No more Thai visa runs: Immigration will not let visa runners return after Aug 12

[Fatherfluffybottom]

Im a bit caught up on this, it seems as per usual that there are no rules set in stone.

For me, i am on a Non B with a work permit. I leave the country, on average, 2 times every 90 days. There has been and possibly will be times when i

have not had a business trip, and i have had to border crossing, to get an extra 90 day extension on my Non B.

Will i be affected in any way?

[ilocos]

As for the companies that took advantage of the loop holes to pay under minimum wage to teachers, etc. now that it will be universally enforced, the work permit/visa rules should provide an increase in wages for people in this category.

And school fees will rise accordingly. Knock on effect.....

Exactly. Perhaps Thailand has been forced to do this by being lowered to the lowest tier for human trafficking and labour exploitation equal to North Korea and Iran. If anyone should be punished it is the employers, not the employees for abusing visa rules. Purely exploitation. It is rubbish to say workers need to get their work visas. Clearly the responsibility of employers.

[Just1Voice]

The Phil Collins/Genesis song: "Land of Confusion" comes to mind as I read this topic. As things stand right now, to my way of thinking, none of us really know exactly what is going on, and that there needs to be some clear and concise rules coming forth from Immigration as to what is/isn't allowed. Perhaps after Aug 12 that will happen, but TIT, so don't count on it.

I think, and this is only my feeling, that this "crackdown" is intended to end the abuse of the system that has gone on for years, and forcing everyone to be legal. Unfortunately, there are bound to be some who are legal who just happen to get caught in the net due to some over zealous official at the checkpoint.

Fortunately for me, and thousands of others who are on Marriage or Retirement extensions, we are legal and can just sit back and watch the circus. But, as has been point out, there may come a time when they decided to change the rules on those as well, so we shouldn't feel smug and complacent.

Other than that, I agree with the sentiment of those who have stated to do it the right way, or don't do it at all.

Good luck to all.

[PoorSucker]

Im a bit caught up on this, it seems as per usual that there are no rules set in stone.

For me, i am on a Non B with a work permit. I leave the country, on average, 2 times every 90 days. There has been and possibly will be times when i

have not had a business trip, and i have had to border crossing, to get an extra 90 day extension on my Non B.

Will i be affected in any way?

No, non-immigrant visas are not mentioned in the directive.

[AYJAYDEE]

what are your thoughts on the possibilty of it affecting rapid turnarounds on double and triple tourist visas and multiple entry N0on-O's?

Non immigrant visas are not affected.

If I had a history of back to back tourist visas and went to the border to activate second entry I suspect you would not be let back in..

i was thinking more of the guy that gets a triple entry once a year for his holiday in thailand and does quick in/outs to do so??

As he does not have a history of back to back tourist visas it should not be a problem.

thats what I'm thinking too but things are so confused right now, nothing will surprise me. my sister in laws boyfriend comes on a double entry tourist every year and I'm wondering if he will have to spend a few days in laos to activate the second entry?? hope not.

[matt111]

Is it very difficult to get a proper work visa? If, as seems to be the case, many employers dont want to be bothered, is it something you can do yourself? Or are the tax implications the root cause?

Not according to TV, "easy, just get a proper visa"... see my post a few posts back for a recent account (~15 months ago) for costs, efforts, trees, and time involved for a typical small business to take on a foreigner. Sure some TV members that are directors of small business DIY, speak perfect thai, understand all the accounting and wp rules, and immigration and labour department officials work effortlessly with them with no greasing, yeah sure . The tax, sso and minimum wage requirement are rarely the ballache, if only it was all so easy.

Edited July 15, 2014 by matt111

[smedly]

Did anybody read this line in the story: "Visa runners are those who leave Thailand and return immediately for the purpose of extending their stay."

Seems pretty clear to me.

+ 1 but not to some

+ 1 yes. However, most visa runs require at least one night outside Thailand.

Will returning to Thailand after 24 hours be considered returning immediately? It seems to be.

What is clear is that Thai immigration wants to prevent multiple in-out trips for the sole purpose of extending stay, whether it is an exempt 15/30 day entry or a 60 day entry with a tourist visa.

I think that border agents will scrutinize the visa and entry history of each person, ask a few questions, and make a decision based on that. If this is the case then the longer one spends outside Thailand the better.

correct, it will depend on your history of visa's and stamps in your passport, I know people come here once a year for 3 to 5 months and spend the rest of the time in their home countries, these people will have no problem

I don't think staying here for a year or more on repetitive TV's and taking a week in Cambodia will cut it

[Pattaya46]

It gonna be very quiet in pattaya and other popular places.

Do you have any stats about who is concerned?

I live in Pattaya, and seems to me that most people are :

- people living here (most of time) and having some non-Imm visa or 1-year extensions

- people here as tourist for 2 months max

- people here every other month (offshore workers)

- people here for 3-4 months during strong winter in their country

I don't know any Farang who live here on tourist visa

but would like to know if there are really a noticeable group of people ?

[ukrules]

Is it very difficult to get a proper work visa? If, as seems to be the case, many employers dont want to be bothered, is it something you can do yourself? Or are the tax implications the root cause?

The employer must pay you a minimum wage, for western people it's 50.000 baht/month.

Delete - old information

Edited July 15, 2014 by ukrules

[PattayaPhom]

What I find unbelievable is their statement that stopping the visa run people will reduce crime! Personally, I doubt very much that any of the visa run people are criminals.

Working illegally is a crime, and as we are all aware many of those affected do in fact work without permits, so yes it will reduce crime. Also there are those in BKK that are drug dealers and the like that use the tourist visas, so again iradicating undesirable criminals. The only ones truly affected are the under 50s,not married or working, everyone else has an option of obtaining the correct visa....

[Dogmatix]

A lot of people are going to lose a lot. Including Thais. This is baby with bath water on steroids. Too inflexible and done too fast. It would be OK if there were now easier "real" visas, work permits, including legalization of online freelancing, etc. But there is not. On the condo market, no kidding, this is really bad for places like Pattaya. Cause and effect clearly not well considered on this one.

They are trying to fix a lot of long standing problems quickly prioritising issues that are uppermost in the military mind (i.e. national security) and there is bound to be some collateral damage, e.g. the sudden exodus of 200,000 Cambodians and then having to try to coax them back.

Most of the visa runners working illegally are not (Western) farangs - mainly Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean etc, although there are a lot of Russians and other E Europeans too

I don't think visa runners are realistically the main purchasers of resort condos, although there are some rash enough to buy one on the basis of living full time in Thailand on 60 day tourist visas and visa exemptions. Most foreign buyers resident in Thailand are on NON-IMM Bs, or retirement or marriage extensions. Then there are a lot who live somewhere else like HK or Spore and legitimately visit regularly. Anyway the junta is not going to care about Thai businesses who depend on illegal aliens as their customers. Why should they?

This is just the start making Immigration enforce existing laws. The next phase under the interim government will involve wider reform of immigration and the 1979 Immigration Act may be amended or replaced to reflect present day circumstances. A significant shake-up is possible but, of course, in Thailand things often end up as an anti-climax and maybe nothing more will happen.

I am sure there will be no formal legalisation of foreign free-lance workers. It is too hard to establish a genuine need for them, to ensure they are not taking work from Thais or to ensure they pay tax on all their earnings. That includes foreigners working on line from Thailand for the same reasons.

Those under 50 who are not married to Thais will have to set up companies, if they are working free lance on or off line and want to stay in Thailand, with the requisite paid-up capital and Thai staff and pay tax. For those who claim they are independently wealthy the B10 million investment visa and the Thai Elite card are viable options.

ED visas will surely come under scrutiny soon. There are plenty of models from countries like the US and UK on how to regulate these, fixing the number of hours of study per week and strictly limiting renewals for non-degree or diploma courses. A year or two of full time study of Thai should be enough to master the language. Then anyone who is serious can enrol for a bachelors in a Thai university. Anyone who can't speak Thai to the Immigration officer after 6 months of full time study should be treated with suspicion.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Dogmatix

[garydubbs]

narrithiwat crossing 4 days ago the group coming back from Penang with double entry tourist visas

Penang tend to cross at danok. Any reason why they crossed at narrithiwat?

2 reasons:

nearest border crossing to koh samui (where they came from)

nearest border crossing to khota bharu consulate

[choochoo]

Looks like a lot of foreigners are either leaving or will have to get married, have a child or get a retirement visa.

condos will be selling for peanuts soon

the collateral damage will be the un-sightly bargirls the visa scoundrels like to frequent........................lol.

i doubt they are big condo buyers.

[slygeeza]

"condos will be selling for peanuts soon"

How many condos are owned by tourist visa runners? Zero.

I know of quite a few that are rented by visa runners tho

[phantomfiddler]

It would be reasonable to say that a true tourist is one who stays in the home country the majority of the time, making occasional and brief forays into other countries. Back to back tourist visas don't fit that profile.

Try pulling that b2b stunt in the UK or US for example and see what happens. Quit whingeing... what's source for the goose.

Sauce for the goose, and I,m not even an english teechur

[noendtoit]

The article is silent about those that obtain a one year O-A from outside the country, and then make 90 day border runs. What about them? There are 100's or even thousands of foreigners that have homes here and live here full time that do that. Why? Maybe not married or not 50 or don't have 800,000 baht in the bank.

Will somebody with an OA still be allowed to do 90 border runs?

I am happily married, love my wife and family and have a marriage extension. But sometimes I think if it were not for my wife and family I would just get out of here. They do not make it easy even for the people who try fo comply with the laws and seriously want to live here. Seems that after one has been here ten years, is married, stable, no problems with the law and reasonably contributes to the community that there should be some short and inexpensive road to permanent residency.

My sister is an ex-pat in the Dominican Republic. She has permanent residency just for the asking, they treat her like a citizen and almost everybody speaks English! None of these problems. Here a farang always seems to be an "outsider" in the eyes of the government. Most Thais have no idea what we deal with. I am often asked if I will become a Thai citizen. Yeah, right, maybe if i died and came back reincarnated as Yingluck.

Edited July 15, 2014 by noendtoit

[NativeSon360]

Looks like a lot of foreigners are either leaving or will have to get married, have a child or get a retirement visa.

Getting married or getting some bargirl pregnant will not guarantee you a "continued stay" visa in The Land of Smiles. The One-Year Retirement Visa will.

[wabothai]

Sounds fair enough. One has been warned.

[NativeSon360]

The article is silent about those that obtain a one year O-A from outside the country, and then make 90 day border runs. What about them? There are 100's or even thousands of foreigners that have homes here and live here full time that do that. Why? Maybe not married or not 50 or don't have 800,000 baht in the bank.

Will somebody with an OA still be allowed to do 90 border runs?

READ the original "No More Thai visa runs" article, AGAIN

Edited July 15, 2014 by NativeSon360

[Suradit69]

Had this confirmed to me last night by Kap Choeng Immigration for the Chong Chom Border Crossing.

was the out/in a visa exempt of a multiple entry visa?

If it's a visa exempt that means you have no visa, so how can it be a multiple entry visa ... or any kind of visa. Visa exempt = without visa.

[AYJAYDEE]

The article is silent about those that obtain a one year O-A from outside the country, and then make 90 day border runs. What about them? There are 100's or even thousands of foreigners that have homes here and live here full time that do that. Why? Maybe not married or not 50 or don't have 800,000 baht in the bank.

Will somebody with an OA still be allowed to do 90 border runs?

how would one stay in thailand full time on a one year Non O A?

[hawker9000]

Let the games BEGIN!

[PoorSucker]

The article is silent about those that obtain a one year O-A from outside the country, and then make 90 day border runs. What about them? There are 100's or even thousands of foreigners that have homes here and live here full time that do that. Why? Maybe not married or not 50 or don't have 800,000 baht in the bank.

Will somebody with an OA still be allowed to do 90 border runs?

People with an O-A visa gets 1 year at each entry.

Non-immigrant O visa holder gets 90 days.

Non-immigrant visa holders are not mentioned in the directive.

[AYJAYDEE]

Had this confirmed to me last night by Kap Choeng Immigration for the Chong Chom Border Crossing.

was the out/in a visa exempt of a multiple entry visa?

If it's a visa exempt that means you have no visa, so how can it be a multiple entry visa ... or any kind of visa. Visa exempt = without visa.

sorry misspelled or and wrote of!!

[ILOOKFORWORK]

I'm on double entry tourist visa spending a week in Vietnam and arriving back to Thailand on 14th for second half of my visa.

Wonder how this will go. I don't have any back to back visas in my passport, and I don't have any visa exemptions. I do have multiple double entry tourist visas over many years. Visa was acquired from home country, not a border country in Asia.

I think you should be okay, especially if you're flying back in. On Thai Visa.com yesterday there was a confirmed article about one border in the south that was refusing people re-entry even though they had a Tourist Visa. I believe it said the reason was related to back to back visas.

[PoorSucker]

how would one stay in thailand full time on a one year Non O A?

O-A visa holder gets 1 year at each entry.

[slygeeza]

cant be good for the Thai economy, suits me

[spidermike007]

Looks like a lot of foreigners are either leaving or will have to get married, have a child or get a retirement visa.

condos will be selling for peanuts soon

I wonder about that. Why is the thai baht still so strong? Is there that much money coming into the markets here, at this time? With tourism down as much as it is, why is the economy so strong? Does anyone have any insight into this?

[Sortapundit]

Oh dear, not good news for many people I'm sure.

I think this is far too much too quickly. I guess if you are working illegally and using back to back tourist visas, well you're not paying tax and it is illegal so the writing was on the wall anyway. If you are however using back to back visas and living on your own money and not working this is unfortunate.

Maybe there will be a sudden increase in student visa applications, not sure, but one thing is for sure a lot of people are going home.

I'm in the second group. My partner and I are nomads, and we support ourselves quite comfortably on the royalties of several novels I published back when I could be bothered to work. We're perpetual tourists, and have no interest in anything other than a life of leisure in whatever warm and pleasant country will have us. Unfortunately, if you were to look at our passports the pattern of tourist visas could easily be mistaken for that of the folk who come here to work illegally.

In the three years we've been coming to Thailand we've usually stayed no more than two or three months at a time before taking a break elsewhere (we've probably only had one actual back-to-back visa in that time, and one same day in-out exemption, if memory serves). We were here for the first few months of 2013, spent two months in Mongolia before coming back to Bangkok for another month, then went to tour Europe for seven months before coming back here for the last three. In two weeks we head back to Mongolia for August, and our plan (which is looking shakier by the day as reports of problems emerge) is to return to Thailand at the start of September for a long stay. I'm guessing our best option would be to enrol in a Thai language course and get an ED visa, but as those will become much more popular as a way for illegal workers to stay in-country I'm concerned they'll start cracking down on those soon enough (and I don't really care to learn another language right now).

Of course it's the prerogative of Thailand to tighten up visa rules, but it's a shame people like me will probably get caught in the dragnet. I don't believe it's the intention of the authorities to oust non-working, cash-rich layabouts, but that will be the effect. I just wish I hadn't recently signed a 12 month lease on an apartment. It'd be much easier if we could bail out and spend a little time elsewhere without losing a hefty deposit.

P.S. I also wish the gloating TV fools on long term visas would give the schadenfreude a rest. The new state of affairs may get rid of a few undesirables, but it will also hurt a lot of honest people who are a positive force for the Thai economy.

[Kerryd]

The article is silent about those that obtain a one year O-A from outside the country, and then make 90 day border runs. What about them? There are 100's or even thousands of foreigners that have homes here and live here full time that do that. Why? Maybe not married or not 50 or don't have 800,000 baht in the bank.

Will somebody with an OA still be allowed to do 90 border runs?

I am happily married, love my wife and family and have a marriage extension. But sometimes I think if it were not for my wife and family I would just get out of here. They do not make it easy even for the people who try fo comply with the laws and seriously want to live here. Seems that after one has been here ten years, is married, stable, no problems with the law and reasonably contributes to the community that there should be some short and inexpensive road to permanent residency.

My sister is an ex-pat in the Dominican Republic. She has permanent residency just for the asking, they treat her like a citizen and almost everybody speaks English! None of these problems. Here a farang always seems to be an "outsider" in the eyes of the government. Most Thais have no idea what we deal with. I am often asked if I will become a Thai citizen. Yeah, right, maybe if i died and came back reincarnated as Yingluck.

It's been noted at least 3 times that Non-Immigrant Visas are not affected by these new rules.