it’s not official yet, please call back next week.

Technically he is correct, because afaik it's not in the Royal Gazette yet, thus not "law" yet.

 

12 minutes ago, BangnaBound said:

So he gave me no answer if the extension would apply to me, or if this announce will become official.

It was already announced on a press conference by the MFA, the Immigration Bureau is already making infographics based on it and some immigration officers are already treating it as official, so this will certainly become official, just a technicality until Prayut signed it and somebody uploads it to the Royal Gazette.

 

 

[Olmate]

13 minutes ago, BangnaBound said:

Just called 1178

 

 

So he gave me no answer if the extension would apply to me, or if this announce will become official.   I’m obviously calling back tomorrow.  This is why everyone on the forum keeps asking the same questions over and over. We get different answers from immigration depending on who you talk to and there mood.

Don,t see the point in calling at all ! Do you keep calling till you get the answer you want? Then you are still not sure it’s correct!

[ubonjoe]

55 minutes ago, BangnaBound said:

So he gave me no answer if the extension would apply to me, or if this announce will become official.   I’m obviously calling back tomorrow.  This is why everyone on the forum keeps asking the same questions over and over. We get different answers from immigration depending on who you talk to and there mood.

There is no change to the order dated April 7th other than the date it ends.

The approval by the cabinet stated it was extended until the July 31st.

You can stay until July 31st.

[audaciousnomad]

10 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

There is no change to the order dated April 7th other than the date it ends.

The approval by the cabinet stated it was extended until the July 31st.

You can stay until July 31st.

Anyone know if it is officially in the gazette yet?

[whiro]

On 4/21/2020 at 7:14 PM, Boomer6969 said:

Won't change anything for me, but I am more and more inclined to think that, in the time of COVID, Thailand looks better.

yes it does ????

[jackdd]

3 hours ago, audaciousnomad said:

Anyone know if it is officially in the gazette yet?

Imho not yet.

 

If somebody wants to monitor it:

- Open the Royal Gazette: http://www.mratchakitcha.soc.go.th/

- Click on the magnifying glass icon to open the search

- In the first input field put: การอนุญาตให้คนต่างด้าวบางจำพวกอยู่ในราชอาณาจักรเป็นกรณีพิเศษ

(This is the title/topic of the order from 8th April, the title of the new order will most likely be the same)

- Click on "search" (the red button)

Currently this yields 4 documents, the first one is the order from 8th April, and the other three are some older unrelated orders with a similar title. When the newest ministerial order is published this search should yield 5 results, of which one is the newest order.

Edited April 23, 2020 by jackdd

[Wongkitlo]

On 4/22/2020 at 9:42 PM, Maestro said:

 

I haven't found the text "all visa types" yet in the English translation of the Ministerial Notification of 7 April 2020. Can you help me?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1252835323177865218

[jackdd]

On 4/23/2020 at 8:58 PM, audaciousnomad said:

Anyone know if it is officially in the gazette yet?

Now it's released: http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2563/E/096/T_0008.PDF

[Sp4wnY]

So what is going to happen in two days?

My education visa is going to run out in a couple of weeks and there are no means to travel there unless I drive 10h with a rented car ????

 

 

edit: 

This seems to be only mentioning visa on arrival:

http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2563/E/096/T_0008.PDF
Aliens

Edited April 28, 2020 by Sp4wnY

[ubonjoe]

6 minutes ago, Sp4wnY said:

So what is going to happen in two days?

My education visa is going to run out in a couple of weeks and there are no means to travel there unless I drive 10h with a rented car ????

The entirety of ministerial order issued on April 7th has been extended until July 31st. No changes on the 30th.

After your current permit to stay ends you will be able to say until July 31st.

[Sp4wnY]

Thanks for your help ubonjoe!

I called my language class today and they said I have to extend the visa anyway bcs the immigration is open
And something like have to extend it within 10 days of expiry and 500 baht overstay fine because it is my own fault.
I can only pray for local flights to be available again within the next two weeks. Otherwise it will be up to chance, that they will still extend it after July 31st/ me having to make a new visa.  

I feel gaslighted by both my language class and immigration because there is so much conflicting information on immigration website, their facebook and the gazette...????