How Many Resident Expats In This Burg? (Greater Pattaya Metropolis)

[tropo]

Definition for expat:

Web definitions:

exile: a person who is voluntarily absent from home or country; "American expatriates".

Has nothing to do with kind of visa in my book.

According to that definition any tourist is an expat as all tourists are voluntarily absent from their home countries when on vacation.

That's a pretty lousy definition of expat in my book.

Edited August 27, 2012 by tropo

[DrTuner]

I'll give the definition a shot. Tourist = someone spending a holiday, but not having a fixed or at least semi-fixed location in Thailand. Expat = someone, no matter in what way bouncing around the immigration rules, who intends to live full time in Thailand.

From that you can already see the problem: immigration's rules, the perceptions of foreigners and other views are not aligned. So hard data is just not coherent, if existing at all. What do you expect, this is Thailand, where new rules meant to be broken are invented every day.

[sotsira]

Just to add to all the confusion, i've been living here for 9 years on non imm o multi entry visas.

I do a border run every 90 days and every 14 months go back to my original country get a new visa and come back.

So am i an expat or a tourist thats been on holiday for 9 years and own my own property, car, and have bank a/c's

driving license etc.. in Thailand.

[chiang mai]

Compared to the 600k expats that live in Thailand

Where does this 600k come from? It seem way over the reality.

But maybe you should give your definition of "expat"...

And as I said before people often use the "Stay with Thai wife" Visa option in last solution.

Figures in post 50 is just a part of the table from the report.

It does not show people living here with Tourist Visa, with no visa, with ED visa, ... so many.

From Post 15 in this thread, something I found on the web and posted as a straw man.

My definition of an ex-pat is someone who lives here full time, he/she may also work or may not. By "lives here" I mean that person has their primary residence here and they and their home country would regard Thailand as being their home having previously left the place of their birth.

Back to the 600K: let's not forget that when we talk about ex-pats here in Thailand we're talking about all nationalties, predominently in Thailand that means Burmese, Lao, Malay and Cambodians. In terms of bigger numbers that also means Chinese and Indians who must represent the largest ethnic groups I would have thought. So 600K ex-pats seems like a reasonable number to me, especially since it seems more sensible as a percentage of total population, numbers like 20K ish just don't hold water for me, heck there must be that many Burmese ex-pats alone.

[JanKlaasen]

Just to add to all the confusion, i've been living here for 9 years on non imm o multi entry visas.

I do a border run every 90 days and every 14 months go back to my original country get a new visa and come back.

So am i an expat or a tourist thats been on holiday for 9 years and own my own property, car, and have bank a/c's

driving license etc.. in Thailand.

That is exactly what I did for 14 years and what thousands of other Expats in Thailand do.It is however strange that this has been posted several times already throug this thread as a proof that NOT every expat has to report every 90 days, but that it seems to be ignored, probably for the sake of having an argument.

[Pattaya46]

Back to the 600K: let's not forget that when we talk about ex-pats here in Thailand we're talking about all nationalties, predominently in Thailand that means Burmese, Lao, Malay and Cambodians.

Ok, but in this case you must use the whole table 1.1 from the PDF UN document mentioned above ( http://www.un.or.th/...ts/TMR-2011.pdf ) and you will read :

Estimated foreign population residing and working in Thailand, approximately end of 2009 : 3,514,831

The interesting figure for most of us would be, I suppose, the number of "farang expat"

but due to these visa difficulties I doubt we can get any precise number...

[tropo]

That is exactly what I did for 14 years and what thousands of other Expats in Thailand do.It is however strange that this has been posted several times already throug this thread as a proof that NOT every expat has to report every 90 days, but that it seems to be ignored, probably for the sake of having an argument.

Does it really matter?

It's often just a case of people not reading the whole thread. I don't always go through every post before I comment and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Do you always ready every post, including the long, 1000 word single paragraph ones?

Edited August 28, 2012 by tropo

[chiang mai]

Compared to the 600k expats that live in Thailand

Where does this 600k come from? It seem way over the reality.

But maybe you should give your definition of "expat"...

And as I said before people often use the "Stay with Thai wife" Visa option in last solution.

Figures in post 50 is just a part of the table from the report.

It does not show people living here with Tourist Visa, with no visa, with ED visa, ... so many.

Can tourists (people on tourist visas or 30 day visa exempt entries) or people on ED visas be classified as expats?

No categorically not.

[LeCharivari]

.... I'm going to plump for somewhere around 15,000, guesswork of course.

As you correctly say, "guesswork".

I can never understand why some people prefer what they would have thought, what they've heard or what they've guessed over figures given by Thai Immigration, who are the only ones in any sort of position to know.

It's quite simple really, I don't think your numbers are accurate hence some more work is needed to arrive at the correct answer, regardless of who told you what and where! Simply, 10,000 is a far too convenient number to be true or accurate and frankly, if you've asked someone at Soi 7 Immigration "how many expats", they will give you a number for face savings reasons becuase the culture here doesn't permit such folks to say, "I don't know".

I didn't "ask" anyone - Barry Kenyon, the Immigration Police Information Officer at Chonburi Immigration (which moved from Soi 7 Pattaya to Soi 5 Jomtien more than a decade ago) and previous Honorary British Consul in Pattaya stated the figure during an update on immigration matters on Pattaya TV. I've known Barry for well over 20 years and "face-saving" isn't one of his issues!

Turning now to your earlier math's: your calculations assume only a single officer manages 90 day reporting in Pattaya and does not cater to the fact that a significant percentage of 90 day reporting customers simply left the country beforehand on an overseas visit (case in point, offshore oil workers or trip based retirees), other people manage 90 reporting via mail and some people ignore it completely - yet other do 90 reports in locations other than where they live.

I didn't "assume" - I simply counted the desks - one. I didn't count those who "ignore" 90 day reporting and are here illegally, neither did I count those who "do 90 reports in locations other than where they live" as the number who live in Chonburi province but report elsewhere is unlikely to be any more than those who live elsewhere but report in Chonburi, etc, etc. I'm simply making the best use of the known figures available.

[Jingthing]

To clarify my intention in the OP, I meant people who live here long term, however they manage to do that visa-wise. Certainly ED visa holders would be included.

[LeCharivari]

BTW, almost forgot: I was in Chiang Mai Immigration last week getting a rentry permit and was talking to an English chap whilst waiting to be served, he was waiting to do his 90 day report and he had ticket number 286 and this was at 3pm in an office where there appears to be only a single officer handling 90 day reports - (there are four queue ticket channels and 90 day is a dedicated channel and tickets are handed out by a student officer). On that basis it seems that your estimate of 120 per day may be very low.

You probably noticed that the queue tickets are issued according to the desk number.Desk 2 starts from 200,desk 3 starts from 300.So in fact his ticket 286 was actually the 86 th that day.

One of the dangers of "assuming" anything! ... and who knows - maybe they've lost half the numbers?

[bobobo]

Sorry Jingthing we'll never get this thread this sorted out ..nice try though !

[Jingthing]

In this case, I might be responsible. I should have defined what I meant. Upon reflection, it is indeed a complicated question. Do Burmese workers count? Do Japanese businessmen count or do people on this forum assume we are talking about westerners?

Edited August 28, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

But surely they wouldn't be so stupid in these days of austerity to base staffing numbers on dubious numbers of British residents. If anything they would err on the low side - hence taking me off their list after a year.They must be more aware than us that thousands Brits are coming and going all the time. The ambassador seemed to have his head screwed on quite well as far as I could see.

Who knows for sure?

I did say that it only "in part justifies Embassy manning levels on the number of residents and visitors" - and who do you think submits the numbers? The very people whose jobs (and whose pay, seniority level and number of staff under their control) depend in part on a consistently high number of residents and tourists!

[tropo]

In this case, I might be responsible. I should have defined what I meant. Upon reflection, it is indeed a complicated question. Do Burmese workers count? Do Japanese businessmen count or do people on this forum assume we are talking about westerners?

For example, would you classify my Filipino wife as an expat - I certainly do, There are thousands of Filipino expats living here permanently. Perhaps these Thai looking people don't count and are overlooked by the "more important" Westerners.

[Jingthing]

In this case, I might be responsible. I should have defined what I meant. Upon reflection, it is indeed a complicated question. Do Burmese workers count? Do Japanese businessmen count or do people on this forum assume we are talking about westerners?

For example, would you classify my Filipino wife as an expat - I certainly do, There are thousands of Filipino expats living here permanently. Perhaps these Thai looking people don't count and are overlooked by the "more important" Westerners.

Not getting too personal, there is less of a potential impact on the local "culture" from nationalities which blend in better. It would be ideal to see a detailed break down of foreign residents from all of the potentially included groups. But as it is clear, accurate statistics are kind of a bear in Thailand, so we're probably left with a lot of guessing.

[LeCharivari]

In this case, I might be responsible. I should have defined what I meant. Upon reflection, it is indeed a complicated question. Do Burmese workers count? Do Japanese businessmen count or do people on this forum assume we are talking about westerners?

Half guilty. I discounted "Burmese workers" (and their Lao and Cambodian equivalents) but allowed for pretty well anyone elseanyone else: Westerners, Australasians, the Americas, the Gulf, the Sub-Continent, etc, etc as Soi 5 (Immigration) do.

Valete ...

[chiang mai]

BTW, almost forgot: I was in Chiang Mai Immigration last week getting a rentry permit and was talking to an English chap whilst waiting to be served, he was waiting to do his 90 day report and he had ticket number 286 and this was at 3pm in an office where there appears to be only a single officer handling 90 day reports - (there are four queue ticket channels and 90 day is a dedicated channel and tickets are handed out by a student officer). On that basis it seems that your estimate of 120 per day may be very low.

You probably noticed that the queue tickets are issued according to the desk number.Desk 2 starts from 200,desk 3 starts from 300.So in fact his ticket 286 was actually the 86 th that day.

One of the dangers of "assuming" anything! ... and who knows - maybe they've lost half the numbers?

If ticket 286 is really the 86th person in queue number 2, who's to say that is not the third time that day that number has been used, we'll never know of course.

[chiang mai]

I didn't "assume" - I simply counted the desks - one. I didn't count those who "ignore" 90 day reporting and are here illegally, neither did I count those who "do 90 reports in locations other than where they live" as the number who live in Chonburi province but report elsewhere is unlikely to be any more than those who live elsewhere but report in Chonburi, etc, etc. I'm simply making the best use of the known figures available.

Despite your protestations I remain convinced that the number stated is far too low and it doesn't really matter who the source was, the simple fact that the UN report talks in terms of 3.5 million migrants nationwide confirms there must be far more than 10K in Pattaya.