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 | | | | | Thailand's
New Immigration Regulations | | | New
Thailand Visa Regulations Become Clearer | | | |
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| | On
Saturday night Sabah Cafe & Cinema had a semi-formal
visit from Immigration Police Major Suppachai Paladech, Inspector of the Immigration
Detention Centre and Secretary to the Commissioner of Immigration; technically
the second in command at Immigration. The intended purpose of the visit was to
clear up some rumors and ally fears that many long term 'tourist' are having regarding
the implementation of updated immigration regulations on the 1st October 2006.
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| | To
avoid confusion and in the interest of clarity, questions and answers were discussed
by a few before the process was repeated with an adjudicator and Police Major
Suppachai Paladech addressing an audience. | |
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| | Questions
and Answers: | |
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| | Question:
It
is obvious that the present border runners will change into visa runners to other
countries. What are the Department of Immigrations thoughts on this? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: From
October 1st you can travel to the border and re-enter 3 times using the system
of waiver of a visa. After that, if you get a single entry tourist visa from abroad
you can stay here for 60 days, after that you can get a visa extension for 30
days, so it is already 6 months. Each time you leave the country you can come
back with the visa extension again, so the tourist visa intervenes. | |
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| | Question:
So if we buy a tourist visa and extend it for
1 month can we leave buy another tourist visa and back, can we continue to do
that? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: Yes,
you can do that. We don't want some people staying on visa extensions for ever.
Some people stay for 10 years. The main thing at the moment is that now people
that come to Thailand for 10 years are not getting screened. With the tourist
visa the police now have a chance to check the people that are not on the blacklist.
That is the main thing of this new law. | |
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| | Question:
When does the new rule effecting 90-day maximum
wavered visas come into affect? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: It
means that the person who has been staying on visa extensions for years, you can
depart. If your visa ends on the 30 September, you leave the country and come
back on the 30th September, you still can use that 3 times. There was misinformation
on the Internet, it doesn't count by stamps, it counts by days. This is very important,
it counts by days not stamps. Yeah counts by days. | |
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| | Question:
This is going to effect the airlines. How is
Immigration going to handle this? How does an airline know when a passenger comes
to their stamp quota? The airline is responsible for their passenger? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: Your question is a very good
question. OK we know that from the first of October it counts from 90 days and
the problems will come back. Many people will be stopped at the border, right.
So within 90 days we will try to do something. Because we are thinking about the
electronic visas. We will use that kind of visa where the airline will have to
submit the name of the person to our office before to issue the ticket, similar
system to the US. It needs at least 1 year. We
don't want people using that kind of system (visa waiver) to stay in our country
forever, we have to use the tourist visa to intervene in that system to screen
them, to screen the people who are staying in our country. | |
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| | Question:
We have heard that there will be a
3 month visa you can buy here in Bangkok. Is this a new rule, if so when is it
in place, is it already in existence, can you explain? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: It is not a new visa, it is
a new regulation for foreigners who don't have a visa, but visa extension, it
means you can apply for a non immigration type B and O at the Immigration Bureau.
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| | Question:
In Thailand right? | |
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| | Police
Major Suppachai: Yes. But it means that you have
to have at least 3 weeks, I mean visa. It means when you come in right, you have
4 weeks. In the first week you have to contact immigration, in Bangkok in Suan
Phlu and submit the papers that you want to change your visa. You have to have
a visa. Before we could change the category of visa from tourist to non-immigrant,
but this time we can issue the visa as well. | |
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| | A
summary of points that were discussed in more detail: | |
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reason for the new regulations are twofold: | |
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| | 1.
Try to eliminate known foreign criminals from entering Thailand. It is desired
by the authorities that those staying longer term in Thailand should be screened
through a more thorough computer system available at Embassies, Consulates and
Immigration offices. Hence the reasoning of forcing people into applying for longer
stays after a maximum of 90 days by obtaining 3 consecutive free 30 day waivers
of a visa at entry points. Border crossing checkpoints are currently limited to
screening out undesirables on the 'Blacklist' and high profile undesirables. | |
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| | 2.
Persuade foreigners that are on the incorrect visas or stamps to correct their
paperwork in line with the law. By making the trip to an Embassy, Consulate or
Immigration office necessary within 90 days from 1st October 2006, it is hoped
that foreigners who are disrespecting Thai law rectify the situation by applying
for the correct visa. To aid this, Non immigrant B and O visas will be issued
inside Thailand at the Immigration Office in Bangkok. IMPORTANTLY, to apply you
have to have at least 3 weeks remaining on your current stamp and obviously the
correct paperwork. The visa needed to apply is yet to be clarified. The
Department of Immigration controls borders and The Department of Foreign Affairs
controls Consulates and Embassies. There has been no official orders to tighten
controls on issuing visas abroad. It is at the discretion of the issuing officer.
It is business as usual. There is and never was a guarantee that you would be
issued a single, double, etc visa. At borders the 90 day max of 'waivers of a
visa' will be enforced once your 90 days FROM 1st October have been utilized within
the period of 180 days. Days
in country are counted and NOT number of stamps. There is an issue here with airlines
and the Department of Immigration understands this. It is their wish that a system
similar to something like the US where passenger list are checked electronically
before departure will be installed in the future to eliminate problems. This may
take some time. The
Department of Immigration understands that their will be problems with the new
regulations and will review as necessary.
Update:
Dave
Munns writes: "John it has been 500 baht for the
past 4 months or more, and now you can only get 14 day extensions
on a 30 day visa but you can go on a border run as many times
as you want, not like before you could only do 3 then you
had to leave, and now you do not need a return ticket."
(28 December 2008)
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