How Will Immigration Determine The 180 Day Period

[DFCarlson]

How are the immigration officers going to determine the 180 day time period in which you are allowed 90 days in

Thailand? Bear with me please...

If we look at the simplest case, where you enter Thailand for 30 days at a time, 3 times within the first 180 day

period, there are 10 ways to distribute the 30 day stamps: (I'm not even going to try to look at the case where

you leave before the 30 days are up.)

In the chart V represents a 30 day stamp and O represents no stamp issued. In case 1, for example, you are in

Thailand for 90 days straight starting at day 1 and then leave for 90 days. In case 2, you stay in Thailand for 60

days, leave for 30 days and return for 30 days at the 90 day mark.

# 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 days

01 | V | V | V | O | O | O | V | V?

02 | V | V | O | V | O | O | V | V?

03 | V | V | O | O | V | O | V | V?

04 | V | V | O | O | O | V | V | V?

05 | V | O | V | V | O | O | V | O?

06 | V | O | V | O | V | O | V | O?

07 | V | O | V | O | O | V | V | O?

08 | V | O | O | V | V | O | V | O?

09 | V | O | O | V | O | V | V | O?

10 | V | O | O | O | V | V | V | O?

At the end of the 180 day period in all cases a 30 day stamp may be issued on the 181st day since in all cases you have been in Thailand 60 days in the previous 150 day period. The new stamp will not put you over the 90 day limit in the 180 day period ending on day 210.

Now the question is, does this stamp, issued at the 180 day mark, represent the beginning of a new 180 day

period, and is the record for the previous 180 day period now just a thing of the past? If so, there will be no

problem in continuing the previous pattern.

Or, does the IO (Immigration Officer) look back at the most recent 150 day period to see whether or not you will

exceed 90 days in a 180 day period if he issues a new 30 day stamp?

At the 180 day mark, in all 10 cases above, if the IO looks back at the previous 150 days' record, there are only 2

30 day stamps, so he will issue a new 30 day stamp. All well and good.

But at the 210 day mark, when you cross the border again, the IO looks back at the previous 150 day period and

finds in 4 of the 10 cases that there are only 2 30 day stamps in that period and will therefore issue another 30 day

stamp. But... in 6 of the 10 cases he will find that there are already 3 30 day stamps and will refuse to issue

another 30 day stamp.

What I'm trying to say is that the application of this new 90/180 rule appears to be far more complicated than it

appears at first. And the problem will not surface until 210 days out in many cases.

Have I made a mistake in the calculations? Is it a moot point in that the IO will consider the previous 180 day

period gone and done with and start a new 180 day period on the 181st day? Or is there going to be mass

confusion at the border crossings a few months from now? Or is this all smoke in the wind because there's no way in h**l that Immigration is going to be able to follow up on the application of this rule? And IMHO these cases are the simplest ones!

Edited December 31, 2006 by DFCarlson

[LivinLOS]

It has to be a rolling 180 day or 6 month period.. Some immigration used 'months' comments but they also opens a can of worms.. At the end of Aug is the 30th 6 months after Feb 28 or March 1st ?? Can some people get more days than other due to 'months not all being consistently equal ??

To make any sense at all it has to be a rolling period of 180 days..

But as you have pointed out this is a very complex task with lots of possible interpretations that looks like an airline check in and immigration nightmare.

[PeaceBlondie]

DFCarlson, with all due respect for all the trouble you went to, nobody knows. We don't know if immigration doesn't know. Nightmare, indeed.

Your method is probably logical to your brain. Maybe not logical to an immigration officer's brain. But I think they have their ways. They're too smart to check everybody's passport closely. If I were their boss (hah!!), I'd put one of my staff walking up each queue, telling likely looking visa runners, "I look at your passport." If it looks dodgy, the officer says, "You come station 9." Everybody else gets a cursory look, or ends up in station 9 when the guys at stations 3, 4, and 8 don't want to do the math.

[jeebusjones]

The OP points out one more major flaw with the new regulations in painstaking detail. The new rules are completely illogical and were never really thought out. I presume they weren't thought out precicesly because they never had any intention of following through with it. January and February may be messy, but my guess is by March things will be back to business as usual.

If they were serious about implementing a limit on visa exemption stamps, there are much easier ways to do it. For example, it would have been much more logical to say 180 days in Thailand per year, starting and ending with the New Year. That would be very easy to count and control.

But we all know logic is not one of their strengths...

Happy New Year everyone.

[PeaceBlondie]

Logic is one of their skills, but perhaps the Thais exercise logic at a lower level or from a different angle than Aristotelian logic.

Logically, they know when one of the more stupid laws won't work, and logically they ignore it and do what works. We tend to be too 'serious' or stressful about it, because it affects us directly. The immigration officers who are directly affected will endure a small amount of stress, trying to count days, and then hopefully they'll decide to be very liberal, except when they're in a bad mood.

[mouse]

If the present madness keeps up, there will be no one left to apply these rules to.

[DFCarlson]

If they were serious about implementing a limit on visa exemption stamps, there are much easier ways to do it. For example, it would have been much more logical to say 180 days in Thailand per year, starting and ending with the New Year. That would be very easy to count and control.

I definitely agree there are easier ways to do it. Do the Thais really want to limit visa-exempt entries to 90 days in 180, and make it easier to implement?

Put two dates on your first visa-exempt entry stamp. One date is 90 days out from your entry date, the other date is 180 days out.

If you stay in Thailand continuously, the date that is 90 days out becomes the date you have to leave. If you want to return, a glance at the 180 day date will tell you if you can come in again.

If you leave for a short period and return later, the IO can adjust the 90 day date when you re-enter to reflect the number of days you have been out of the country by adding that number of days to the 90 day date. The new "90 day date" becomes the date you have to leave. If the 90 day date is ultimately adjusted in this manner up to the 180 day date, then the 180 day date becomes the date you must leave. However, you can return immediately, as in "border run", and when you return you are issued a new stamp with two new dates.

I think that this would serve the same purpose but would be much easier to implement.

[tropo]

Have I made a mistake in the calculations? Is it a moot point in that the IO will consider the previous 180 day

period gone and done with and start a new 180 day period on the 181st day?

The only "mistake" you've made is to use an extremely rare case as the basis for your calculations i.e. Few will use exactly 30 days of their stamps on every visa run they make.

The only way for the IOs to determine the time spent in Thailand is to inspect every entry and exit stamp. This cannot be avoided on the assumption that the person in question may have been staying his whole 30 days on every entry.

In practice, it's impossible to do this without computer programs.

Edited January 1, 2007 by tropo

[DFCarlson]

The only "mistake" you've made is to use an extremely rare case as the basis for your calculations i.e. Few will use exactly 30 days of their stamps on every visa run they make.

The only way for the IOs to determine the time spent in Thailand is to inspect every entry and exit stamp. This cannot be avoided on the assumption that the person in question may have been staying his whole 30 days on every entry.

In practice, it's impossible to do this without computer programs.

I agree, tropo, but this seemed to be the simplest way to illustrate the problem. In reality, as you point out, there are thousands and thousands of different combinations of arrival and departure dates, and for each combination the Thai IOs will have to calculate the number of days in Thailand.

Maybe a computer program will help, but I think that this will in itself take a long time to install and debug country-wide. IMHO there are much simpler ways to implement the 90/180 rule which would make it much easier for the IO to keep track manually.