Hi, I left a school recently and was told that my non-b visa will expire at the end of this month. I plan to join another school soon and a few questions are coming up:

 

1- Do I need to leave the country and reenter with a tourist visa before joining the new school? In the past I was able to transfer from one school to another without having to leave.

 

2- If I reenter the country with a tourist visa and join a school, will it be necessary to leave the country again to apply for a non-b visa abroad?

 

My goal is to have as much time as possible to find the right school without having to leave the country. This may not be possible. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, if I need to leave the country to change visas, which place would you recommend at the moment? Thanks in advance.

 

Do you currently have a permission to stay directly from a non-B visa, or did you get an extension for working?

1 minute ago, FriendlyFarang said:

Do you currently have a permission to stay directly from a , or did you get an extension for working?

Extension for working. I got my original non-B in Vientiane many years ago and have been extending ever since. I changed schools during the pandemic without having to leave the country but I'm not sure if the rules have changed.

53 minutes ago, Robbkk said:

Extension for working. I got my original non-B in Vientiane many years ago and have been extending ever since. I changed schools during the pandemic without having to leave the country but I'm not sure if the rules have changed.

When you stop working at your current school, your extended permission to stay is supposed to immediately end. You should, with a letter from your school that indicates your last day of employment, go to Immigration to have your permission to stay terminated as of that date. If you already have a contract to start work at a new school, it is theoretically possibly (though usually difficult in practice) to simultaneously get a new extension of stay based on employment by the new school. Certainly, it was easier during the height of the Covid epidemic, not least because you were for a long period allowed to stay in Thailand although your employment had ceased.

Your extension of stay based on working ends the day you stop working. It might be that the school meant to say that they will inform immigration by the end of the month with a delayed date for not working