1-Year Visa Needed To Ship Household Goods To Thai & Visa Extentions?

[Isaanman]

My wife and I (both farang) are returning to Thailand after 6 years back in the U.S.A. We have been informed by the Thai langugae school from which we will be getting our 1-year ED visa that we should ask for a 3-month visa at the Thai Consulate in Chicago, U.S.A. When we are in country and it is ready to expire, we have been told that we can apply for a 1-year visa extention, thereby foregoing the need to leave the country every 90 days and, instead, merely reporting to local immigration. Is this how it works?

And, if we only get a 3-month ED visa from the U.S. will we still be able to ship a couple of pallets of household goods to Thailand, as I have read elsewhere on this forum that a 1-year visa is needed to be able to ship personal effects to the country? Thanks.

[beano2274]

My belief is that you cannot import any household goods unless your wife was Thai or you had a one year visa.

[asiaexpat]

Thai customs regulations have provisions for duty free shipment of house hold goods of a foreigner if the shipment arrives within 6 months of the first entry to Thailand and the foreigner has a one year work permit. My understanding is Ed visa does not qualify as retirement visa does not. Having moved to Thailand twice, once from Korea and once from USA, I was not successful either time in importing household goods without paying duty even though my spouse is Thai and we applied per regulations. Considering that most appliances from the USA operate on 110-120 Volts 60 Hertz electricity and Thailand uses 220 volt 50 hertz electricity, importing them makes little sense. We found it less expensive to rent a furnished condo than importing goods other than clothing.

[simple1]

Here's the URL T&C's for importing of household goods into Thailand:

http://www.customs.go.th/wps/wcm/connect/custen/individuals/importing+used+or+secondhand+household+effects/importingusedsecondhandhouseholdeffects

[lopburi3]

Your returning comment makes it unclear if one of you might also be Thai? And if ED visa is only for part time language study you are unlikely to be able to stay longer than 90 days on extension of stay before having to obtain another so check that out (there have been exceptions but they are exceptions rather than the norm). Duty free import is not likely to be an option.

[Mario2008]

Thai customs regulations have provisions for duty free shipment of house hold goods of a foreigner if the shipment arrives within 6 months of the first entry to Thailand and the foreigner has a one year work permit. My understanding is Ed visa does not qualify as retirement visa does not. Having moved to Thailand twice, once from Korea and once from USA, I was not successful either time in importing household goods without paying duty even though my spouse is Thai and we applied per regulations. Considering that most appliances from the USA operate on 110-120 Volts 60 Hertz electricity and Thailand uses 220 volt 50 hertz electricity, importing them makes little sense. We found it less expensive to rent a furnished condo than importing goods other than clothing.

One must not only have a work permit, but also must be on a 1 year extension of stay (based on employement)

A shipping agent will often negotiate a very favourable deal with customs.

[FritsSikkink]

Your returning comment makes it unclear if one of you might also be Thai? And if ED visa is only for part time language study you are unlikely to be able to stay longer than 90 days on extension of stay before having to obtain another so check that out (there have been exceptions but they are exceptions rather than the norm). Duty free import is not likely to be an option.

My wife and I (both farang) are returning to Thailand

[lopburi3]

But a farang can also be Thai (dual national - we have many posting here) and returning comment and expectation of duty free entry made it unclear. So you have no basis for duty free import it would seem.

[digitalchromakey]

Thai customs regulations have provisions for duty free shipment of house hold goods of a foreigner if the shipment arrives within 6 months of the first entry to Thailand and the foreigner has a one year work permit. My understanding is Ed visa does not qualify as retirement visa does not. Having moved to Thailand twice, once from Korea and once from USA, I was not successful either time in importing household goods without paying duty even though my spouse is Thai and we applied per regulations. Considering that most appliances from the USA operate on 110-120 Volts 60 Hertz electricity and Thailand uses 220 volt 50 hertz electricity, importing them makes little sense. We found it less expensive to rent a furnished condo than importing goods other than clothing.

One must not only have a work permit, but also must be on a 1 year extension of stay (based on employement)

A shipping agent will often negotiate a very favourable deal with customs.

Has certainly been possible in the past to argue your case with a WP and a One Year Non Immigrant B Visa (not One Year Extension Of Permission to Stay).

[Mario2008]

Has certainly been possible in the past to argue your case with a WP and a One Year Non Immigrant B Visa (not One Year Extension Of Permission to Stay).

You are right, a 1 year WP is enough.

[Isaanman]

So, If I understand everyone's comments correctly and the Thai customs link, I can only import personal effects duty free as a farang, if I am returning to Thailand with a 1-year work permit visa or am changing my residence status (which I will not be doing). In regards to duty free importation of personal effects, I thought this was probably the case. However, I am not so clear as to whether or not I can still pay the required duties and import my used personal effects with an ED visa and, if I can, does it have to be a 1-year visa. If I can avoid having to make the trip with my family out of the country every 90 days by initially getting a 3-month, single-entry ED visa from Chicago and then having it extended to a 1-year visa, that would be better and cheaper by far. But, if the only way to get my books, tools, and other used items (no electronic stuff or appliances) over to Thailand w/o paying $200 per 50 lbs. box on our flight over, is by shipping them by sea, then I need to know exactly what I can and cannot do. Tools and books are very heavy! Obviously, if I do not pay for the extra baggage when I return by air and, then, cannot even arrange to have my stuff shipped after securing the 1-year extension, then I will end up w/ nothing! The director of my language school assures me that there will be no problem getting a 1-year extension; but, I never heard of this during our previous 4 yrs in country and I do not know if this extension is even possible to obtain much less if it will allow me to have my goods shipped over (within the 6 month requirement).

Any additional help and insight will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.

[ballbreaker]

Link to Thai customs site.

http://www.customs.go.th/wps/wcm/connect/custen/individuals/importing+used+or+secondhand+household+effects/importingusedsecondhandhouseholdeffects

[simple1]

You have now twice been given the URL for Thai customs, so hopefully you can comprehend the T&C's for importing household goods. If you go ahead I can personally recommend http://www.asiantigers-thailand.com as a local clearence agency - speak English and excellent service

[lopburi3]

Customs would also apply to anything brought in by air that they consider in excess of normal tourist requirements so paying huge transport charges could end up a double whammy. As for the one year extension of stay perhaps if you mention the location and school better information could be provided but for language believe only Phukett has a record of one year extensions and not sure if that is continuing or not. Most places the normal part time study of language only gets a 90 day extension each time (although it can go on for years).

[Mario2008]

You can import, the only question is how much duties you must pay. For that you use an agent to negotiate a favourable deal for you.

[brianinbangkok]

When I tried to import my personal belongings tax free into Thailand 10 years ago and as a silly newbe went to customs myself and then made the mistake of not accepting the first offer of customs to pay a 10k fee as by law I should not have to pay anything with my 1 year wp and visa.

Ended up paying 20k....

So get an import agent to do this for you, well worth the money.

[NancyL]

Yes, definitely get an agent. We also thought we could go to customs directly and finally we got an agent.

We used USPS global priority mail for everything that wasn't fragile and fit into the fixed-rate boxes, where they don't charge by weight. Great way to ship heavy, but small items like books and kitchen utensils. We mailed them two days before we left the U.S. and they arrived about 10 days after we did. Amazingly, there was no duty, despite the herd of boxes (I think over 30) coming all at the same time. No damage and no lost boxes, either.

[asiaexpat]

NancyL, Great idea that never occurred to me. Thanks for the tip.

[CeeBee]

Hi All

I am an Australian citizen planning to retire in Thailand next year. I will not be accompanied by a Thai citizen returning to Thailand.

According to the Siam Legal website, I will be given up to 6 months to ship used household goods and personal belongings without having to pay customs duty.

On the other hand, I read on this forum that duty free imports do not apply to retirement visas, but that a 1 year (work) permit is required to obtain this privilige. I am confused!!

Has anybody here recently successfully imported household goods without having to pay duty? If so, please share your experience.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Edited October 25, 2012 by CeeBee

[KhonJaiYen]

Hi

Nothing really to do with this post, but a warning for any returning Thai in the future.

When we returned to LOS 4 months ago we shipped our household items tax free though the returning Thai rule - the wife is Thai and no issues with that all went well i.e. no tea money.

However, when wifey went through immigration at Swampy she used the new egate system which meant no stamp in her passport.

The result of this was that customs would not allow the tax free shipment because no stamp in the passport so she had to travel back to Bangkok from Chiang Mai just to get immigration to stamp the passport and then everything was OK.

So please be aware when you come through customs get that stamp in your passport if you are shipping.

[Mario2008]

Hi All

I am an Australian citizen planning to retire in Thailand next year. I will not be accompanied by a Thai citizen returning to Thailand.

According to the Siam Legal website, I will be given up to 6 months to ship used household goods and personal belongings without having to pay customs duty.

On the other hand, I read on this forum that duty free imports do not apply to retirement visas, but that a 1 year (work) permit is required to obtain this privilige. I am confused!!

Has anybody here recently successfully imported household goods without having to pay duty? If so, please share your experience.

Thanking you in anticipation.

You do not qualify, as you must have a work permit.

If you have, you have 1 year to import, not 6 months.

Rules: http://www.customs.go.th/wps/wcm/connect/custen/individuals/importing+used+or+secondhand+household+effects/importingusedsecondhandhouseholdeffects

(They have a new site, the old text was a bit more confusing).

[CeeBee]

I discussed the import of household goods with the Thai Embassy in Australia (Canberra). They had no idea and simply referred me to the Customs website which does not provide for the tax/duty free import with a retirement visa. Even the visa requirements on the website are out of date. A most disappointing experience.

Has anybody had any recent experience with the import of used personal effects such as clothing rather than household goods?

[Mario2008]

Clothing will be consdered the same.

use a good agent, they can negotiate a very favourable fee with customs.

[CeeBee]

Hi Mario

Are you saying that Customs will actually calculate a value for used clothing?

[Mario2008]

Hi Mario

Are you saying that Customs will actually calculate a value for used clothing?

Yes.

[kurnell]

Thai customs regulations have provisions for duty free shipment of house hold goods of a foreigner if the shipment arrives within 6 months of the first entry to Thailand and the foreigner has a one year work permit. My understanding is Ed visa does not qualify as retirement visa does not. Having moved to Thailand twice, once from Korea and once from USA, I was not successful either time in importing household goods without paying duty even though my spouse is Thai and we applied per regulations. Considering that most appliances from the USA operate on 110-120 Volts 60 Hertz electricity and Thailand uses 220 volt 50 hertz electricity, importing them makes little sense. We found it less expensive to rent a furnished condo than importing goods other than clothing.

Correct. And you can only import hhg free once.

[Isaanman]

As time got away from me, I never replied to this topic to explain how it all turned out. We did get a 90-day single entry visa to Thailand from the Thai Consulate in Chicago, USA, after paying a deposit to the language school in Thailand and receiving all of the paperwork from them to submit in Chicago. Before the 90-day mark in country, our school filed for a 1-year extension with local immigration, which has enabled us to stay here in the city and only report to the local immigration facility (in Krabi) every 90-days. They give us an additional 90-day extension at no charge every time we report at the 90-day mark. The entire trp to Krabi immigration rarely takes more than 10 minutes, if we get there early in the morning when no one else is waiting.

We had no problem getting permission to ship our household goods here from the US on the initial 3-month ED visa. We did have to pay duties on the household goods. But, we avoided great expense in this matter by: 1) paying for a port-to-door shipment (i.e. we delivered our goods to the sea port in the US and, on this end, a local Thai company took care of all of the dealings at the Thai sea port, saving us a ton of hassle and the propsects of getting taken as a foreigner there, as well. Our US shipping company arranged for the Thai brokers on this end). 2) We drastically lowered the amount of duties we had to pay by placing yard sale values to all our goods. Since the value you place on your goods is the amount Thai immigration will use to figure the duties on them, the lower--the better (within reason, of course). For instance, I brought many boxes of my professional books. These individual books can get quite expensive. But, by giving them a 25 dollars a box price tag, the duties paid on them were minimal. This could backfire on you, of course, in the event of a wreck at sea (or the like) of the shipping vessel, as the value of the goods for insurance purposes will also be figured by the amount you list on your shipping documentation--at least for the Trans-Pacific leg of the trip.

All in all, having the goods shipped by pallet from port to door with low listed values saved us a good amount of cash. Thanks for everyone's help.