21 hours ago, freeworld said:

US citizens are theoretically rich.

 

Can just buy an elite visa and stay/enter however many times as one likes.

 

Funny that you mentioned it. I applied for Thai Elite to lock in the old price. The application is still pending but I'm not sure that I will pay for it if they approve me because of all the BS with taxes on foreign income and remittances. That's why im asking about alternatives, such as spending winters in TH on tourist visas and staying the rest of the year elsewhere. 

19 hours ago, Jaggg88 said:

The reason the staff tell you it is correct is because they don't know any difference - despite where they work they are not experts.

True, like the one that tried to tell me I must have an Embassy income letter for a retirement extension as well as having 1,600,000 Baht in a Thai bank account.

How long you can stay is a guessing game to be honest, and it depends completely on what immigration officer you run into. However, be prepared for questioning some time around the 10-12 month mark at the latest. If you want to stay 6 months out of a year its usually not a problem as long as you can show the usual: ticket out of Thailand, 20k baht in cash, hotel booking, and a bank statement or document that convinces the IO that your income is coming from another country than Thailand.

 

If you want to stay a longer time, you can minimize the risk of questioning with land borders that are friendly (Friendship bridge in Laos for example), or visa run agents (like www.thaivisaservice.com). Also, there is a multiple entry visa for up to 9 months or so.

"Recently a rule was introduced that limits visa-exempt entries to a max of 90 days in a 180 day period starting from the first entry."

 

Two days ago I asked this at Jomtien 1st processing step.

She said "3 visa free entries Plus 2 extensions OK"

That's 150 days.

Works fine for me.

 

However, I believe it's the imm agent who has the last say.

 

 

On 11/7/2023 at 4:53 AM, eisfeld said:

 

 

Can you provide any evidence that the 90 day per 180 days rule is not applied? I quoted directly from the official website of my local german Thai consolute which on the same page has very recent information about new rules so it's not some outdated forgotten page. It was also confirmed to me by the staff two weeks ago.

As DrJack54 stated, they are wrong. This is common on a big amount of embassy website all over the world. They have all from outdated info and wrong info, to missing a lot of information.