Urgent Advice Needed. My Visa Expires Tommorrow (a Saturday)

[wiseganesha]

Help.

I am living in Thailand on a student visa for 1 year. But every 90 days I have to go to the immigration office to extend it's validity for another 90 days.

Now my problem is that I have to extend before Dec 5 (tomorrow. and a Saturday). But I just got my paperwork from my school today and by the time I arrived at the Immigration offices they were already closed.

So my question is this, is it better to wait until Tuesday (office is closed for the King's birthday on Monday) and just go to the immigration office as usual and extend it (and probably pay some fine for being late) ?

Or should I expect that I will not be able to extend an overstayed visa in the first place and should leave the country tomorrow so that I avoid overstaying in the first place. But if I leave then I have to jump through more hoops and probably leave another time to get a new student visa entirely.

Please.... if anyone knows how things work in my particular circumstances, can you provide any advice.

Thank you so much.

[alyx]

I am not sure about your case but I think that it is not a problem waiting until Tuesday as these are official holidays but this needs to be confirmed

[monty]

Although I would never advice on overstaying your visa, this seems to be one of the cases where it might be better to risk it.

As you say, if you do a border run now, you'll lose your ED visa status altogether and will return with only 15 days visa free entry (land border).

Which means getting new papers from the school and a trip to an embassy or consulate to get things in order again.

If you go to immigration on Tuesday, worst they can do is charge you for your overstay at 500 Baht/day, and then give you your extension.

[alyx]

I don't mean to be nosy but I hope you will let us know about your decision and outcome of the situation as it might be useful to others

[wiseganesha]

I don't mean to be nosy but I hope you will let us know about your decision and outcome of the situation as it might be useful to others

I have decided to wait until Tuesday. I will post the results after then.

Wish me luck

Thanks again for the quick responses.

[alyx]

I am sure it is ok

[imjmn]

Your lack of planning is not Immigrations emergency. In the end you are responsible for being in compliance with the Immigrations rules of the country. Do yourself a favor and don't rely on someone to be doing something on time for you here in Thailand. If you know of a deadline then check the calendar and start hinting to the those that are supposed to be taking care of this matter that the clock is ticking. You can only rely upon yourself to make sure things get done.

MJ

[alyx]

What?

I really do wonder who would care about such a comment

[wiseganesha]

@]imjmn - Yes I agree and in fact I repeatedly reminded my school about the situation but it turned out that my contact at the school was fired the week I was to get the papers so it delayed everything by a few critical days.

In any case, I went today and I had no trouble at all. I was able to extend my stay for another 90 days.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

[Maestro]

Glad to haear that everything went well for you.

--

Maestro

[hhgz]

" don't mean to be nosy but I hope you will let us know about your decision and outcome of the situation as it might be useful to others"

Too, we'd like to know why you waited until the last minute to extend your visa.

[alyx]

" don't mean to be nosy but I hope you will let us know about your decision and outcome of the situation as it might be useful to others"

Too, we'd like to know why you waited until the last minute to extend your visa.

"We" ??? read his thread

And I am glad it was eventually sorted out

Alyx