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Tourist Visa extension


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Under normal circumstances (if there was no virus) a 30 day extension would... wait for it...  extend the expiration of your tourist visa by 30 days.  That means it adds 30 days to your permitted stay.  For example, suppose you arrived here on January 2, 2019 on a 60 day single entry tourist visa.  That visa would have expired on, uh, March 3, 2019.  If you applied for and received a 30 day extension on January 25th, the expiration of your visa would then have changed to April 2, 2019.

 

Obviously with the current situation where the government has already extended your visa automatically (it's not an amnesty, it's an automatic extension) it is unclear what will happen.

 

It looks like by this time next week (if not sooner) there may be answers.

 

My personal guess (which is no better or worse than anyone else's guess) is that they'll start doing either 30 or 60 day extensions via in person application and payment of a fee.  I tend to leans towards it being a 60 days (at least this first time) but nobody knows.

 

Good luck!

 

 

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Hi @steve1512

When applying for a 60-day extension of stay for reason of visiting your thai wife/dependant child, the 60-day permission to stay is provided from day of application.

For many who are 'stranded' in Thailand on an already expired 90-day permission to stay when they entered on their Non Imm O marriage Visa, that 60-day extension of stay application is their rescue-line (that is if they did not already use it). 

So it is well possible that for those on a VisaExempt or Tourist Visa, that did not already use up their 30-day extension of stay, that they will still have that option and would be able to use it in the last days of the Amnesty, to 'buy' an additional 30 days of stay.

>> It certainly wouldn't hurt enquiring at your local IO how they would handle such an application.  And would be helpful if you could report back (also mentioning the specific IO) for the benefit of others in that situation. 

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Your visa already expired. Around May.  That means you can not "extend" anything because you are already on an extension, the amnesty.  If you try to extend your visa, they will look at the expiration date and say that it's already expired. You are supposed to extend it BEFORE the expiration date on the visa.  However, if you have an METV, then the expiration date would be 6 months from whenever you got it issued so you could still extend that.

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7 hours ago, acenase said:

Your visa already expired. Around May.  That means you can not "extend" anything because you are already on an extension, the amnesty.  If you try to extend your visa, they will look at the expiration date and say that it's already expired. You are supposed to extend it BEFORE the expiration date on the visa.  However, if you have an METV, then the expiration date would be 6 months from whenever you got it issued so you could still extend that.

I am sorry, but your post is completely incorrect.

1 - It is not the validity date of the Visa on which you entered Thailand that is relevant.  What is relevant is the permission to stay that you got when entering Thailand.

If that permission to stay (or the extension of the permission to stay you applied for in-country) already expired you are presently on an Amnesty permission to stay.

2 - When you are married to a thai national or have thai dependant children, and you did not already apply for it since your last entry, you can apply for a 60-day extension of stay for reason of visiting your family.

That 60-day extension of stay will NOT be back-dated to the expiry date of your previous permission to stay, but it will start from the date of application.  So applying for such extension end of July (before expiry of the Amnesty) will provide you with a permission to stay till end of September.

3 - It looks plausible - but I am not 100% sure (for lack of reports on this) - that IO would do same for an application for a 30-days extension of stay when you did not already use up that one.  So that would provide the OP with a permission to stay till end of August, when applying at the end of the Amnesty.

>> Because of the unclarity on the issue whether IO would let such an application start from the expiry date of your previous permission to stay (which would render the application useless as we are already more than 30 days past that point) or whether they would - like for the 60-day extension - have it start from the date of application, it is recommended to visit your IO and enquire about the matter.

 

@steve1512 >> Please do share which IO you enquired as well as their response, as that would be useful for TVF members in same situation.

Note: Since you are here on a Tourist Visa entry, you could enquire about this at various IOs, as there is often no consistency in how the apply the rules in different IOs (especially in this unprecedented situation).  It is therefore well possible that your application would be denied in IO X, but accepted in IO Y.

 

Edited by Peter Denis
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14 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

 

Note: Since you are here on a Tourist Visa entry, you could enquire about this at various IOs, as there is often no consistency in how the apply the rules in different IOs (especially in this unprecedented situation).  It is therefore well possible that your application would be denied in IO X, but accepted in IO Y.

 

Interesting....  This is something I had not considered.  Usually people need to go to their "local" IO to take care of things, but if they are technically here on tourists visas, then wherever they are currently would be their "local" office.

 

So, for people on tourist visas, what are the best offices to visit?  (I've read elsewhere on the forums that Phuket is processing extension application for people who are currently under the automatic visa extension that ends July 31st.)  Of course, that would be a long way to travel if you're somewhere like Chiang Mai.

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16 minutes ago, asiacurious said:

Interesting....  This is something I had not considered.  Usually people need to go to their "local" IO to take care of things, but if they are technically here on tourists visas, then wherever they are currently would be their "local" office.

...

I would suggest that if the IO of the place where he is currently staying, does not accept his 30-day extension of stay from date of application, that he then posts a thread on the Forum to enquire about IOs - preferably in close proximity to his present location - that do accept such applications.

= = = = =

Note: The above actually also applies for those on other than VisaExempt or Tourist Visa.  But in their case it would involve actually 'relocating' to a province where the IO - according to TVF reports - would accept their application.

If their local IO does not accept their application for reasons that are not so strictly followed in other IOs, and if that local IO decision puts them with 'their back to the wall' and would force them to leave the country (not a nice prospect with the current border-situation), then a temporary relocation move would be worth considering.

Obviously they cannot do that 'last minute' so enquiring about their options before the end of the Amnesty (31 July) is best done in course of coming days, as a relocation the day before their application - although perfectly legal - might not be accepted by their new IO.

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