Thailand to offer grace period for foreigners’ visa extensions

[jackdd]

6 minutes ago, audaciousnomad said:

That's the concern. If you apply early, say...Aug. 4th... and are denied, you will be on overstay status WELL BEFORE Sept. 26th, irrespective of whether you can get a flight out.

Is anybody ever denied if he qualifies for an extension? If they accept your application it will be approved in basically every case. The only way to end up being denied could be if you withdraw the 400k/800k while under consideration.

Edited July 17, 2020 by jackdd

[PhoSai]

6 minutes ago, jackdd said:

This is not correct, everybody has been automatically extended, i suggest reading the announcements found on the immigration website.

 

That's what it sounds like.

No, sorry you are not correct, It wasnt an automatic extension until the 31/07, it was pardon on overstay until 31/07. They just worded it like an extension to stop people panicking. Ask UbonJoe mate.

Edited July 17, 2020 by PhoSai

[audaciousnomad]

1 minute ago, Dumbastheycome said:

Why  not read it this  way.......Until   July 31st  people can choose to continue to sit  like  stunned  mullets under the current  amnesty. But From 1st August until 26t September is  to be added so people  can un-stun and   do something  about legitimizing  stay  or make plans to exit ? But  either way there is approx 8.5 weeks  to  do it !

 

Yes indeed. And the smarter mullet in the school will know in advance if he has no chance of getting an extension approved, and will therefore wait to find another way before shooting himself in the foot by "making a request" and then ending up with a 7-days to exit stamp in his passport, thereby screwing himself out of 8 weeks to try to sort out an alternative. ????

[Marcous]

10 minutes ago, freesudani said:

Well im basically looking to extend my ED visa which expired during the amnesty ... they usually ask me to leave apply in a thai consulate and come back .... hope they just  extend it locally now.

I'm in the same situation, I asked CMU in Chiang Mai and they said yes you could apply in country, last year I had to leave. This was before this announcement though so maybe you should check with your school. Today was the deadline but I guess that is extended now. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Marcous

[Timwin]

It sounds like they will act as a "virtual" embassy and handle visa requests as any Thai embassy abroad. If you get denied then you have to leave no later than 26th of September.

[DepDavid]

13 minutes ago, ukrules said:

When you apply for an extension of stay and are denied they issue a 'You have 7 days to leave' stamp......

 

I wonder if they will still do that?

Yes

[DrJack54]

4 minutes ago, unamazedloso said:

My home is lockdown and no flights possible and impossible to get back.

So your currently not in Thailand?

This thread is about people in Thailand.

Many threads about married folk and others trying to return. 

[n00dle]

What nobody here seems to understand is the immigration commissioner is speaking out if turn and it is not the first time he has done so.

 

He wishes to propse it to the cabinet, and until that is done, and, in the event the cabinet does approve it, then it will be worth discussing.

 

Until then it remains unconfirmed rumour. 

 

Period.

 

Trying to make sense of something this vague, which carries no official weight at this time is futile.

Edited July 17, 2020 by n00dle

[PhoSai]

9 minutes ago, jackdd said:

This is not correct, everybody has been automatically extended, i suggest reading the announcements found on the immigration website.

 

That's what it sounds like.

If it was an extension why is it called an "amnesty" ?! An amnesty is a pardon, Why would a pardon be needed if everyone had their permission extended until 31/07, it would be called something else. But in any case doesnt make much difference to the end result.

[jackdd]

7 minutes ago, PhoSai said:

No, sorry you are not correct, It wasnt an automatic extension until the 31/07, it was pardon on overstay until 31/07. They just worded it like an extension to stop people panicking. Ask UbonJoe mate.

I don't need to ask somebody else, i can read by myself.

Ministerial order:

Immigration:

As we can see, both call it an extension, and that's also how they treat it.

 

2 minutes ago, PhoSai said:

If it was an extension why is it called an "amnesty" ?! An amnesty is a pardon, Why would a pardon be needed if everyone had their permission extended until 31/07, it would be called something else. But in any case doesnt make much difference to the end result.

Afaik English speakers started calling it "amnesty", it wasn't immigration who started calling it like this.

Edited July 17, 2020 by jackdd

[freesudani]

11 minutes ago, Marcous said:

I'm in the same situation, I asked CMU in Chiang Mai and they said yes you could apply in country. Today was the deadline but I guess that is extended now. 

then i guess our best bet is to apply before the borders are opened 

[Dumbastheycome]

4 minutes ago, audaciousnomad said:

Yes indeed. And the smarter mullet in the school will know in advance if he has no chance of getting an extension approved, and will therefore wait to find another way before shooting himself in the foot by "making a request" and then ending up with a 7-days to exit stamp in his passport, thereby screwing himself out of 8 weeks to try to sort out an alternative. ????

Exactly that. But until the  "official " details are  made  fully known is only speculation.

Australians  are in a  hard  place due to apparent  fact they have  to get in a queue  to enter Australia just to add to the complexities of leaving  even if  by choice.

[PhoSai]

2 minutes ago, DepDavid said:

Yes

That would be a bad policy, because then a chunk of foreigners would simply leave their extension request until the last possible minute, thus defeating the object of avoiding long queues. Much better to just call it an extension of the amnesty until 26th September but make it clear its the last one and you need to extend permission or leave. That way if you are denied then you still have until the 26/09 anyway and thus meaning it doesnt matter when you make your extension request. Which i assume would spread the queues a bit more evenly. 

[PhoSai]

3 minutes ago, jackdd said:

I don't need to ask somebody else, i can read by myself.

Ministerial order:

Immigration:

As we can see, both call it an extension, and that's also how they treat it.

 

Afaik English speakers started calling it "amnesty", it wasn't immigration who started calling it like this.

Yep, as i said they called it an extension but in reality it was a pardon. English speakers call it an amnesty because they know what it really is..lol

[PhoSai]

4 minutes ago, jackdd said:

I don't need to ask somebody else, i can read by myself.

Ministerial order:

Immigration:

As we can see, both call it an extension, and that's also how they treat it.

 

Afaik English speakers started calling it "amnesty", it wasn't immigration who started calling it like this.

Do you really think immigration went through every foreign passport in the country on record and manually edited their database to reflect the relevant extension ? lol . Because of course we didnt get requests to go in did we, so it must have been on their system. If it was an extension as you say.

[CorpusChristie]

8 minutes ago, PhoSai said:

If it was an extension why is it called an "amnesty" ?! An amnesty is a pardon, Why would a pardon be needed if everyone had their permission extended until 31/07, it would be called something else. But in any case doesnt make much difference to the end result.

No it wasnt a "pardon"

People get pardoned when they do something wrong .

The Gov automatically extended everyones visas , so the people didnt nothing wrong and thus a pardon isnt required

[bkkexplorer]

20 minutes ago, ukrules said:

They should really change that procedure, it promotes unnecessary and in these times risky travel.

 

Lets say you're here as a Tourist and decide to get a job, many people come here, interview for a job and then decide to stay and work. The first thing you must then do is fly to a foreign country to apply for a different type of visa at a the Thai embassy.

 

Why can't they simply have an office in Thailand that allows you to change your visa type?

 

It's one of the dumbest systems I've ever heard of.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this policy came into force decades ago to stimulate airline travel at the request of the national airline.

 

Given this is an extended amnesty period til September, it only prolongs my problem. Different from the example above but related in principle. I have previously used up my 30 and 60 day extension before amnesty was granted and mistakenly thought I could apply for the 'conversion O' visa before applying a spouse 'O' visa within the amnesty period. I've learnt I have to leave the country and can only apply upon arriving here again. This causes a lot of unwarranted family issues. Oh yes, my problem!! Having an office here that can change my visa without leaving the country would be most helpful and productive.

[PhoSai]

1 minute ago, CorpusChristie said:

No it wasnt a "pardon"

People get pardoned when they do something wrong .

The Gov automatically extended everyones visas , so the people didnt nothing wrong and thus a pardon isnt required

Sorry not correct, it was a pardon of the wrong which was about to occur when someones stamp expired. The amount of work it would have taken to distinguish between passports there are eligible and then make entries in their system would have been chaos. They called it an extension so no one would worry. I mean of course immigration are not going to say "you are all technically on overstay but we let you off" !!

[bestie]

The article by Reuters is more interesting. It says, “we will allow visa requests from 1 August to 26 September”. This suggests that rather than an extension of the amnesty, people will be able to buy new visas without leaving the country. ‬

‪

Again, this is NOT official yet. ‬

 

Source: Richard Barrow in Thailand

[PhoSai]

7 minutes ago, CorpusChristie said:

No it wasnt a "pardon"

People get pardoned when they do something wrong .

The Gov automatically extended everyones visas , so the people didnt nothing wrong and thus a pardon isnt required

If they had "extended" all passports to the 31/07 then that would have also included people on overstay previous to the Covid outbreak. Can you see Thai immigration just giving extensions to people on 1, 2 year overstays ?! Unless of course the staff went through every passport in the country to find out who was on an overstay anyway and not extend theirs. Can you see where this is going ? lol. It would have been chaos. OR....they can just say any stamp expiring after a certain date is pardoned and the officer will check your stamp was after this date. 1 minutes work vs days of work !! 

[Benitostacos]

52 minutes ago, bestie said:

The article by Reuters is more interesting. It says, “we will allow visa requests from 1 August to 26 September”. This suggests that rather than an extension of the amnesty, people will be able to buy new visas without leaving the country. ‬

‪

Again, this is NOT official yet. ‬

 

Source: Richard Barrow in Thailand

Although nothing is official and this is all speculation thus far, it does seem the government is "mulling" towards the right direction, so I do have some hope. *fingers crossed

[PhoSai]

3 minutes ago, Benitostacos said:

Although nothing is official and this is all speculation thus far, it does seem the government is "mulling" towards the right direction, so I do have some hope. *fingers crossed

It does seem the direction is good yes. I think they need to bite the bullet though and just call it another extension to the amnesty but make it clear its the last one so extend or leave.

[toenail]

Does anyone know the number of so called “stranded foreigners” on these special extension visas? Their stay (4 months so far) must be benefiting some parts of the tourist businesses that are desperate for a few customers.

[CorpusChristie]

10 minutes ago, PhoSai said:

If they had "extended" all passports to the 31/07 then that would have also included people on overstay previous to the Covid outbreak. Can you see Thai immigration just giving extensions to people on 1, 2 year overstays ?! Unless of course the staff went through every passport in the country to find out who was on an overstay anyway and not extend theirs. Can you see where this is going ? lol. It would have been chaos. OR....they can just say any stamp expiring after a certain date is pardoned and the officer will check your stamp was after this date. 1 minutes work vs days of work !! 

No, the visa extensions were only for those that going on overstay AFTER March 26 th .

Anyone who was on overstay before that date, didnt qualify for the automatic free extension 

[saakura]

52 minutes ago, bestie said:

The article by Reuters is more interesting. It says, “we will allow visa requests from 1 August to 26 September”. This suggests that rather than an extension of the amnesty, people will be able to buy new visas without leaving the country. ‬

‪

Again, this is NOT official yet. ‬

 

Source: Richard Barrow in Thailand

Yes, just more money to be made.

[GeorgeCross]

38 minutes ago, Timwin said:

It sounds like they will act as a "virtual" embassy and handle visa requests as any Thai embassy abroad. If you get denied then you have to leave no later than 26th of September.

this would be a most sensible option right now

 

lets hope thats how they are proposing it too

 

 

[PhoSai]

1 minute ago, CorpusChristie said:

No, the visa extensions were only for those that going on overstay AFTER March 26 th .

Anyone who was on overstay before that date, didnt qualify for the automatic free extension 

Right, so that means staff would have had to go through the database to find those people who qualify and then only extend those who do. Whats more they would also need to go through the data base and exclude passports which already have extensions later than the 31st July, so as to not mess up their permission. Cant see all of that happening..lol. But anyway the result is the same I suppose.

[Yorkshire Tea]

1 minute ago, PhoSai said:

Right, so that means staff would have had to go through the database to find those people who qualify and then only extend those who do. Whats more they would also need to go through the data base and exclude passports which already have extensions later than the 31st July, so as to not mess up their permission. Cant see all of that happening..lol. But anyway the result is the same I suppose.

Or, just check your passport next time you meet immigration officer, either at the border or an immigration office.

[ozz1]

It would be great if we can extend our  visas in Thailand  instead of doing border bounces as all the borders are closed anyway and im sure people dont mind paying  for a extension  you have to pay to get in to Laos anyway so us on non o visa married to a thai hopefully will be able to get another when the borders do open later

[PhoSai]

4 minutes ago, Yorkshire Tea said:

Or, just check your passport next time you meet immigration officer, either at the border or an immigration office.

Yep, which would imply an amnesty not an extension. With the amnesty an officer simply checks your last stamp was post 26th March - 1 minute. If everyone who was eligible was actually extended in the Thai database that would have taken loads of work. Work which would have been done for free. Can we see immigration doing all that for no fees ?!

Edited July 17, 2020 by PhoSai