Valid date <> stamp date confusion

[Dominik]

My future employer is part of the biggest holding in Thailand. They decided not to take any legal advice to apply for my work permit to save costs. I would like to follow up a bit myself to avoid surprises.

After reading a lot of the pages on Thaivisa I got a little bit confused... Sometimes I see "stamp date" and sometimes I see they talk about the date the visa is valid.

Altogether I would like to have a clear  answer for the following situation:

1. I have a non-immigrant B-visum obtained at the Royal Thai Embassy in Belgium. This is my first non-immigrant visum.

This visum is VALID for 1 year, and the immigration officer in the airport gave me a STAMP to stay for 90 days when I arrived.. So far so good.

2. After arrival my future employer immediatly started the procedure to obtain the work permit.

MY QUESTIONS:

I think I need to leave the country after 90 days.

When I do this:

a. Do I need to go to any embassy or consulate to have a new non-immigrant visum although my visum is VALID for a year (but STAMPED for 90 days)? Or do I just cross the border and return and get another 90 days on the same visum?

b. What about this re-entry permit I read about? Do I need it or not? I am not going to leave the country before the STAMP date is reached.

Thank you in advance for all your time and efforts in clearing my confusion!

[fester]

a. No, you just need a visa run, to cross any Thai border or fly out and in again, and you will get the next portion of 90 days. (I assume that thsi is a Multiple entry "B" visa).

b. You do NOT need re-entry permit. (Only if you apply for a yearly extension at Immigration, you need to have a reeentry permit).

[Dominik]

Thanks Fester for this fast reply.

One more question: how do I know if my non-immigrant visum is a multiple entry or not?

I requested multiple entries on my request form. The office did not say anything about this, and now I do not see anything on my visum that indicates this.

What if it is not a multiple entry visum? Can I change this?

[fester]

Is it a blue sticker or a stamp in your passport?

If you have a sticker visa it says "M" in the "Number of entries" field. If it is a stamp visa it says "multiple".

A multiple entry visa always have a validity of one year.

It is not possible to have a visa changed after you have used it.

[Dominik]

Thanks again Fester!

I had a good look at my visum again (sticker) and I think I must have been blind before because below the label "No of entries" it was written: "multiple", although it is a bit hard to read...

So it seems it is actually a lot more simple then  I thought!

I am now waiting for my work permit and hope things will go good.

Thanks again!

[fester]

Can I ask which Thai consulate you got it from? It can help others who are planning a visa trip, multiples can be hard to obtain sometimes.

[Dominik]

Oops I just see I forgot to answer your last question Fester.

I got my visum from the Royal Thai Embassy in Brussels Belgium.

Some remarks:

1. I have the Belgian nationality which makes it easier for me to apply in Belgium.

2. My future employer belongs to the biggest holding in Thailand and therefore the papers I had with me to back up my request were very good.

I do need to say that the lady in the embassy told me first that I needed to present my work permit. I told her that it has been explained to me that I first need a non-immigrant B visum to be able to apply for a work permit. I was now going to travel to Thailand to get one, so I needed the visa.

She agreed, but told me that next time I need to present my work permit first.

I do not really understand this policy.

Another thing that might be very important for you readers is that Thaivisa mentions that the BOI office can provide your work permit and visa in 3 hours. This is true, but you should be aware that you first need the permission from the Thai government to apply in the one-stop BOI service.

This takes 3 weeks of waiting, and then you can go to the BOI service.

So in total it takes 3 weeks and 3 hours at least!

Some other foreigners working in our company struggeld for 1 year before they got their work permit and visa OK, using the same services. So it still depends on a lot of other things also.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The lady is totally wrong.    You have to have a B visa to enable you to apply for a work permit. A chicken and egg   thing here.