Thailand Immigration confirms new overstay rules are now official

[Alwyn]

I keep reading comments from people saying things like "these changes are welcome" and "better quality of tourist" or "it's about time" "these people should be castrated for overstay" etc... But why? How on earth does a border bouncer or somebody on overstay (for whatever reason) impact your lives? Surely there are more interesting things to worry about? If some chap from Germany or England or Laos is on overstay, how does this effect you? If they get deported or allowed in the country, what difference does it make in your life? Enjoy your time, its limited for everybody and if you want to make yourself go grey and have a portion of IBS because somebody's fortune has changed and they're on overstay, you really need to get out more!

[sustento]

A number of people on this thread seem to be under the misguided impression that they are 'customers' and that immigration is there to serve them.

Immigration is there to protect the borders of Thailand and whenever you pitch up and ask to be let in you are a supplicant not a customer.

[anselpixel]

One can always move a few hours to the east and get unquestioned one-year visas with unlimited extensions and no 90-day reports for 10K baht.

Also, if you want to set up shop there, and make a little more than your pension, nobody is going to come take you to court, or kick you out of the country.

After that, if you still pine for Thailand, you can easily get a tourist visa and spend as much time as one could reasonably want without any mumbo-jumbo legalism.

Up to you.

Things are not going to get easier here, no matter how much expats whine.

[sustento]

A number of people on this thread seem to be under the misguided impression that they are 'customers' and that immigration is there to serve them.

Immigration is there to protect the borders of Thailand and whenever you pitch up and ask to be let in you are a supplicant not a customer.

Actually in this thread nobody said anything against Immigration and with your comment you wasted a chance to NOT look as a parrot lecturing.

You ought to read the whole thread before remarking on it. From the first page of the thread:

"WE ARE CUSTOMERS ...SO TREAT US WITH RESPECT...I was treated with contempt yesterday and my questions were more of an irritation to the officer he was more interested in trying to rip my passport apart....all I wanted to know what they exactly required for a 1 year extension of stay,,,,,,,,,i was the only CUSTOMER in there and 12 officers sitting looking bored.....

Thai Visa should start a link...GOOD AND BAD OF THAI IMMIGRATION"

[BradinAsia]

Treat Immigration Officers with respect and you will get respect in return. Having resided in Thailand for ten years and made sure that I am properly attired and behave appropriately when visiting Immigration I have never had a problem. All too often I have witnessed multi-tattooed individuals with numerous rings in various parts of the body, dressed in sleeveless singlets, shorts and flip-flops arguing with Immigration Officers and bemoaning the fact they think they are being treated unfairly. We are visitors in Thailand and if you do not like the rules then go somewhere else.

What a bigoted thing to say. How you dress or what you look like does not define you as a person and everybody should be treated impartially. I learned this in primary school, how old are you?

Primary school didn't do you any favors if they taught you that.

The doctor looks like a regular person, the guy in the red ugly shirt looks like some

kind of scumbag. That's the way the world sees you. If you plan to fight the whole

world and convince the world to change their thinking -- good luck.

[telldem]

Time to renegotiate my villa rent. This place is gonna be a ghost town soon enough. I wish I was a fly on the wall in a Khoasan Rd guesthouse today.

Seems to me the people who will be hurt worst are probably the alcoholics, the hoodlums, the scumbags, the misfits, and ne'er-do-wells.

At least we can hope for that -- and look forward to a more pleasant stay for the rest of us.

If they are broke, how are they going to pay the fine and their airline ticket home?

How long can the Thai government keep them locked up for non payment?

[Thighlander]

agreed, style; not substance is the rule in Thailand. Beachwear at Government offices is "impolite." People with beards are undesirables.

[MJCM]

Time to renegotiate my villa rent. This place is gonna be a ghost town soon enough. I wish I was a fly on the wall in a Khoasan Rd guesthouse today.

Seems to me the people who will be hurt worst are probably the alcoholics, the hoodlums, the scumbags, the misfits, and ne'er-do-wells.

At least we can hope for that -- and look forward to a more pleasant stay for the rest of us.

If they are broke, how are they going to pay the fine and their airline ticket home?

How long can the Thai government keep them locked up for non payment?

I am not sure about it, and I hope that someone who knows more about it will chip in, but I have seen reports of people spending 3 years in IDC.

Sent from my iPad so Please excuse any typos

[beautifulthailand99]

Time to renegotiate my villa rent. This place is gonna be a ghost town soon enough. I wish I was a fly on the wall in a Khoasan Rd guesthouse today.

Seems to me the people who will be hurt worst are probably the alcoholics, the hoodlums, the scumbags, the misfits, and ne'er-do-wells.

At least we can hope for that -- and look forward to a more pleasant stay for the rest of us.

If they are broke, how are they going to pay the fine and their airline ticket home?

How long can the Thai government keep them locked up for non payment?

If one was locked up in a Thai prison then most folk would find the money needed to get out PDQ.

[paz]

Primary school didn't do you any favors if they taught you that.

The doctor looks like a regular person, the guy in the red ugly shirt looks like some

kind of scumbag. That's the way the world sees you. If you plan to fight the whole

world and convince the world to change their thinking -- good luck.

How can you speak for the world? Got news for you, stereotyping and discrimination is going away.

Judge people from what they are, not the the looks.

[Enjoyurlife]

I keep reading comments from people saying things like "these changes are welcome" and "better quality of tourist" or "it's about time" "these people should be castrated for overstay" etc... But why? How on earth does a border bouncer or somebody on overstay (for whatever reason) impact your lives? Surely there are more interesting things to worry about? If some chap from Germany or England or Laos is on overstay, how does this effect you? If they get deported or allowed in the country, what difference does it make in your life? Enjoy your time, its limited for everybody and if you want to make yourself go grey and have a portion of IBS because somebody's fortune has changed and they're on overstay, you really need to get out more!

I usually skip those posts and I advise you do the same. Live and let live is not something these guys have every heard of. The intolerance they bring to Thailand and to this forum is something we could all do without. They are not helpful to anyone.

[paz]

If they are broke, how are they going to pay the fine and their airline ticket home?

How long can the Thai government keep them locked up for non payment?

Indefinitely because concepts like "human rights", "decent conditions for inmates" and "compassionate grounds" have no place in the Thai prison/detention system,

That actually makes more than one half of TV readers very happy, as "don't do the crime if you can't pay the time" is their favorite line.

[John1thru10]

A number of people on this thread seem to be under the misguided impression that they are 'customers' and that immigration is there to serve them.

Immigration is there to protect the borders of Thailand and whenever you pitch up and ask to be let in you are a supplicant not a customer.

Actually in this thread nobody said anything against Immigration and with your comment you wasted a chance to NOT look as a parrot lecturing.

You ought to read the whole thread before remarking on it. From the first page of the thread:

"WE ARE CUSTOMERS ...SO TREAT US WITH RESPECT...I was treated with contempt yesterday and my questions were more of an irritation to the officer he was more interested in trying to rip my passport apart....all I wanted to know what they exactly required for a 1 year extension of stay,,,,,,,,,i was the only CUSTOMER in there and 12 officers sitting looking bored.....

Thai Visa should start a link...GOOD AND BAD OF THAI IMMIGRATION"

I tell you what Stento - I don't refer to myself as a 'customer' of Thailand, but - the moment you work for immigration, or are elected Prime Minister, then you can do something about that. Until then...

[Alwyn]

I keep reading comments from people saying things like "these changes are welcome" and "better quality of tourist" or "it's about time" "these people should be castrated for overstay" etc... But why? How on earth does a border bouncer or somebody on overstay (for whatever reason) impact your lives? Surely there are more interesting things to worry about? If some chap from Germany or England or Laos is on overstay, how does this effect you? If they get deported or allowed in the country, what difference does it make in your life? Enjoy your time, its limited for everybody and if you want to make yourself go grey and have a portion of IBS because somebody's fortune has changed and they're on overstay, you really need to get out more!

I usually skip those posts and I advise you do the same. Live and let live is not something these guys have every heard of. The intolerance they bring to Thailand and to this forum is something we could all do without. They are not helpful to anyone.

I just wonder where all of the bile comes from.. But you're right. Cheers!

[sustento]

A number of people on this thread seem to be under the misguided impression that they are 'customers' and that immigration is there to serve them.

Immigration is there to protect the borders of Thailand and whenever you pitch up and ask to be let in you are a supplicant not a customer.

Actually in this thread nobody said anything against Immigration and with your comment you wasted a chance to NOT look as a parrot lecturing.

You ought to read the whole thread before remarking on it. From the first page of the thread:

"WE ARE CUSTOMERS ...SO TREAT US WITH RESPECT...I was treated with contempt yesterday and my questions were more of an irritation to the officer he was more interested in trying to rip my passport apart....all I wanted to know what they exactly required for a 1 year extension of stay,,,,,,,,,i was the only CUSTOMER in there and 12 officers sitting looking bored.....

Thai Visa should start a link...GOOD AND BAD OF THAI IMMIGRATION"

I tell you what Stento - I don't refer to myself as a 'customer' of Thailand, but - the moment you work for immigration, or are elected Prime Minister, then you can do something about that. Until then...

The sooner people stop thinking that they're 'customers' and immigration somehow owes them something the better off they'll be. I'm not being judgmental just stating facts.

Immigration owe you nothing. They can decide, on a whim, to refuse to allow you into Thailand. They have no legal obligation to let you in at all whether you're trying to enter as visa exempt or whether you have a visa. That's a fact.

Just try pulling the 'I'm a customer' nonsense with the US CBP or the UKBA and see how far it gets you.

[Enjoyurlife]

Normally immigration will not check on the way to the airport. But I suspect that if they see that you have a ticket out and plan to leave and deal with the overstay they will just allow you to go to the airport.

Deportation would be a lot of unnesecarry paperwork.

While I strongly agree that you should always keep a low profile if you are an overstayer, since when is Thailand a police state that performs random inspection of foreigner's documents like during the Nazi Germany era or the Cold War? What do ordinary police know about reading a foreigner's passport stamps with everything in English (why aren't Thai stamps in Thai when English isn't the local language - Chinese stamps are in Chinese so why don't the Thais do the same with their stamps)? Go figure that one out...anyway, I digress.

Not to mention that the vast majority of local police aren't immigration officers nor do they have the same powers as immigration officers (please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would be highly surprised if I were). As I said I understand the need to be careful when one has overstayed, but please tell me an instance of random passport inspections? All I can think of IF they happened is that racial profiling would be used as the motive and that's a dangerous precedent that Thailand should not start following - many of us have heard about the outrage a law in Arizona has made on this issue. The reality of course is that random inspections DON'T commonly occur in Thailand - they may legitimately occur as part of an immigration sweep where someone made a tip-off to immigration (and that's when they can be justified). This is the normal procedure in most normal countries - you can't just hassle foreigners and ask them for ID without good cause to suspect they have done something wrong. I know this principle is not followed down in lower Suk, although with the number of drug traders, foreign prostitutes down there plying their trade, that's not unexpected but elsewhere I think it's unacceptable and unjustifiable.

Fortunately however, it's mostly scaremongering expats that try to get us all to believe that all police everywhere throughout the country are going to ask for our passports. As you say they aren't going to check on the way to the airport - besides, when was the last time you saw a roadblock on the Bangkok-Chonburi motorway with the specific task of asking to see everyone's passport to catch potential overstayers?! And even if there was ever a time when police would ask to see a passport, most likely they won't be able to read your name, look at anything than the front page of your passport to ascertain your identity and ask a Thai speaking person nearby for an explanation of what's contained within.

In the last 20 years I've stayed something like 2 years in Thailand and never been subject to a stop and search EVER.

Exactly, i can't find the post now but someone said he has been stopped hundreds of times in Thailand. Really? I have driven to every corner of Thailand and I have been stopped once at a road block. Once! that was while driving from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. The police man asked me "where you go?" I said "Bangkok" and he waved me on. Not exactly a shocking experience and he was probably happy he could have that conversation in English :-)

For the rest, after many years, I have not even once been asked for my passport except when passing immigration of course.

[BradinAsia]

Thank God! Finally the rule of law in Thailand. I have been here 6 years and many years in other countries and never missed a filing for 90 day residency or renewal of my Retirement Visa and nobody else should be exempt as well. Every other country provides even stiffer penalties for overstays, like being Blacklisted. Play by the rules of law or suffer the penalties. We are a "guest" in Thailand so it is their rules and not ours. Don't like it, then move. Simple.

The usual brainless TV nonsense.

People do fall between the cracks, you know..............

What is lacking in these new rules is the complete absence of recognition of any extenuating circumstances.

Can you imagine trying to write these rules and to include the details of all the various extenuating circumstances?

[John1thru10]

I tell you what Stento - I don't refer to myself as a 'customer' of Thailand, but - the moment you work for immigration, or are elected Prime Minister, then you can do something about that. Until then...

The sooner people stop thinking that they're 'customers' and immigration somehow owes them something the better off they'll be. I'm not being judgmental just stating facts.

Immigration owe you nothing. They can decide, on a whim, to refuse to allow you into Thailand. They have no legal obligation to let you in at all whether you're trying to enter as visa exempt or whether you have a visa. That's a fact.

Just try pulling the 'I'm a customer' nonsense with the US CBP or the UKBA and see how far it gets you.

I won't be trying that, becasue I don't think it! If someone is dumb enough to say something like that to an officer - anywhere - then they'll get what they deserve, right? I mean, I get upset about real criminals, or a guy who beats up his girlfriend, or stuff that really hurts other people. Some dummy saying he's a 'customer of Thailand', who cares?

There's a bunch of really arrogant young french guys in my neighborhood, and they drive me crazy by blasting techno music all day and they all come to gamble, and I watch them treat girls like crap. I don't 'like' them. But they don't care that I don't like them, and nobody else does either. I mean, it sucks, but that's the way it is

Edited July 22, 2014 by John1thru10

[FritsSikkink]

No facts, just a story.

A true story. EU doesn't care about overstay.

I don't understand why some of these guys are so bitter about it. I just mentioned it in response to someone saying that 'all countries are much stricter!' repeatedly. I don't understand why they're so paranoid like that.

I am neither angry or bitter, it is in your mind. why should i be.

That you have been lucky doesn't mean there are no rules:

http://www.euro-dollar-currency.com/overstaying_schengen_visa.htm

[John1thru10]

No facts, just a story.

A true story. EU doesn't care about overstay.

I don't understand why some of these guys are so bitter about it. I just mentioned it in response to someone saying that 'all countries are much stricter!' repeatedly. I don't understand why they're so paranoid like that.

I am neither angry or bitter, it is in your mind. why should i be.

That you have been lucky doesn't mean there are no rules:

http://www.euro-dollar-currency.com/overstaying_schengen_visa.htm

That they don't impose them, means it's just the way it is there. Just admit it, it's not such a big deal. You're posting something from euro-dollar-currency.com I'm talking about years and years of common experience, of myself and hundreds of people I know. Which is more believable? It wasn't cool for all of you to be accusing me of lying about it. I've wasted WAY too much time here today, frankly Have a good night.

Edited July 22, 2014 by John1thru10

[BradinAsia]

Primary school didn't do you any favors if they taught you that.

The doctor looks like a regular person, the guy in the red ugly shirt looks like some

kind of scumbag. That's the way the world sees you. If you plan to fight the whole

world and convince the world to change their thinking -- good luck.

How can you speak for the world? Got news for you, stereotyping and discrimination is going away.

Judge people from what they are, not the the looks.

Hahaha... I don't speak for anyone, I merely observe.

Stereotyping and discrimination going away? Where? Maybe on the left bank in Paris,

certainly not in most of the world. If you really think that it's going away, I'm afraid you

are not a very astute observer.

[arisaje]

Does seem a bit harsh on those that get apprehended on the way to the airport with say 10 days of overstay and wont be allowed into Thailand for 5 years.

I suspect common sense would prevail... One would hope..... In that, if the overstayer was in possession of luggage and an in-date flight ticket out, then they would be allowed to proceed to airport immigration.

The document sets out different punishments for simply overstaying, and overstaying and being apprehended.

However, aren't you, technically, apprehended at the airport, by way of handing yourself in?

Sure, they will let you pay the fine and fly out, but wouldn't they also forbid you from entering Thailand for 1 year?

Going to the immigration at the airport and having an overstay.........is a lot different than being picked up by the police (apprehended) and having an overstay.

Immigration and the Police are completely different government departments.

[sustento]

I tell you what Stento - I don't refer to myself as a 'customer' of Thailand, but - the moment you work for immigration, or are elected Prime Minister, then you can do something about that. Until then...

The sooner people stop thinking that they're 'customers' and immigration somehow owes them something the better off they'll be. I'm not being judgmental just stating facts.

Immigration owe you nothing. They can decide, on a whim, to refuse to allow you into Thailand. They have no legal obligation to let you in at all whether you're trying to enter as visa exempt or whether you have a visa. That's a fact.

Just try pulling the 'I'm a customer' nonsense with the US CBP or the UKBA and see how far it gets you.

I won't be trying that, becasue I don't think it! If someone is dumb enough to say something like that to an officer - anywhere - then they'll get what they deserve, right? I mean, I get upset about real criminals, or a guy who beats up his girlfriend, or stuff that really hurts other people. Some dummy saying he's a 'customer of Thailand', who cares?

The immigration officer who lives in a country where 'face' is important and who he's just insulted?

[honcho]

Does seem a bit harsh on those that get apprehended on the way to the airport with say 10 days of overstay and wont be allowed into Thailand for 5 years.

did you read the article? it doesn't say that!

[shocky2004]

Does that mean that if someone overstayed more than 90 days but less than a year and has already left the country (July 17th) wont be able to come back int the country? Its a bit confusing cause today my friend received his tourist visa and passeport, were suppose to go back on Friday.

Does the new law apply only to those who are still in the country and are getting caught or exiting the country from now on or to anyone that has already overstayed and cleared the fine?

Im a bit confdused

bump

[F4UCorsair]

Does seem a bit harsh on those that get apprehended on the way to the airport with say 10 days of overstay and wont be allowed into Thailand for 5 years.

Simple to fix ... DO NOT OVERSTAY.

Could it be more clear?

Not to me, but obviously some are having difficulty grasping the concept.

[KarenBravo]

because I'm a well known artist

Wrong.

You are an arrogant well known artist puffed up with a sense of your own self-importance with the imagination of a house-brick..

Thank God I'm not like you.

Edited July 22, 2014 by KarenBravo

[paymaster]

I fear this will be a pay day for the BIB. Speed checks may now include a visa check. On the spot bht200 for speeding and bht???? for visa irregularity. Shouldn't take long for the masters of scam to wake to this opportunity. Perish the thought.

[F4UCorsair]

You play the game, you take the knocks.

If all the over stayers had played by the rules, there wouldn't be this toughening by the authorities.

I've seen posts here encouraging others not to bother renewing, citing it as an economic exercise, the cost border runs, etc., versus the over stay fine.

There would be some regretting their selfish actions.

Stop calling people selfish and criminals all the time.[/quote

Read and comprehend my friend.

Using 'selfish' ONCE is not 'all the time', and I don't see 'criminal' used even once, much less 'all the time'.

If you wish to engage me please do so accurately.

Edited July 22, 2014 by F4UCorsair

[kerrysum]

Does seem a bit harsh on those that get apprehended on the way to the airport with say 10 days of overstay and wont be allowed into Thailand for 5 years.

Many should never have been allowed, in the first place.... I guess Thailand is like Las Vegas, it is all built on tourism. What can I say? kilosirra