Petsma

At the moment the only tourist visa available is the "single entry tourist visa" which allows a stay of 60 days, which you can extend for a further 30 days. Hopefully the "special tourist visa" will be continued or the "multi entry tourist visa" reintroduced (providing visa-runs can happen). There are many people who go to Thailand, especially the South for 4-6 months over winter. As things stand, they will either only stay for 3 months or go elsewhere.

Multi Entry Tourist Visas are not being issued at the moment in the UK, I don't know if any other countries are issuing them now. I doubt border runs are possible at the moment anyway. Hopefully with winter approaching they extend the order for the STV for another 9 months or 1 year.

Non ED visa is an option, although personally I couldn't be arsed with it. I haven't been in Thailand for a couple of years but I know the best option used to be Non ED for learning Thai, but I've been told the going rate was about 35-40k baht for this visa a year ago. Don't know if the prices have changed recently. Regarding the METV, this is definitely not an option at the moment. Crossing borders with quarantine restrictions isn't feasible. The best option would be the Special Tourist Visa if it gets continued, unless you want to stay for longer than 270 days. Just make sure you're double jabbed and have £5k/$7-8k in the bank for the application.

As far as I'm aware, 60 day covid extensions will not be issued after 27th September

My point is, the METV isn’t being issued at the moment due to covid. It was replaced with the STV but now the STV is being retired. They need to either start issuing METV again or just continue with the STV. Obviously the STV is the better option at the moment because of covid restrictions. What I’m getting at is that you can’t have a situation where you have neither the METV or STV, you’ve gotta have one or the other.

METV are not being issued in the UK, which is where I'm from. Hopefully common sense will prevail and the STV will be extended.

Yeah, as I said in my original post. My point was the special tourist visa was brought in to replace the multi-entry tourist visa as visa runs can't be done at the moment, but now they are ending the special tourist visa and don't have anything to fill that gap. The special tourist visa was a fantastic idea, it seems insane to get rid of it before "high season". All they will achieve is to push long stay tourists to other destinations.

I'm 32. I lived in Thailand for over 10 years but left a few years back. I just can't fathom why they would remove a visa option that would bring so much cash in.

I’m wanting to come to Phuket for 6-7 months at the beginning of October. Obviously multi-entry tourist visas aren’t being issued due to covid and the Special Tourist Visa can’t be applied for anymore. What do people do if they want to stay longer than a Single Entry Tourist Visa allows? The Thai government say they want people to come but then don’t offer any visa options.