The general rule I believe is that a Thai visiting the UK on a Tourist visa can spend no more than 6 months out of 12 in the UK.

My girlfriend has entered twice on her visa Sept and Jan but there is no stamp showing her departure date . Just wondering how they judge the 6 months

Any ideas

Cheers

Bit confused bout this one. I was of the opinion that a UK tourist Visa was issued either as a multiple OR Single entry and was valid for 180 days

As your girl entered in September and again in January I must assume she has a multi entry and as such the validity must be from the date of the chop in her passport.

I may be wrong tho

Generally speaking all UK visit visas are now multi-entry, allowing visits of up to 6 months until such a time as the visa expires. The date of expiry will be written on the visa. The visa's vailidity will have started on the day it was issued at the embassy in BKK (unless you asked for the start date to be post-dated). On the presumption that your g/f's visa is valid for 6 months and was issued in September 2005, she can stay in the UK until the corresponding date in March 2006.

Scouse.

The general rule I believe is that a Thai visiting the UK on a Tourist visa can spend no more than 6 months out of 12 in the UK.

It's not a rule as such, but a guideline.

As Scouse says, the holder of a 6 months vv would be unable to spend more than 6 months in the UK as the visa would expire, and it's not a visa to spend 6 months in the UK, but a visa that lasts for 6 months. During that time the holder can enter and leave the UK as many times as s/he wished, but once the 6 months is up the visa will expire and cannot be used again; whether the holder had spent the whole time in the UK, not even come at all or anything in between.

If your g/f were to apply for another vv shortly after her current one expired, then the "no more than 6 months out of 12" guideline would come into play.

Of course a vv can be valid for up to 10 years. This doesn't mean that the holder can spend the whole of that time in the UK, but that s/he could come as a visitor as often as they liked during that time. They could not spend more than 6 months in the UK on any one visit and the "no more than 6 months out of 12" guideline would apply, but as you rightly say the UK abolished passport checks on leaving some time ago as a cost cutting move. So I guess that the next time they entered the UK the IO would be looking at previous UK entry stamps and corresponding entry and exit stamps for other countries. Perhaps Scouse could confirm?

It's all a bit of a mess, really, as there is no real check on how long someone has actually spent in the UK. The sooner passport controls on exit are re-established the better!

So I guess that the next time they entered the UK the IO would be looking at previous UK entry stamps and corresponding entry and exit stamps for other countries.

That's all the IO can do, really. They're reliant upon other countries stamping in and out their own nationls, which is something the UK itself doesn't do.

Scouse.

So I guess that the next time they entered the UK the IO would be looking at previous UK entry stamps and corresponding entry and exit stamps for other countries.

That's all the IO can do, really. They're reliant upon other countries stamping in and out their own nationls, which is something the UK itself doesn't do.

Scouse.

Thanks for the views guys and I see that they could judge the duration by looking at the Thai Customs stamps

Where I am coming from is that when the present 6 Months visa finishes she will have spent approx 16 weeks in the UK. I am hoping to get another visa for 6 months starting in April the current one ends in Feb.

I wonder if they will say this is too soon or possibly staying in the UK too long

I wonder if they will say this is too soon or possibly staying in the UK too long

Possibly. Apart form the "6 months out of 12" thing, they may wonder why, if she wants to spend that long in the UK with you, she isn't applying for settlement.

BTW, I am not suggesting that you do apply for settlement, unless both of you are sure that you want to marry and spend the rest of your lives together!

If your g/f wishes to get a second visa in order to stay in the UK for 6 months, I would suggest that she is in danger of having the application declined (although you won't know until you try). Should the second visa be for the purpose of several short trips to the UK, she might stand a better chance.

Scouse.

so she could not do like we do in Thailand on a multi-entry visa here, go out a few days before the visa expires and come back on the last day and then get another six month stay out of the visa (with a six month UK visitors visa)?

No, she couldn't.

Basically, no matter the actual length of the visa:-

No more than 6 months in the UK on any one visit.

No more than 6 months out of any 12 in the UK.

This isn't cast in stone, but it's a general principle and these periods could only be exceeded in the most exceptional of circumstances.