Hi,

As I understand it, you have to wait until the last 30 days of a 90 day permission to stay to *apply* for a 1 year extension of stay based on marriage. After which, you are not not granted the 1 year extension right away, instead, you are granted a 30 day extension, after which you return to get the remaining 11 months of the 1 year extension.

My questions (assuming I have those facts straight):

1) can you leave the country and return during that initial 30 day extension of stay? (If so I assume this means I would need a single re-entry permit stamp)

2) would leaving possibly mess anything up if the initial 30 day extension of stay is perhaps used by immigration to do a home visit or something to validate the overall application?

3) Does the initial 30 day stamp followed by the final 11 month stamp happen on successive yearly renewal of the extension of stay or only on the initial application?

I live in Nonthaburi in case any of the answers might depend on the specific immigration office I use (I go to the Nonthaburi immigration in Bang Bua Thong).

Thanks in advance for any information.

1. You will get a under consideration stamp with a report back date 30 days form the date your apply or from when your current permit to stay ends dependent upon where you apply. You can get a re-entry permit that will be valid up to the report back date.

When go on the report date they will do the one year extension stamp.

2. Many offices do a home visit for the first extension and others will ask for you to bring a witness or witnesses. If you are not here for the home visit it might be a problem. Normally they should schedule the home visit shortly after you make the application.

3. You will get the under consideration stamp for every extension.

Q2. My last extension wasn't my first extension, but it was the first at a new office and I had a home visit. They told me to expect a visit when I handed in the application and the officer called the next morning to say he would be calling in the next few days, and to make sure I was at home. He said that if I wasn't home my application would be cancelled and I'd have to apply again. He didn't give a time, but he turned up two hours later keen to collect his tea money.

I don't live in your area and your office may have a different policy, but based on my experience I would strongly recommend you don't go anywhere until the visit, if required, is done. And as Joe says it's likely to be within a few days of the application if at all.

Twice I have had to leave the country during that 1 month "consideration" period. I simply alerted them to that fact and they expedited their "consideration" ie. i didn't have to wait the whole month. The last time this happened I had to fill out a special form requesting expedited action. It was rather nerve-racking though. On both occasions they timed the request for my return to the morning of my intended departure so that i went in on the way to the airport (I'm in Chiangmai - Their office is near the airport). I mean, what if Thai bureaucracy had struck and it was not there???

Then you would have paid 1,000 Baht for a re-entry permit.

"Then you would have paid 1,000 Baht for a re-entry permit".

Either way, he still would have needed a re-entry permit, wouldn't he?