Exit Thailand at end of NonB extention, then re-enter on a 60-day tourist visa-exempt stamp?

[guyfromtheweb2]

My non-b-visa-extension, work permit, and job contract all end on January 31st this year.  I do plan to return to my home country, but in a couple of months when it gets warmer.  I would like to stay in Thailand for a couple of more months before I go home. Is it possible to do the following:

 

1. Simply exit Thailand on January 30th or 31st (no overstay) to visit a nearby Asian country for a few days to a week.  
2. Re-enter Thailand in early February, maybe Feb. 5th, on a 60-day-tourist-visa-exempt stamp.  (My country gives us citizens 60-day visa exemptions for Thailand now.)
3. Resume my normal life, not working of course, but staying in the same condo that I rented while on my non-b and work permit without any additional paper work. 
4. Exit Thailand for good to my home country within the allowed 60-days of my tourist visa-exemption, maybe April 2nd.

 

Will this work? 

Any bureaucratic steps that I may be missing?

Do I have to go to immigration and the labor office to cancel my non-b-extension and work permit before I Jan. 31st or will they automatically cancel when they both expire on that date?

 

[DrJack54]

Bumping your thread as didn't receive a reply.

Hopefully someone with first hand knowledge will post.

Here is short thread that makes some points. 

The other part of your plan re exit and at some point reenter visa exempt is fine. 

 

[bigt3116]

To be honest the quoted thread is useless as the OP never said if he was on a visa or extension.

 

However, for the OP of this thread, your simple process should be;

 

Get a letter of termination from your employer, this can be post-dated

 

Take the letter to Labour and cancel your work permit, (it will be cancelled for the post-dated date).

 

Take confirmation from Labour to immigration and they will cancel your extension, (again on the post-dated date).

 

Leave on or before 31 Jan and you are good to go.

 

🙂

[guyfromtheweb2]

4 hours ago, bigt3116 said:

. . . the OP never said if he was on a visa or extension.

 

However, for the OP of this thread, your simple process should be;

 

Get a letter of termination from your employer, this can be post-dated

 

Take the letter to Labour and cancel your work permit, (it will be cancelled for the post-dated date).

 

Take confirmation from Labour to immigration and they will cancel your extension, (again on the post-dated date).

 

Leave on or before 31 Jan and you are good to go.

 

🙂

 

In your first sentence,  are you talking about me, the OP of this thread? Or the OP of the thread that DrJack54 quoted? 

 

If you were referring to me, I think I made it clear in this thread title and in my first sentence that I was on a non-b-extension.

 

I was hoping to skip the hassle of getting termination letters from my job, labor dept., and immigration.  My job contract, visa, and WP all expire Jan. 31st. Do I really need to get termination docs if everything expires anyway?

 

I think I will just risk it, not do anything, exit Thailand on Jan 30th, and try to return as a tourist in Feb after all my stuff expired. I won't even bother to pay my taxes or do any more 90-day reports because I am done being an expat. Back to being a tourist. lol. I doubt they will turn me away at the border.  

 

I will update this thread with how it all pans out.

[Briggsy]

11 minutes ago, guyfromtheweb2 said:

I think I will just risk it, not do anything, exit Thailand on Jan 30th, and try to return as a tourist in Feb after all my stuff expired. I won't even bother to pay my taxes or do any more 90-day reports because I am done being an expat. Back to being a tourist. lol. I doubt they will turn me away at the border.  

That will work from the permission to stay perspective.

 

However if you ever wish to get a work permit in Thailand again or even do extensions based on other reasons, you may encounter issues.

[bigt3116]

4 hours ago, guyfromtheweb2 said:

In your first sentence,  are you talking about me, the OP of this thread? Or the OP of the thread that DrJack54 quoted? 

 

The one DrJack quoted  🙂

[bigt3116]

4 hours ago, Briggsy said:

That will work from the permission to stay perspective.

 

However if you ever wish to get a work permit in Thailand again or even do extensions based on other reasons, you may encounter issues.

 

OP listen to this advice

[kuantalo]

i have similar situation here, but im going back in 2 days before my extension (non-ib) expires. Havent done wp cancellation (not planning to apply wp anysoon) There is re-entry permit in my passport, should i mention it to officer that im not coming back as worker? or is it very clear for them because there is only 2 days left in my visa 😅😆 wish me a luck, going to cross border tomorrow.

[kuantalo]

12 hours ago, kuantalo said:

i have similar situation here, but im going back in 2 days before my extension (non-ib) expires. Havent done wp cancellation (not planning to apply wp anysoon) There is re-entry permit in my passport, should i mention it to officer that im not coming back as worker? or is it very clear for them because there is only 2 days left in my visa 😅😆 wish me a luck, going to cross border tomorrow.

well, didnt go as planned. I had re-entry stamp and they stamped me in with same non-b that is till 27nov. But it has been terminated starting from 15.1.2025 from 1 stop service.

 

IO told me that its okay if you dont work you can still stay till nov.... i know its not true and i tried to explain this situation to her 3 times and showed the document from 1 stop service that states my visa is going to be terminated from 15...and she just smiled and said maipenrai you can stay. 😅 so... i have no idea what to do now. There is new stamp (re entry till 27nov. Should i believe her? i guess not. 

 

 

 

[guyfromtheweb2]

15 hours ago, kuantalo said:

i have similar situation here, but im going back in 2 days before my extension (non-ib) expires. Havent done wp cancellation (not planning to apply wp anysoon) There is re-entry permit in my passport, should i mention it to officer that im not coming back as worker? or is it very clear for them because there is only 2 days left in my visa 😅😆 wish me a luck, going to cross border tomorrow.

 

3 hours ago, kuantalo said:

well, didnt go as planned. I had re-entry stamp and they stamped me in with same non-b that is till 27nov. But it has been terminated starting from 15.1.2025 from 1 stop service.

 

IO told me that its okay if you dont work you can still stay till nov.... i know its not true and i tried to explain this situation to her 3 times and showed the document from 1 stop service that states my visa is going to be terminated from 15...and she just smiled and said maipenrai you can stay. 😅 so... i have no idea what to do now. There is new stamp (re entry till 27nov. Should i believe her? i guess not. 

 

 

 

Your non-b-extension expires on January 15, 2025,  but you have a re-entry permit that expires on November 27, 2025?!  How is this possible?  I thought re-entry permits always expire the same day a visa or visa-extension expires.

 

I am assuming that your original non-b-extension from your job was set to expire on Nov. 27th, which is shown in your passport.  You previously got a re-entry permit that also expired on Nov. 27th.  Then you decided to quit the job before that expiration, so your job cancelled your non-b-extension (in some Thai immigration system) effective on Jan. 15th, which is NOT visibly shown in your passport.  Is this the case?  Do you have proof that your visa-extension was cancelled effective Jan. 15th? If so, then that immigration officer (IO) should be able to see in some system that your visa expires on Jan. 15th, after which date you will be on overstay.

[guyfromtheweb2]

Update:  Everything worked out fine.  Here is an update:

 

Jan. 31st - My WP, non-B visa extension stamp, and job contract all expired.  I exited Thailand on this day and visited another country for a week.  

 

Feb. 7th - I re-entered Thailand and received a 60-day tourist visa-exemption stamp with no issues.  The immigration officer did ask me to confirm that I was not working, which I confirmed with no more details.

 

Apr. 2nd - I exited Thailand for good with all of my bags and moved back to my home country.

 

I gave my Thailand job the proper 30-days notice on January 1st and left on good terms.  However, I DID NOT make any trips to the labor office or immigration to cancel my WP and visa extension stamp.  My job said they would cancel the WP for me, with just copies of it, but I'm not sure if they did.  I still have the physical WP in my possession even though it expired. I will keep the WP as a souvenir.  

 

I also did not pay my taxes this year (they only check this when renew your WP).

I did not do any recent 90-day reporting (they only check when you renew a long-term visa).

I did not submit a new TM-30 when moving my residence for the final two months.  

 

I know people will say that I may have trouble in the future if I come back to Thailand to work again or get a long-term visa (like retirement), but I don't care.  This is not in my plan.  If it does happen several years from now and Thailand prevents me from doing such because of all these things I didn't do in present day, I will just bust out laughing.  With all the slow bureaucratic processes and outright scams I have endured in Thailand over the years, it feels nice to finally shove it up Thailand's ass.

 

One last thing.  From this day forward, all of my signatures will be in black ink or digital, like the modern world.  I never want to see a blue pen again. 

[Tomtomtom69]

14 hours ago, guyfromtheweb2 said:

Update:  Everything worked out fine.  Here is an update:

 

Jan. 31st - My WP, non-B visa extension stamp, and job contract all expired.  I exited Thailand on this day and visited another country for a week.  

 

Feb. 7th - I re-entered Thailand and received a 60-day tourist visa-exemption stamp with no issues.  The immigration officer did ask me to confirm that I was not working, which I confirmed with no more details.

 

Apr. 2nd - I exited Thailand for good with all of my bags and moved back to my home country.

 

I gave my Thailand job the proper 30-days notice on January 1st and left on good terms.  However, I DID NOT make any trips to the labor office or immigration to cancel my WP and visa extension stamp.  My job said they would cancel the WP for me, with just copies of it, but I'm not sure if they did.  I still have the physical WP in my possession even though it expired. I will keep the WP as a souvenir.  

 

I also did not pay my taxes this year (they only check this when renew your WP).

I did not do any recent 90-day reporting (they only check when you renew a long-term visa).

I did not submit a new TM-30 when moving my residence for the final two months.  

 

I know people will say that I may have trouble in the future if I come back to Thailand to work again or get a long-term visa (like retirement), but I don't care.  This is not in my plan.  If it does happen several years from now and Thailand prevents me from doing such because of all these things I didn't do in present day, I will just bust out laughing.  With all the slow bureaucratic processes and outright scams I have endured in Thailand over the years, it feels nice to finally shove it up Thailand's ass.

 

One last thing.  From this day forward, all of my signatures will be in black ink or digital, like the modern world.  I never want to see a blue pen again. 

Not doing a TM30 isn't a big deal and you'll only pay a fine if you don't do a TM47 90 day report (BUT I don't know whether that would apply if say, one day, you decided to move back on a long term visa...I'd say probably not). Taxes, no issue either to be honest especially if you don't come back for a few years. 

[BrandonJT]

18 hours ago, guyfromtheweb2 said:

I gave my Thailand job the proper 30-days notice on January 1st and left on good terms.  However, I DID NOT make any trips to the labor office or immigration to cancel my WP and visa extension stamp.  My job said they would cancel the WP for me, with just copies of it, but I'm not sure if they did.  I still have the physical WP in my possession even though it expired. I will keep the WP as a souvenir.  

If you have a new passport by the time you return, for some reason that seems to magically solve most of the potential problems.  Despite the fact they have everything right there in the computer.