Travelling Frequently In/out Thailand On 30 Day Entry

[bkkbarnstormer]

Appreciate any experience and insights based on current immigration regulations if you have done this

I Will be working in Asia on UK passport and plan to visit Thailand most weekends eg. Arrive Friday night and depart Sunday night or Monday morning for maybe 1 year. Hence the 30 day tourist stamp is theoretically ok because I will never stay 30 days and will always have onward flight ticket.

Have others done this and encountered any problems if there is a significant number of entry stamps in passport? What source of problems could arise or do they not care given I am cOming to spend my money?!

Does it help to use a legitimate second passport to minimise stamps In each passport or can Thai immigration authorities link the two passports anyway?

[Mario2008]

It is legal, after a while immigration might ask you as to why the frequent visit to ensure you are not working in Thailand, but that would be all. With only weekends they will probably not ask any questions.

Two passports will be picked up.

[galoubet]

It's my impression that you can only use the 30 days visa exception (or even exemption! - my correction) on entry three times in a six months period. This was introduced a few years ago to stop ex-pats living in Thailand popping out and in every 30 days. And, as you are already thinking, having two passports won't help unless you are travelling under different names as your details will be in the immigration system and will be instantly cross referenced.

Edited May 13, 2013 by galoubet

[lopburi3]

Not true - that was only in effect for a very brief period (and nobody could understand how to count it) and was replaced with the 15 day visa exempt entry by land change. It is no longer in effect.

[galoubet]

Not true - that was only in effect for a very brief period (and nobody could understand how to count it) and was replaced with the 15 day visa exempt entry by land change. It is no longer in effect.

I stand corrected. Thank you for that update.

[Tomtomtom69]

OP, if you are only traveling to Thailand every weekend and spending 2-3 days here each time even if it's for a year, you almost certainly won't be questioned. Case in point, me:

I have 3 passports (i.e. 3 citizenships). Been traveling to Thailand mostly on business (sometimes for vacation) since roughly late September of last year (although I had also made numerous shorter entries and one entry on a tourist visa to Thailand prior to that period too) and have since then always been on either 30 day or 15 day stamps, depending on whether I have entered by air or overland. My business trips require regular travel to Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and I've also visited India and been back to Australia twice within this period. I have never been questioned about this travel into Thailand, nor have I ever overstayed (perhaps another reason why there's nothing to question me on). Only at the Mae Sot crossing was I told that normally only 4 consecutive overland re-entries are permitted on visa exempt entries, but I correctly pointed out that I was traveling to Myawaddy on business (I had gone there two days in a row, on two different passports 3 months apart - the officers however never made the connection between my different passports so I'm only referring to my second re-entry on the first passport) and I mentioned that clearly I wasn't doing visa runs as otherwise why would I head into Myanmar two days in a row?! and this was accepted although at that stage I wasn't up to the 4 consecutive entries limit anyway.

I haven't counted how much time I've spent in Thailand over the past few months or so, but it's easily been about 4-5 months and the reason I haven't gotten myself a visa is because we are still in the early stages of setting up our company (in China) and since I don't need to spend more than 30 days at a time in Thailand, getting a visa is a waste of time and money if I am going to be traveling frequently to other countries anyway. Once we do have everything in place, I will obviously be getting a proper work visa but that's some time off as I am officially working in China, from where I get paid, not Thailand.

I have noticed however that Thai immigration sometimes looks at Indian and other developing country passenger's passports before they have reached passport control, flick through their passports, grunt, make a few comments in Thai to themselves like: "why have you come again?" kind of thing...happened back in a March to a guy that had just arrived from Kolkata on the same flight as me. However, that guy may have very well have just been flying back to India for 2-3 days to get a new visa (he had a ton of Thai visas in his passport and no other visas or stamps for other countries) as I noticed that the same guy who sat next to me on my March 7th flight to Kolkata was on my return flight on the 14th and he was Indian. I had a weird look on my face thinking what's going on here, but apparently a lot of traders do exactly that.

However, I don't think you have anything to worry about as you don't fit into this category.

[ottoemil]

I am doing this already for more than two years.

Arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday. I am working in the region, i.e. Singapore, Jakarta, Hong Kong, etc. and spent the weekends with my Thai wife at home in Thailand. Using every weekend the 30 day visa exempt. The only problem is that I need a new passport every 18 months.