Here is cut and paste from one poster... There are many others.

Enough.

"She looked at my bank book and saw the very dodgy 800K going in and out on the same day. And that was even with my having well over 800K in the bank for a year".

2 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

Here is cut and paste from one poster... There are many others.

Enough.

"She looked at my bank book and saw the very dodgy 800K going in and out on the same day. And that was even with my having well over 800K in the bank for a year".

That looks like a dodgy IO, Todd already established using an agent is a valid extension

"Let's get this out of the way first; visas/extensions that are agent gotten (even ones where they bank the funds for you for a matter of minutes) are REAL immigration stamps, from REAL immigration offices by REAL immigration officers and they are indeed valid.."

I'll rest my case there, no need to reply

Some poor advice in this thread apart post earlier from @Tod Daniels

To change to DIY after use of agent best policy is to "start over"

That process has been posted in thread.

It's very easy for io to see how previous extension was obtained.

Been outlined in detail in many threads.

I would even take extra step of new bank account to avoid scrutiny

14 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Just need to have 12-13 months financials if switching away from agent, worked for me

Parroting that comment over and over does not lend any more credibility to your claim...☹️

If an agent banked the money for you and you didn't have your own 800k already in the bank to meet the seasoning requirements (800k for 3 months after the extension was granted and then never before 400k the rest of the year) when you submit your documentation for the next extension immigrations would see that by the year detail transaction report you are required to turn in.

Also your "I haven't seen one post" comment doesn't cut any ice either..

I know more than a few people who came off the rails trying to go from under the table agent gotten visa/extensions to above the table extensions on their own.

Most either had to pay a "special free" to pull it off or had to leave, get off the agent gotten stamps and either get a new non O at a nearby consulate, or come back in free stamp and apply for the non o in country and after that the new year extension.

It's definitely not as easy as your make it out to be getting off that slippery slope of agent gotten extensions..

And just so everyone understand what a "one-&-done" visa/extension looks like
Here's some old images I found on an agents F/B advertisement
It is physically impossible for a person to pull off ALL these stamps on the same day
and
it is a GIANT red flag to any immigration officer looking at those stamps if you're going for the following year extension..

14 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

I'll rest my case there, no need to reply

Careful your ignorance is starting to show again 😶

That the stamps are from a real office, by a real officer doesn't mean you can use them to get the following year extension on your own.

What's up with you feeling the need to beat your horn, toot your drum over the fact you were able to go from agent gotten extensions to one on your own.

I'd chalk your experience up to either a total fluke, an inattentive immigration officer OR you did it before they changed the seasoning requirements for banked money retirement extensions to the 3 months after then not below 400K the rest of the year..

Never the less, feel free to continue bloviating if you must 😆

1 hour ago, Tod Daniels said:

Parroting that comment over and over does not lend any more credibility to your claim...☹️

If an agent banked the money for you and you didn't have your own 800k already in the bank to meet the seasoning requirements (800k for 3 months after the extension was granted and then never before 400k the rest of the year) when you submit your documentation for the next extension immigrations would see that by the year detail transaction report you are required to turn in.

Also your "I haven't seen one post" comment doesn't cut any ice either..

I know more than a few people who came off the rails trying to go from under the table agent gotten visa/extensions to above the table extensions on their own.

Most either had to pay a "special free" to pull it off or had to leave, get off the agent gotten stamps and either get a new non O at a nearby consulate, or come back in free stamp and apply for the non o in country and after that the new year extension.

It's definitely not as easy as your make it out to be getting off that slippery slope of agent gotten extensions..

You're wrong, you provide 12-13 months of financials, it's all correct per the rules, Immigration should accept it, they did for me, why don't you guys get it? if they don't accept it for whatever reason then leave and get a new non imm O, nothing lost

6 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

You're wrong, you provide 12-13 months of financials, it's all correct per the rules, Immigration should accept it, they did for me, why don't you guys get it?

Stop with the nonsense.

My first post regarding DIY after using agent started with this....

"Can be hit and miss."

An immigration office/officer MAY process the extension if you show 14 months of correct financials (800k + etc)

Seems you were successful. Plenty not so.

Individual experience is just that and can be misleading.

Repeat for others... Best option is to start over as explained earlier in thread.

2 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

Stop with the nonsense.

My first post regarding DIY after using agent started with this....

"Can be hit and miss."

An immigration office/officer MAY process the extension if you show 14 months of correct financials (800k + etc)

Seems you were successful. Plenty not so.

Individual experience is just that and can be misleading.

Repeat for others... Best option is to start over as explained earlier in thread.

Just because you two say it's nonsense doesn't mean it is, the same immigration officer who signed off the valid extension the year before isn't suddenly going to say it wasn't valid after all, and the financials are correct all year so no reason to not accept, but i realise you two can't get your head round it, i recommend people look on Facebook for better advice, many groups available.

I'll leave it there, i can see it's pointless continuing

it is disgusting that corruption makes people who follow all the rules, lose half a day waiting for this yearly crap show... there are camera's everywhere, so they all know about it, but greasing the wheels

and no wonder those ass officers make it so difficult with unwritten rules and demands for more papers, to push you to use the hand that feeds the through

11 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

I'll leave it there, i can see it's pointless continuing

At least on this we agree 100% 😄

I was on a business Visa for 15 years. I needed to convert it to a retirement Visa or rather a retirement extension. I was told by a few that it couldn't be done without leaving Thailand and coming back. I was recommended to an agent that is very popular here in Pattaya. They were able to do it and every year I have them do my visa extension based on the retirement. It cost me 6000 more to have them do it then if I did it myself. I have the money in the bank and another reason I have the agent do it is they're able to do it 90 days ahead of expiration. When I asked at immigration they told me it could only be done 30 days in advance. Also it's never taken more than 24 hours to get my passport back if I drop it off at 9:00 a.m. when the office opens and I pick it up afternoon the following day. Sure I could save a little bit of money and I have more time than money for sure but it's worth avoiding any headaches.

6 minutes ago, hereforgood said:

I was told by a few that it couldn't be done without leaving Thailand and coming back.

you were told nonsense and you probably created the problem yourself by saying you wanted a 'retirement visa' (which you did not really want/need)

I am also doubtful you were on ANY visa for those years, and I'd be dollars to durian if you looked at the stamps in your passport you'd see they would say "extension of stay permitted until" <- that is NOT a visa, that is an extension and people routinely change the reason for their extension without any issue at all

You would have cancelled the current extension based on employment and you would have immediately applied for a new yearly extension based on retirement by meeting the requirements. You could have pushed your own paper IF you'd went to the immigration office and asked how to "change the reason for an extension"

This topic reminds me of my brother's large mortgage many years ago. I asked him how he could afford it. 'Regular overtime at work' was his answer. I suggested that regular overtime is not guaranteed and was a risk to rely on it. No, he said, I've been doing it for years. Around six months later, his employer tightened up and overtime was cut.

I've always done my own extensions. I wouldn't use an agent because things sometimes change and I want to keep my stay in Thailand as low-risk as possible.

Well I'd be the last to argue with Tod and others. My visa experience is limited with only 1 serious hiccup where they tried to extort me but I resolved that easily enough by refusing.

I understand that the agent obtained stamps are legal stamps, issued by real IOs etc. But surely the case can be made that some if not many are obtained by fraudulent means and declarations ...?

Off topic post removed

On 3/29/2026 at 10:14 AM, Tod Daniels said:

Let's get this out of the way first; visas/extensions that are agent gotten (even ones where they bank the funds for you for a matter of minutes) are REAL immigration stamps, from REAL immigration offices by REAL immigration officers and they are indeed valid..

Yes, just like a REAL passport, issued by a REAL govt passport office by a REAL govt employee -- can be CONSIDERED valid. But if it was obtained with a phony birth certificate, it is only functionally valid -- until (or if) the illegality of the application is discovered. In which case, it becomes an invalid passport.

Anyway, fun with semantics. And, yes, history has shown visa extensions obtained with phony data will not be found out as "not valid." So, I guess, the end justifies the means. Having said that: There really is a difference between an "above board agent" and a "below board agent." But since this difference in Thailand is only one of ethics, not practicality -- who cares, since no one is apparently getting hurt.

On 3/28/2026 at 4:55 PM, scubascuba3 said:

Immigration love it if you use an agent, they oil the cogs for everyone else, you get treated like a VIP unlike if you DIY, i DIY but originally used an agent, the difference is massive

Just two quick points:

(1) The flip side of "if you use an agent, you get treated like a VIP" is that those who do not use agents can on occasion be subjected to nit-picking scrutiny by IO's who are trying to encourage use of agents in order to boost their under the table revenue from agents. I'm pretty sure this happened to me once years ago where an onerous IO manager jacked me around and tried to introduce me to the "friendly local visa agent" who happened to be in the office at the time as me.

(2) The genesis of the "seasoning of funds" rules which require funds to be on deposit for a certain amount of time before and after visa renewal stemmed from people circumventing the funds on deposit rules by using agents. These "seasoning of funds" rules for those who are required to adhere to them can be a PITA.

My point is that using an agent to circumvent immigration regulations is not a victimless crime, and it irks me when you see so many on these threads pretending that this is not the case. Using an agent may be "legal" but that does not mean it never involves corruption.

23 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

Using an agent may be "legal" but that does not mean it never involves corruption.

Using an agent to mitigate nominal extension of stay rules isn't legal. If it was legal, you wouldn't need an agent

To me it's real simple if status quo is legal (i.e. tea money, discretion, Thai culture etc.)

If you go to Immigration and say you want to do retirement extension, the info desk person asks:

Do you have money in the bank and all your docs?

If you say YES you are told go to window 1. 1900 baht.

If you answer NO money in the bank. The info person says: Go to window 2. 15,000 baht

On 3/29/2026 at 10:14 AM, Tod Daniels said:

Let's get this out of the way first; visas/extensions that are agent gotten (even ones where they bank the funds for you for a matter of minutes) are REAL immigration stamps, from REAL immigration offices by REAL immigration officers and they are indeed valid..

Now to answer the question, do people have issues later with agent/gotten stamps. That is not as easy to answer. If you use an agent to bank the funds for you and have no problem using an agent year after year, no, you'll be fine

HOWEVER with that being said

If you ever wanna jump off the slippery slope of agent gotten visa/extensions and 'push your own paper' (get your own extension) you can indeed find 'issues'.

First if an agent banked the funds for you for the extension you're on, EVEN if you start transferring in 65K baht a month each month every month for the next 12 months, OR decide to bank your own money a couple months before your next extension comes due you will run into problems. That's because most all immigration offices are now requiring you to provide a year transaction detail report printed by the bank <- and that shows the balance of the account for every transaction done the previous year. It's this report that will show your agent banked the money for just a matter of hours and you did NOT meet the required seasoning <- which is keeping the 800K in the account for 3 months after the extension is granted and then never letting the balance get below 400K for the rest of the year..

That's what catches people out

Obviously if you bank your own money and just use an agent to get the extension you'd be in a better position to do your own extension the following year

Another issue that comes up is agents that do those "one-&-done" visa/extensions all in one day <- where you go, get the 90 day Non-O issued and then immediately get the year extension issued the same day (usually done at Chaengwattana Bangkok). That is a GIANT red flag to any immigration office in the country and it's 100% a tip off that you used an agent because you (as a "normal human being) couldn't show up and pull that off. You'd have to show up, apply for the Non-O, pay the 2000 baht, come back 2 weeks later, get it inked into your passport then wait until you had 30 days or less left on that 90 day stamp before you applied for the year extension.

I know people who did the one-&-done, and then the following year tried to push their own paper at the immigration office and were denied being told go talk to the person who helped you last year..

Another issue that people have is those "no go/no show" extensions <-that's where you just give your passport / bank book to the agent and it comes back with the year extension in it. Usually those stamps come from some back water out of the way immigration office. From a province you have never lived in, set foot in and most likely you couldn't find on a map of thailand if the provinces were labeled. Even filing a new TM30 at your immigration office, once you got that extension filing 90 day reports at your office doesn't guarantee that you'd be able to push your own paper the following year..

The above 'issues' are the reason the Pattaya agents are the best to deal with. They HOLD your passport so that the Non-O, then the year extension stamps are spread out so it is not immediately apparent to anyone looking at the stamps that they were agent gotten. AND not to mention the high number of foreigners who live/stay in Pattaya so those stamps are NOT always indicative of having used an agent.

As far as using "shepherd" <- someone to "herd" you thru the process with you meeting the financial requirements on your own. As a rule those "Hand Holders" are usually okay, and the following year if you don't wanna use them it's not an issue pushing your own paper.

Sorry this was a long response. Hope this was somewhat helpful.

Im surprised at your explanation Todd where in one section imply that agent provided and banked financials are legal and then claim later that they can get you caught out because they dont comply and bank reports show they dont comply. It cant be both and you know while its not a fake stamp in your passport, you didnt comply with regs in order to get the stamp which make the stamp highly questionable and illegally obtained, right. Which is it legal or not?

4 hours ago, Gecko123 said:

My point is that using an agent to circumvent immigration regulations is not a victimless crime, and it irks me when you see so many on these threads pretending that this is not the case.

I think you need to adapt your view to where you are, and you aren't in Kansas anymore. Would a Thai in a similar situation do the easy thing or the righteous thing? Visit any traffic police checkpoint if you aren't sure. It's often said that corruption is endemic in this country you have chosen to live in.

So rather than seeing yourself as a victim of evil fellow foreigners corrupting immigration, ask yourself how fit for / how adapted to living in Thailand you are.

15 minutes ago, Caldera said:

Visit any traffic police checkpoint if you aren't sure. It's often said that corruption is endemic in this country you have chosen to live in.

Sure but if I'm pulled over at a checkpoint for a missing tail light, I deal with the police officer. There isn't any agent involved to provide plausible deniability for the officer requesting the 200 baht gratuity.

31 minutes ago, Caldera said:

I think you need to adapt your view to where you are, and you aren't in Kansas anymore. Would a Thai in a similar situation do the easy thing or the righteous thing? Visit any traffic police checkpoint if you aren't sure. It's often said that corruption is endemic in this country you have chosen to live in.

So rather than seeing yourself as a victim of evil fellow foreigners corrupting immigration, ask yourself how fit for / how adapted to living in Thailand you are.

You're talking rather condescendingly to someone who has been coming to Thailand for 40 years, is fluent in the language, and is as street-wise as anyone on this forum.

The argument that corruption is endemic here and I need to learn to go with the flow is a cop-out. I've never paid anything or been asked to pay anything under the table here, and proud of it. Corruption takes two to tango, and you need to decide whether you're part of the problem or part of the solution. Claiming that corruption is an endemic part of the culture is just a lame excuse on your part.

I did my Non-O retirement extension at CW last Wednesday. Printed out and filled in all the forms at home (including the supplementary forms acknowledging overstay penalties etc.). Got bank statement, updated bank book, made the required copies and signed them. I arrived at 1:30pm and my appointment was at 2pm. I was sat at the IO desk for no more than 5 minutes to take picture, sign one extra page and pay. I waited just under an hour to get my passport back and was done by 3pm. My extension cost 1,900. People there using agents took exactly the same time and still had to wait for passports. How much did they pay, and for what that they couldn't do themselves?

8 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

You're talking rather condescendingly to someone who has been coming to Thailand for 40 years, is fluent in the language, and is as street-wise as anyone on this forum.

The argument that corruption is endemic here and I need to learn to go with the flow is a cop-out. I've never paid anything under the table here, and proud of it. Corruption takes two to tango, and you need to decide whether you're part of the problem or part of the solution, and claiming that corruption is an endemic part of the culture is just a lame excuse on your part.

Your part of the solution! Which bit did you solve? Your up too high, you can't see our place from there white eyes!! 😏

18 minutes ago, soi3eddie said:

. How much did they pay, and for what that they couldn't do themselves?

First up clearly you know how to prepare required docs.

I also prefer appointment just after lunch break.

As for how much agent was paid and that would be to cover financial requirements = 17k (approx)

Use of agent or DYI as you do (and me) is up to the individual.

25 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

I've never paid anything or been asked to pay anything under the table here, and proud of it. Corruption takes two to tango, and you need to decide whether you're part of the problem or part of the solution

How righteous of you.

And addressed the OP question how

4 minutes ago, Olmate said:

Your part of the solution! Which bit did you solve? Your up too high, you can't see our place from there white eyes!! 😏

Yeah, by not resorting to using an immigration agent who in turn bribes an immigration official to falsify bank records I'm part of the solution. I avoid situations where I might need to bribe someone, mainly by respecting Thailand's laws. You want to talk to me like I'm little-miss-goody-two-shoes for doing so, well, that's your problem. I'm laughing all the way to the bank because I'm not the one shelling out exorbitant agent fees.

Further comments re legality or not of agents will be removed as off topic.

6 hours ago, Dan O said:

Which is it legal or not?

I think the main point people are missing in this "is it or isn't it conundrum

ANY visa/extension can be issued whether you meet the requirements or not under that clause in the rules that says "OR under the authority of the issuing officer" <- meaning IF the person whose stamping your passport (the issuing officer) says you can have the visa/extension then you can whether you follow the posted rules or not.