Non-O : leaving the country and, finally, not coming back

[BigDaddy66]

Hello

I'm under a regular Non-O visa in Thailand and I obtained a 1 year extension in last October.

I left Thailand for Europe during last December and I paid for a re-entry at the airport. Reason was I was not totally sure how long I will have to leave, and if I will come back in February or not.

Today it is obvious we will not come back before june or July at the minimum. Maybe it will even be longer.

Question : what I am supposed to do with the Thai immigration? Is my Visa just dead if I'm out of the country during more than 6 months ? What will they say if I come back in, let's say, 1 or 2 years ?

Thanks for experts to share their knowledge, this forum is very usefull thanks to them

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B.D.

[paz]

You extension of stay is valid until Oct 2015, the date is stamped on your passport. Not valid after that and you would have to start all over again.

[ubonjoe]

The only limit on the amount of time you can be out of the country is the date your extension of stay ends. That is also the date your re-entry permit expires.

[Liquorice]

No problem coming back before the expiry date of your extension.

After that if you intend to remain for any length of time in Thailand again, I suggest you get a Non Imm 0 type Visa in your home country to enter Thailand, then you can extend your permission to stay with an extension from Immigration subject to meeting the conditions.

[laislica]

My Thai wife and I spend winter in Thailand and Summer in Spain.

I have a retirement extension and it needs renewed towards the end of April.

This means I can apply 1 month before (near end March) for the extension and leave any time after the extension is granted.

You need to do this in Thailand and the timing suits me perfectly.

If you also intend to spend chunks of time regularly in Thailand and elswhere, the timing of the extension is important.

After the first expension, I let it expire as we were in Europe and I thought I's save money on the re-entry permit.

Wrong, the cost of a one year retirement ext is 1,900b plus a single re-entry permit of 1,000b.

So it cost me more like 6,000b by the time I had secure couriered my passport + application + 1,600 visa fee to the Thai Embassy in Madrid!

And, that only got me a 90 day stay!

Then I had to do the extension for a year.....

DUH!!

[BigDaddy66]

Thank you everybody for your answers