Which Visa For 4 Month Stay?

[mart00]

Hi,i am english,51 ,and planning a trip to thailand for about 4 months in december ,with view to staying on a longer term basis.

I have thai gf and possibly will get married .My main idea is to have some time in thailand to see if want to stay long term and also make final decission about marriage. So,as far as i can see my options for a visa are 1)multiple entry tourist visa,2)Non-imm O visa,with purpose of visit to get married. (On the Hull consulate web site they only mention single entry in relation to this,so limited to 3 month stay).

So i would appreciate any opinions as to which visa would be best. or is there another option?The tourist visa seems to allow me to keep all my options open, but if i did get married then i would have to leave thailand to get non-imm visa? On the other hand if i got the non-imm visa it seems to limit me to 3 months(if can only get single entry?) and if didnt get married in that time then how would i stand about getting other visas in future like a retirement visa for example? Any advice would be greatly apreciated.

[Manchester]

Multi O.

You are over 50 so the pupose of the visit could be to investigate retirement options.

Hull are pretty cool about things like that. Good luck anyway.

[Goshawk]

a double entry tourist visa would give you up to 6 months in Thailand (with extensions)

[Mahout Angrit]

To stay 4 months there is nothing you can get which will allow you to stay without leaving the country and re-entering.

A tourist visa will give you 2months extendable by 30days in country

A double entry tourist visa will give you that twice (one border exit/entry)

A single Non Imm O will give you 3 months.

You can in addition to any visa get 30days on entry at any border (for 3 times) so you could extend your stay upto 90days with 3 more exit/entries.(no additional visa required)

If you do get married you could go to a consulate in a nearby country and apply for a or another Non Imm O and with that you could apply for the 1 year extension either based on being married (showing income of B40,000 per month) or retirement (showing income of B65,000 per month or B800,000 in the bank or a combination of both)

Any visa you get now will not affect any application you may require in the future.

Edited October 31, 2007 by Mahout Angrit

[lopburi3]

As said, get your visa from Hull or another honorary Consulate on the basis of visiting friends (GF) or checking on retirement options. You should be able to obtain a multi entry non immigrant O visa which will cover a year of 90 day stays and can easily be extended on a yearly basis for either marriage (family) or retirement reasons (if meeting the normal requirements).