30-days Border Runs Now Only 15 Days

[Shez]

Hi Guys, sorry if this has been answered but basically I have 2 questions...

I am a British passport holder and I have booked a return flight to Bangkok from the 16th of December untill the 24th of February.

This works out to be 70 days exactly.

My first question is do I need to book my flight to prove I will be flying out of Thailand before the 30 day limit is up, before I actually fly out to Thailand on the 16th, which is 6 days away! (for example to either Singapore/Kuala Lumpur after etc)?

And my second question is, if i stay for my 30 days and then say fly to Kuala Lumpur/Singapore, stay there for 10 days, am I then able to fly back into Thailand and get another 30 day entry permit untill my return flight from Bangkok (24th february)

Thanks in advanced for your help!!

[Jingthing]

Hi Guys, sorry if this has been answered but basically I have 2 questions...

I am a British passport holder and I have booked a return flight to Bangkok from the 16th of December untill the 24th of February.

This works out to be 70 days exactly.

My first question is do I need to book my flight to prove I will be flying out of Thailand before the 30 day limit is up, before I actually fly out to Thailand on the 16th, which is 6 days away! (for example to either Singapore/Kuala Lumpur after etc)?

And my second question is, if i stay for my 30 days and then say fly to Kuala Lumpur/Singapore, stay there for 10 days, am I then able to fly back into Thailand and get another 30 day entry permit untill my return flight from Bangkok (24th february)

Thanks in advanced for your help!!

Shez, your best bet is to get a 60 day tourist visa in the UK which gives you 60 days, and then you can extend that for 30 days more in Thailand.

If you don't get a visa, you will probably have a problem BOARDING your flight in the UK unless you can (1) show any visa (2) show an air ticket out within 30 days of arrival. Once boarded, Thailand immigration at BKK rarely asks for onward travel details.

Reports are you can indeed get 30 days, not 15, when flying from Malaysia, and definitely from Singapore (not a border with Thailand).

Edited December 9, 2008 by Jingthing

[jantrevor]

It appears that everybody agrees that you can fly in from a country with a common border and get a 30 day VOA

What if I do a border run to Nong Khai and get an exit stamp, go up to Vientiane and fly back to Bangkok.

Do I get a 15 day or 30 day VOA.

Or do I need to pick a "sympathetic" immigration officer?

Jan

[ubonjoe]

30 days.

But why do it would be the question.

If you went to the expense of going to Vientiane why not get a visa while you are there.

Edited December 9, 2008 by ubonjoe

[Maestro]

"Entering through the border" I don't see how that could be read to say flying in could be applied. You are not entering through the border you are entering through an airport.

The is the key word in the rule.

My take on this is that we should not get into the semantics of the English translation. It serves no purpose and will lead nowhere.

--

Maestro

[bjhabal]

Well come back Maestro, I thought you have left us too, glad to hear from you again.

Bishop

[Mario2008]

It appears that everybody agrees that you can fly in from a country with a common border and get a 30 day VOA

What if I do a border run to Nong Khai and get an exit stamp, go up to Vientiane and fly back to Bangkok.

Do I get a 15 day or 30 day VOA.

Or do I need to pick a "sympathetic" immigration officer?

Jan

Note that you are talking about a visa exempt entry, not a visa on arrival. These are 2 different things.

[bjhabal]

It seems to me that the new law is not to crackdown on foreigners, rather than to help the travel agencies in this bad time. There were speculations for the past two weeks that the travel agencies will loose as many as hundreds of thousand of jobs as a result of the political situation, and the recovery of the tourism industries will take much longer time than before, and as more border runners are using travel agencies now,and even if they did it by themselves, they still have to use transportation and this can help a little bit; The government efforts to help these agencies expanded even to give the Thai people an extra one day holiday on the 2nd of January, just to make the holiday longer and encourage people to do some travel activities.

Any how should only wait and see, remembering that the Thai rules and regulations are seasonally and can be changed suddenly at any time.

Bishop

[sassienie]

OK, I'll leave, but I won't come back. I'lljust spend my money elsewhere.

Great.

And see if you can talk some more visa runners into going with you.

[Maestro]

Seeing that the new Police Order 778/2551 replaces only one paragraph of the earlier Police Order 608/2549 I have made the attached PDF document to reflect this amendment and serve as a reference.

--

Maestro

608_2549_and_778_2551_visa_exempt_entry_EN.pdf

[Jingthing]

OK, I'll leave, but I won't come back. I'lljust spend my money elsewhere.

Great.

And see if you can talk some more visa runners into going with you.

So human beings are defined by their visa method? I am sure some of the most wonderful, valuable, interesting people on the planet are among people who have gone on visa runs. Thailand isn't the only country that offers this option. I have read of expat workers in the US needing to go on visa runs as well, and I could name many other countries where this method can be used.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Jingthing

[rafval]

Au contraire.

Apparently they abolished the day counting rule, so from the point of view of people doing visa runs BY AIR for which you get THIRTY DAYS, they have LIBERALIZED their policies on visa runners.

Though I know that it sounds elitist, perhaps people with the means to buy an airline ticket once a month are not the type of longterm visitors that the Thais want to chase away.

Its not so much that its elitist, if just that if thats their intention why not just put up the price of visas?

[bangkokgas]

Great idea in principal. If you want to work in Thailand, get the correct visa, work permit and pay your taxes.

Finally, immigration is clamping down. I hope they stick to their guns.

Nonsense - who is it clamping down on? Only an idiot would stay here on 15 day visa runs. Do not understand that comment at all.

[bangkokgas]

Not much have changed for the long staying farang, but what will happen the the day Vientiane stop issuing double tourist visas?

Another equally convenient option will present itself. Simple. It has always been this way.

[ThaiRack]

The snobbery on here is hilarious.

Let's put things in perspective - we love the place and it's great 'n all that jazz, but it's Thailand. It's not the Priory or the Met Bar is it?

All these people who crave to be seen as 'insiders' who are looking out and jibing at the border runners - great. But in reality, you're no different at all, except you're snobs.

The visa exemption rule permits so-called 'border running'. It's not an abuse of the rules. It's the opposite. It's a cast-iron example of abiding by the rules, even it shows the rules up for being as unnecessary or inept as they actually are.

If the Thai government want to toughen up the rules, then more power to their arm. They should do it. But it'd be better to do it properly. For a start, it'd have made much more sense and been far more respectful to bring the new rule in on 1st January or something, and at least given a bit of notice to those folks who waited and waited to get into Thailand in the first place, because the officials couldn't even prevent a protest at their main airport, and who now have had this rule change sprung on them.

Scoff at the independent and backpacker crowd all you like, but they undisputably form a very large section of Thailand's tourism market (the biggest, if you refer to the stats and read them in detail), and many of them drift around SE Asia, using Thailand as a hub. We all know that and there's nothing wrong with that. It's been actively encouraged afterall, what with the fancy new aiport and it's vastly superior capacity that serves as a regional hub, coupled with the massive marketing campaigns in the west by the likes of Air Asia et al.

The fact that thousands of these independent travellers still gain entry to Thailand without the necesarry visas or proof of onward travel can only be the fault of the Thai government for choosing to selectively enforce their own rules. Yes, so they've changed the rules to combat this seemingly, but fundamentally they're still not insisting that people show proof of departure. They're still giving out visa exemption stamps to just about anyone who rocks up with a passport from one of the forty-odd countries that qualify for the exemption. What's the point? Make all the changes you like and insist that people get visas etc - great, people will respect the rules if they're enforced - they'll have no choice. But when you don't enforce your own rules in their entirety, then who is to blame? It's like buying a portcullis, but leaving it up all the time. It's just lame tokenism.

If they're so uncertain about what they want from their visa exemption rule, then why have it in the first place? Why not scrap it altogether and enforce a visa only rule, rather than piss around fiddling with complicated rules all the time and then not to bother enforcing elements of them in most cases anyway. OK so it might cost a bit more for people to travel to Thailand, and it may put some people off and that may in turn have an impact on tourism levels, but no-one could say that the Thais didn't make their own bed on that one. But that's a different argument altogether. At least a visa only system would bring certainty.

At present it's just laughable. Same as it's always been. Crucially though, the fact remains - border running is not an abuse of the rules. The 90 in 180 day rule is a perfectly good measure to take to control border running, but they can't even decide on that.

Losers.

[easybullet3]

i think the best option for me and others in my situation is to enrol to a thai language course and get the visa.

my only question:

if I dont turn up for many of the lessons, do they inform immigration or any government department?

but anyway,

doing an education 1 year visa seems a GOOD option. no more visa runs. only report every 90 days to your local immigration office.

its also way cheaper as you wont be doing anymore visaruns.

[ubonjoe]

i think the best option for me and others in my situation is to enrol to a thai language course and get the visa.

my only question:

if I dont turn up for many of the lessons, do they inform immigration or any government department?

but anyway,

doing an education 1 year visa seems a GOOD option. no more visa runs. only report every 90 days to your local immigration office.

its also way cheaper as you wont be doing anymore visaruns.

You most likely will be getting 90 day extensions instead of 1 year. Each time you apply for the extension they have to provide documentation for the extension. So no attendence in class no extension.

With a 1 year extension they would probably notify immigration.

Walen offers 4 hours of class each week 2 hours twice or 4 hours straight. It wouldn't be very hard to keep that schedule.

Edited December 11, 2008 by ubonjoe

[Lite Beer]

i think the best option for me and others in my situation is to enrol to a thai language course and get the visa.

my only question:

if I dont turn up for many of the lessons, do they inform immigration or any government department?

but anyway,

doing an education 1 year visa seems a GOOD option. no more visa runs. only report every 90 days to your local immigration office.

its also way cheaper as you wont be doing anymore visaruns.

You most likely will be getting 90 day extensions instead of 1 year. Each time you apply for the extension they have to provide documentation for the extension. So no attendence in class no extension.

With a 1 year extension they would probably notify immigration.

And every 90 day visit to Immigration will cost you 1,900 Baht for the extension.

[deanosan3]

I think that Thailand wants to get rid of what it sees as the riff raff falangs. Those who cannot be bothered or just cannot get the right visa. If you have a legitimate visa there is no problem in staying here.

Well said Sir!

This is a particular beef with me the "border runners" working here illegally.

That's a lot of high and mighty talk from you. You make it sound as if getting a work permit is like signing up for air miles or a Starbucks Latte card. Many users of Thai Visa are probably in that, what you would call, shady character area. If they go, a lot of Thai Visa traffic will go as well. A certain amount of traffic here is due to foreigners selling their bikes or houses because the rules have changed etc; then looking to buy them again. There isn't an IndonesianVisa or MalaysianVisa website like this because neither one of those places attract the kind of 'undersirables' that Thailand willingly absorbs to a certain extent. It's like the skin trade, it is technically illegal, but it is almost 1.5% of Thailand's GDP. So before you get on your high horse maybe you'd like to share a story about your first visit to Thailand? You've never paid off a traffic ticket or indulged in certain illegal pleasures? We would all like to get rid of the riff raff in every country, but you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. If you're looking for Nirvana, see how you like it without servants.

There's a lot of arrogance from people in these kinds of threads. We have all enjoyed/endured the fact of local corruption. Those who do not benefit from the expat company umbrella are no less deserving of a say. You may enjoy the fact that, one day, the Robin Hood & Ko Samed are less full of "unsightly farangs these days" but let's see how long the good times last without the underpinnings of the underground economy which keeps many things afloat.

Sawasdee

[mgjackson69]

Still not clear if you get 15 or 30 days if you enter by ship/boat/yacht, but I guess that would be 30 days.

Do you not technically enter Ranong by boat.

From the English Translation of the post police order:

"Whereas each time

when entering the Kingdom shall not be longer than

30 days as of the first date of entering. Unless, the

Alien (Tourist/Visitor) is entering through the border

of the neighboring countries will be granted only 15

days per visit as of the date of the first entry."

To me that could be interpreted as: You are getting 15 days when entering from a neighboring country - regardless, which mode of transport you use. So technically it could even be interpreted as if you fly in /sail in from a neighboring country, you get 15 days. They could monitor this just by looking on the arrival card and if in doubt asking for the boarding pass.

But maybe in the Thai original "land borders" is specifically mentioned.

Does anybody have any experience about entering via a flight from a neighboring country?

Keeping in mind the Thai -> English translation, I would take "through the border" to mean "land crossing"

[oceano]

OK, I'll leave, but I won't come back. I'lljust spend my money elsewhere.

Great.

And see if you can talk some more visa runners into going with you.

So human beings are defined by their visa method? I am sure some of the most wonderful, valuable, interesting people on the planet are among people who have gone on visa runs. Thailand isn't the only country that offers this option. I have read of expat workers in the US needing to go on visa runs as well, and I could name many other countries where this method can be used.

sassienie are you american?

Edited December 11, 2008 by oceano

[baboon]

Just got back from my visa run at the Andaman Club in Ranong. I saw no notification of the new 15 day rule [not that it affects me] whatsoever, plus the officer on duty to be quite frank was a surly git.

I do not want to join the "my visa is better than yours" debate but can Thailand not sit down and put together an open and transparent immigration policy which is readily understood by both officials and foreigners alike, AND STICK WITH IT for 5-10 years? Please!

Edited December 11, 2008 by baboon

[Jingthing]

I do not want to join the "my visa is better than yours" debate but can Thailand not sit down and put together an open and transparent immigration policy which is readily understood by both officials and foreigners alike?

So sorry. Can not.

[JimsKnight]

The whole notion of visa control on where people can and cannot live is archaic - allowing the world's population free movement wherever they wish is the only way to slowly share the wealth of the world more evenly. At the moment it is all about money and has nothing to do with peoples rights - if you are comparatively rich enough you can go to a poorer country and live like a king - if you are poor, then you are stuck where you are! Of course while people still believe that "nationality" is a good thing then each country will selfishly continue to cherry pick who they share their wealth with.

Sorry but the socialist wet dream of an egalitarian utopia in the world is a fairy tale and has ended in disaster every time it's been tried.

Checks and balances, that's the capitalist way and its worked well for thousands of years. You work and you get rewarded.

It encourages you to work your way up from the bottom to the top, something I've managed fairly well (well, not quite the top, but up there if you know what I mean).

I've got a non-immigrant 'o' from good ole' Hull consulate. I can't complain about that one.

But I have noticed that the other nationalities don't have it as easy as us so they are starting to move on elsewhere alas.

[PooMik]

30-days border runs now only 15 days

BANGKOK: -- In order to limit the amount of foreigners using "back-to-back" border runs, Thai Immigration has issued a new regulation regarding the 30 days tourist exemption.

Effective immediately, travellers without visa will get only 15 days of stay if they are arriving via a land border checkpoint from a neigboring country.

I was in Chong Mek 6/12 and got the normal 30 days, no problems

[rafval]

The whole notion of visa control on where people can and cannot live is archaic - allowing the world's population free movement wherever they wish is the only way to slowly share the wealth of the world more evenly. At the moment it is all about money and has nothing to do with peoples rights - if you are comparatively rich enough you can go to a poorer country and live like a king - if you are poor, then you are stuck where you are! Of course while people still believe that "nationality" is a good thing then each country will selfishly continue to cherry pick who they share their wealth with.

Sorry but the socialist wet dream of an egalitarian utopia in the world is a fairy tale and has ended in disaster every time it's been tried.

Checks and balances, that's the capitalist way and its worked well for thousands of years. You work and you get rewarded.

It encourages you to work your way up from the bottom to the top, something I've managed fairly well (well, not quite the top, but up there if you know what I mean).

I've got a non-immigrant 'o' from good ole' Hull consulate. I can't complain about that one.

But I have noticed that the other nationalities don't have it as easy as us so they are starting to move on elsewhere alas.

removal of national boundaries is actually a capitalists wet dream

[jitenshaman]

I think that Thailand wants to get rid of what it sees as the riff raff falangs. Those who cannot be bothered or just cannot get the right visa. If you have a legitimate visa there is no problem in staying here.

Really? Then tell me how a 37 year old who's been here for 12 years with enough money to live on, most cash is in in a thai bank can get the right visa, not married, no intention of doing so either and no business???

Please elaborate.

There are a lot of folks here who definitely are not riff raff, and i agree that these laws dont really accomplish what they set out to do and only serve to alienate more people...BUT, it really isn't that big of a hassle to be legit...this past year i went to Vientiane several times...yeah, i can no longer use Penang or Phnom Penh, or elsewhere in the region for getting double entry tourist visas, but Vientiane remains user friendly...so doesn't it make more sense to hop a cheap Air Asia flight to Udon, cross the border, spend a few days in Vientiane, and have 6 months worth of legal entry (double entry tourist, 60 days each time, extendable by 30 days each time), than to cross the border repeatedly and deal with the limiting border stamps.

[jitenshaman]

Again, naive.

Economics is indeed a big part of the motivation for many many westerners to live in a lower cost country like Thailand.

I think we have different mindsets. If I really believed that I was unwanted , I would find somewhere else just as cheap.

As I said everyone is entitled to make their own decisions.

there may be other reasons why the other cheap places still dont match up..for those who love Thai food, the cuisine, especially on the street, in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos pales horribly in comparison with Thailand. Those countries also have very few good hospitals and expat friendly health care centers. Far less English speakers, expat populations, expat friendly bar/nightlife areas, and with the exception of Laos, slightly more unsafe in certain areas. Throw in incredibly poor transportation and infrastructure, and it's easy to see why people stay here, even if it does get "worse" every day.

[jitenshaman]

nothing will happen, learning more Thai cannot hurt, you can get ED visa and be here very long term and no visa runs at all. It works out not much more expensive if not cheaper.

Kind regards

Mac

Walen School of Thai

let's see, my 2 Air Asia flights to Udon cost me 700-1300 baht return, plus 80 baht for the bus to Vientiane, plus 400-500 baht for my hotel there, throw in a few baguettes, coffees, and inexpensive meals each night, plus beer, and we're not talking more than 5-6000 baht plus visa fees (1000 baht per entry)....comes out a LOT cheaper to do the visa run.

[jitenshaman]

It would be interesting to know the demographics of those posting here. My guess is that not too many backpackers who are using Thailand as a hub and just coming in and out for a month or two on their Asian sojourn are the ones posting here. I agree fully with all the above posts that talk about the finances and grass roots supports that the backpacker puts into Thailand over a course of time, and thus the new rule seems to be really limiting (i was here 13 years ago as a backpacker and came in and out a few times)...but, it seems to me that a lot of the gripes are coming from those who are expats...if you are an expat who lives here without working, here to own property, retire at less than 50 years, or whatever it may be, surely it cant be that inconvenient to pop over to Laos or elsewhere for a few days and get a tourist visa, which actually makes things way way less inconvenient than having to go to the border every 15 or 30 days...or as a property owner with an interest in staying here long term, wouldn't it even be worthwhile to pay Sunbelt or another company the money to get the paperwork to go overseas and get a non B from a user friendly consulate? So on a certain level it does seem to me that a lot of the border runners are those who are working here and who only have a day to get to the border and back. We could say on one hand that they are illegal and evading paying taxes, etc...but i know plenty of teachers, writers, and dive instructors who get taxes taken out by their employer (so somebody somewhere must be getting the money) yet they cannot get a work permit, and they certainly are not riff raff.......I think Thailand creates all these by not having any set in stone policies and so of course this is the result...i lived in Japan for many years, and the visa laws there were pretty darn clear, there were few loopholes or alternatives.