Why Do You Even Drink?

[Lee4Life]

    My wife and I have (or had) valid Non-O O/A Multiple Entry E-Visas acquired in the States. We went back to the States for three months and upon re-entry at Savarnabhumi yesterday we were asked for proof of insurance and also for the Visa approval confirmation sent to us when we applied for the visa. This was the first time we had re-entered through Swampy on the e-visas, we had always had the old visa stickers before, and additional paperwork had never been required, I didn't understand that even with a valid multiple entry visa in our passports they would require additional documents, so I didn't have them. I was only able to show them the visa approval letter that was still in my phone, but that was not sufficient and they stamped us in for thirty days, telling us to sort things out at our local Immigration office (NongKhai), or go to Savanahket to get a new visa. I thought I was up on all of the new requirements, but I totally missed this one. It is my hope that others may benefit from our experience and be sure to bring your e-visa approval letter and proof of insurance when re-entering Thailand on multiple re-entry O/A visas, even if you have not had any problems previously. (My wife had been across to Laos and back in at the bridge with no troubles). 

[Upnotover]

If you have a valid non-OA e-visa of course you need to carry it with you to enter.  What actually do you have in your passport? "even with a valid multiple entry visa in our passports"

[DrJack54]

OP, a non O-A has a validity of 12 months from date of issue.

Is your non O-A still valid.

If you enter anytime during the validity of the visa you will be stamped in for 12 months. 

After the validity of the non O-A your permission of stay requires a reentry permit along with insurance. 

With an eVisa that is just an approval email and requires you to show hardcopy print out. 

 

Side note: seems that the io stamped you in visa exempt. No idea why only a 30 day stamp when visa exempt entry is currently 60 days.

 

You mentioned that you returned to USA for 3 months.

Do you plan ongoing living in Thailand? If so there are better options than both having non O-A visas. 

[Liquorice]

What date was your O-A visa issued (it's on the visa).
It's valid to enter Thailand for 12 months from the date of issue, each entry permits a stay of 12 months, but the period of stay is limited to the expiry date of the mandatory Health Insurance. It's possible your visa was still valid, but your original Health insurance had expired.

To obtain a further 12-month period of stay, on re-entry, you would require a valid Health Insurance policy to cover that 12 month period.

 

The IO has allowed you to enter Visa exempt, but the entry permit should have been for 60 days, not 30 days.

Your local Immigration office may be able to amend that date.

 

Next question is how long do you intend to stay for?

[Liquorice]

6 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

previously. (My wife had been across to Laos and back in at the bridge with no troubles). 

It's quite common for folks to obtain the Health Insurance in order to apply for the 0-A visa, without post dating it to start from the date you intend to enter Thailand.

Therefore, by the time you obtain the visa and enter Thailand the Insurance cover is now 6 weeks old, and you only receive permission of stay for 46 weeks rather than 52 weeks.

When your wife crossed the border and re-entered, she would have been stamped in again to the original date when you first entered, which was subject to the expiry date of your Insurance. All the dates are on your stamps.

[Lee4Life]

That may be the case for some, but our insurance is still valid and did not start until the day we entered Thailand, it matches the period of our visas. The I/O in charge said the problem was that we could not prove we had valid insurance because we did not have the insurance documents with us. That was my fault, I assumed we didn't need the documents because the e-visa stamp was in our passport and I thought that was proof enough that we met all of the requirements, such as having had the notice of visa approval and insurance documents on our first entry into the country.  

[Lee4Life]

17 hours ago, Liquorice said:

What date was your O-A visa issued (it's on the visa).
It's valid to enter Thailand for 12 months from the date of issue, each entry permits a stay of 12 months, but the period of stay is limited to the expiry date of the mandatory Health Insurance. It's possible your visa was still valid, but your original Health insurance had expired.

To obtain a further 12-month period of stay, on re-entry, you would require a valid Health Insurance policy to cover that 12 month period.

 

The IO has allowed you to enter Visa exempt, but the entry permit should have been for 60 days, not 30 days.

Your local Immigration office may be able to amend that date.

 

Next question is how long do you intend to stay for?

   Our intent is to stay for nine months, our usual process is to obtain the Non O/A visa in the States and then on the last day it is valid to cross the border and re-enter, and by doing so be stamped in for an additional year, (O/A visas get stamped in for one year from the date of entry every time), then purchase re-entry permits for that year. In effect it stretches a one year O/A visa to two years. There is not a lot of savings in this method due to the price of the re-entry permits, but it does save the hassle of doing all of the paperwork required for a new visa every year. Looking at our paperwork I can see that the period they stamped us in for matches the expiration of our insurance policy and also the "good until" date of our visa. It could be that there was a miscommunication, the I/O clearly stated that we were given thirty days because we did not have proof of insurance, but it may very well be that the real issue may have been that they couldn't stamp us in for for a longer period of time than our medical insurance was valid for. In any case the local Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year. All is well that ends well.

Edited 13 hours ago by Lee4Life

[flexomike]

5 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

   Our intent is to stay for nine months, our usual process is to obtain the Non O/A visa in the States and then on the last day it is valid to cross the border and re-enter, and by doing so be stamped in for an additional year, (O/A visas get stamped in for one year from the date of entry every time), then purchase re-entry permits for that year. In effect it stretches a one year O/A visa to two years. There is not a lot of savings in this method due to the price of the re-entry permits, but it does save the hassle of doing all of the paperwork required for a new visa every year. Looking at our paperwork I can see that the period they stamped us in for matches the expiration of our insurance policy and also the "good until" date of our visa. It could be that there was a miscommunication, the I/O clearly stated that we were given thirty days because we did not have proof of insurance, but it may very well be that the real issue may have been that they couldn't stamp us in for for a longer period of time than our medical insurance was valid for. In any case the local Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year. All is well that ends well.

your entry is only valid for the length of your insurance policy, if you leave Thailand and come back in you should be given a permission of stay up until the expiration date of your insurance policy

 

[Upnotover]

5 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year. All is well that ends well.

And be sure to take a printed copy of your e-visa.  I'm unsure what you refer to when you say "the e-visa stamp was in our passport" but it isn't your visa.

[Liquorice]

7 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

Looking at our paperwork I can see that the period they stamped us in for matches the expiration of our insurance policy and also the "good until" date of our visa.

 

7 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

In any case the local Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year. All is well that ends well.

That second statement contradicts your first statement in regards the expiry date of your 0-A visa.

What is the 'valid until' date on the visa?

[Lee4Life]

1 hour ago, Liquorice said:

 

That second statement contradicts your first statement in regards the expiry date of your 0-A visa.

What is the 'valid until' date on the visa?

not contradictory... I didn't list a date our visas expired, or were good until. I simply stated that they were valid when we entered at the airport, and that the local Immigration office advised us to exit across to Laos the final day of the visas and then return the same day, and if we showed insurance coverage for the next year we would be stamped in for one year.

why do you need a "valid until date"? The visas were valid for thirty more days when we entered at Savarnabhumi the day before yesterday. 

 

[Lee4Life]

3 hours ago, Upnotover said:

And be sure to take a printed copy of your e-visa.  I'm unsure what you refer to when you say "the e-visa stamp was in our passport" but it isn't your visa.

The entry stamp in our passport obtained at the airport when we first arrived using the e-visa approval letter and insurance documents has the words, "Non-O/A" and "e-Visa" written on it. Sorry if that was confusing. The document you are referring to as  "a printed copy of your e-visa" must be the "notice of e-visa approval" that we used on our initial entry I would guess. I haven't seen a document that says that it is the actual e-visa. I guess I get confused by all of the different terms, After being here for eighteen years the whole e-visa deal is hard for me to get used to, getting old I guess. 

[Lee4Life]

On 10/10/2024 at 7:10 AM, DrJack54 said:

OP, a non O-A has a validity of 12 months from date of issue.

Is your non O-A still valid.

If you enter anytime during the validity of the visa you will be stamped in for 12 months. 

After the validity of the non O-A your permission of stay requires a reentry permit along with insurance. 

With an eVisa that is just an approval email and requires you to show hardcopy print out. 

 

Side note: seems that the io stamped you in visa exempt. No idea why only a 30 day stamp when visa exempt entry is currently 60 days.

 

You mentioned that you returned to USA for 3 months.

Do you plan ongoing living in Thailand? If so there are better options than both having non O-A visas. 

The visa is still valid, but only for another month after our entry the day before yesterday. The I/O was questioned by my wife about why we weren't given sixty days, the answer was that the 60 day rule is not in effect yet.        We have been staying in Thailand nine months out of every year for eighteen years now.         The I/O at the local office our niece took our documents to yesterday told her that they don't see Non O O/A visas much at all anymore because most people who were using them before are now using other visas that allow 90 days at a time and are allowed to be extended twice. She said it requires 800,000 baht in the bank. I'm not sure what they were talking about. If it matters my wife and I are both US citizens, the wife is not Thai.

[Lee4Life]

4 hours ago, flexomike said:

your entry is only valid for the length of your insurance policy, if you leave Thailand and come back in you should be given a permission of stay up until the expiration date of your insurance policy

 

Using our previous Non-O O/A visa we were stamped in for one more year on the last day our visa was valid, the I/O did not ask for proof that we had renewed our insurance even though we had it. I would say it just depends on the I/O, or maybe point of entry?

[Upnotover]

56 minutes ago, Lee4Life said:

The entry stamp in our passport obtained at the airport when we first arrived using the e-visa approval letter and insurance documents has the words, "Non-O/A" and "e-Visa" written on it. Sorry if that was confusing. The document you are referring to as  "a printed copy of your e-visa" must be the "notice of e-visa approval" that we used on our initial entry I would guess. I haven't seen a document that says that it is the actual e-visa. I guess I get confused by all of the different terms, After being here for eighteen years the whole e-visa deal is hard for me to get used to, getting old I guess. 

Yes, take the email or they should actually have attached a more formal version of it.  This is where immigration can see your visa issue and expiry dates, etc.  And can verify it by scanning the QR code on it.

 

The stamp in your passport is just your entry stamp.  They always write the basis on entry - Non O, TR, OA, etc and when it's an e-visa they write that as well, but the stamp itself is not a visa.

Edited 3 hours ago by Upnotover

[Liquorice]

1 hour ago, Lee4Life said:

why do you need a "valid until date"? The visas were valid for thirty more days when we entered at Savarnabhumi the day before yesterday. 

From what you've stated, you were only granted a stay of 30 days that being the expiry date of your current Insurance policy.

Had you renewed your policy for another year, you would have been stamped in until Oct 2025.

 

47 minutes ago, Lee4Life said:

The I/O was questioned by my wife about why we weren't given sixty days, the answer was that the 60 day rule is not in effect yet.  

The 60 day entry only applies to VE entries (entry without a visa) and have been issued since 15th July.

You entered with a still valid O-A visa, albeit for only 30 days, so that's why you only received a 30 day stamp.

 

10 hours ago, Lee4Life said:

In any case the local Immigration Office advised us that if we extended our health insurance for one year and went across the border and back on the last day our visa is valid they will stamp us in for one year.

That is correct.

If you renew your Insurance policy to Oct 2025, border run and re-enter whilst the visa is still valid, you will be stamped in for a further 12 months, or until the expiry date of the Insurance policy.

 

57 minutes ago, Lee4Life said:

The I/O at the local office our niece took our documents to yesterday told her that they don't see Non O O/A visas much at all anymore because most people who were using them before are now using other visas that allow 90 days at a time and are allowed to be extended twice. She said it requires 800,000 baht in the bank. I'm not sure what they were talking about. If it matters my wife and I are both US citizens, the wife is not Thai.

Ignore that. They were talking about the Non O multiple entry visa, which is not available applying through the e-visa system.
Very few Thai Embassies offer this type of visa any more, particularly based on retirement.

 

You're obviously aware the O-A visa can permit a stay of up to 2 years, but that is subject to the expiry date of any Insurance, which is currently 3M BHT,
When you next renew your O-A visa, just be aware for the second entry you need to update your Insurance for a further year before entry.

The good news is that Thailand's Ministry of Affairs have announced that by the end of this year they plan to reduce the mandatory Insurance for the O-A visa from the current 3M BHT requirement, to 400,000 BHT inpatient, 40,000 outpatients.

That should be in effect for your next O-A application.

[DrJack54]

OP, the above post is very clear and yes you can obtain almost 2 years out of a Non O-A visa.

Just be aware that when the visa expires you need to buy a reentry permit for your "second year" permission of stay if you exit and reenter Thailand 

[Liquorice]

14 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

OP, the above post is very clear and yes you can obtain almost 2 years out of a Non O-A visa.

Just be aware that when the visa expires you need to buy a reentry permit for your "second year" permission of stay if you exit and reenter Thailand 

A very valid point I omitted from my above post.

The validity of a visa is the period where you can enter Thailand, whereas the period of stay is totally separate.

Once the visa expires, so does the multiple entry facility it offers.

If you enter just prior to the expiry date of the visa, you will be granted a further stay of 1 year, subject to the Insurance expiry date.
If you intend to leave and re-enter during the second year, to protect any permission of stay already granted, you need to purchase a re-entry permit.