This is my first post so please be gently.

I come to Thialand every month (from Aistralia) as part of a business consulting group in IT services. I spend from 2 to 30 days in Thailand but usually 5 to 12 days. Have been doing this for 4 years and have always used the 30day Visa on arrival.

I have been waiting to see how they are going to enforce the 90 out of 180 day limit of stay usng the 30 day visa on arrival as Icould be affacted.

Arrived last night at the airport (25th JAN), nearly 4 months into the new system. Thought it may have been automated - how wrong I was.

The immigration official lokked at my passport and saw the mant entries to Thailadn in the past - she asked me how many days I had spend in Thailand since the 1st of October and I said "about 60". She then went through the passport and identified all the entries and exits since the 1st of October 2006. She added up the days and came to 64 - therefore I was not granted a 30 days visa but a visa which expires in 26 days.

So a few points to note -

- The enforcment of the 90 in 180 days is as per expected and was fair as per the guidelines I understood.
- The is no elcectronic system to automatically calulate the days used or left in the 180 days period.
- The days are counted as per entries in the passport - if you have two passports then I asume you could use two to stay on two lots of "90 out of 180" and be here the whole time - although illegally.
- It is VERY time consuming - it took a good 15 minutes for her to go through my passport and annoyed the people waiting behind me in the line.
- Adding to the time was the issue that typically Thai immigration officers do not put stamps in a chronoloigal order so she had to go thriugh my passport from page 1 to page 64 to check for all entries from Oct 1.

Cheers,


Mike

OK interesting to note they set a custom amount of days to bring you to exactly 90.. I also wonder if you could get an in country extension ???

This will get even more funny when they have to have a rolling start date.. And work around the month ends..

Is there a sweepstake for when this is going to be swept under the carpet ?? Too much work for them..

I think it is madness no matter what.
If it is such a huss,and if they want to change the code ,what they did for visa free enrty.
Why not just give a 2 or 3 month visa free to all farangs.A lot of them will extend there holidays.
Like malaysia where you get a 60 or 90 day free stay.A lot of problems finihed ,and what do you think about all the time consuming work the imm has got to do,still bananarepublic over here.I love it don't understand me wrong ,just getting tired too many right now....

I think the 30 day length is fine, given that the average duration of stay is far less than 30.

the current mechanism is manual which sucks, but the principle is fine. If someone wants to stay longer, they can get a visa. Simple enough.

Bananarepublic???? errr, sahtaranarat gluae ler? mai nair jai muan gun na khunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

its good to see that some officers are counting the days(as opposed to entries). at least if they implement the rules consistently,we will know where we stand and can work out our visas accordingly.

It just goes down as more evidence the new rule was not well thought out. The lines do seem to be getting longer but in reality they are just bogging down the system with more hassle. Most of us have barcodes in our passports that could be scaned, helll walmart has been doing it for 20 years. My wifes Thai passport even has a microchip in the damm thing and we have guys hand counting and adding up things with a pencil while we waste our lives away standing in line.

I bet you were popular............

Multiple queues is a nonsense anyway.
A single queue and multiple outlets is much more efficient,
and practiced by immigration in many countries now.

Thanks a lot for your story.

You must be the first one to report on the 90 days issue with visa exemptions, at the airport.

Are you australian ?

When was your previous trip ? Before 01/01 ?

I was half thinking as a kind of morbid joke, taking a yellow highlighter and randomly marking a bunch of entries and exits from other countries in my passport. It is 120 pages and full stamps.

Of course, joke would be on me because if they decided to try to count the days for Thai entries I am sure would be stuck at the immigration desk for quite a long time.

Serioulsy though, I do see this as a problem after this inital period starts as immigration will have to start weeding out the old stamps that don't apply to the current period. It will only get worse.

i already had the same thing last week i am travelling frequently between Malaysia and Thailand once every 10 days and last week was the first time they started counting all my days spent in Thailand normally i am not longer then 2 days here but the waiting untill all is counted by hand going back and forward in your pasport takes upto 15 minutes.

Just to correct your terminology...

As an Aussie passport holder you are subject to a "Visa Waiver" agreement with Thailand and you get a "Permit" stamp on arrival.

A "Visa on Arrival" is a different thing altogether.

I am curious. I gather from your post you are visiting Thailand for work related purposes.

Can this be done with the 30 day visa on arrival?

When you mark your incoming passenger card do you mark the reason for the visit "Holiday" or "Business"?

If you mark "Business" do they ask for more detail and from having many vists wonder why you dont have a work permit?

If you declare you come on a holiday couldnt they do you over if you were found to be working?

I'm not sure on the rules or definitions but am keen to learn for my future plans

now i really am getting pissed off with the inconsintencies here. i have just been to immigration in jomtien to extend my tourist visa. visa history since october 1st is:
oct 29 enter on 30 day visa exempt at suvarnabhmi
nov27 exit at nong khai (30 days up)

dec 4 enter at nong khai on tourist visa (60 days given,expire on 1 feb)
jan 26 extension at jomtien(30 day extension given to expire on3 mar)
the officer told me he could grant me a further 7 days in case of emergency,otherwise at the end of my extension i will have to leave for 3 months!!!!!. this makes no sense to me at all. theyre making it up as they go along i think.its going to be the same old story ,its going to be up to the INDIVIDUAL you deal with and how they interpret it.

i do this on a 30 days visa always mark business never had any questions about it, and untill last week no checks were done.

if they would ask just say meetings thats no work i think if i get caught working that would be the next step but the chances for that are minimal .

Hold on.. Did he give a 7 day extension or did he grant the 30 day until March 3rd ??

You should be ok being on a tourist visa and non visa exemption but the whole mess is looking shaky.. No clear cut policy beween border and airport immigrations, local consuls, incountry immigration, etc..

Here again, you must be the first to report such a case.

Do you remember the large discussion we had on TV ?

-1-some were saying : mai pen rai, make 3x30 visa exemptions and then apply for regular tourist visas and then start over.

-2-other were saying (me for instance) : the rule "90 days in, 90 days out and maximum 180 days in Thailand on tourist purpose" should apply for visas exemption AND of course for regular tourist visas. Its sounds logical.

Anyway, your case seems to go into number 2.

However, I do agree with you : it's going to be up "on the face of the customer", depending on the officer.

I do notice that : since 1 week, we have 2 stories at Suva, for people with full of stamps. And yours. So maybe something is changing.



This post has been edited by cclub75: 2007-01-26 15:18:26

maybe i wasnt clear ,sorry. the 30 day extension was given. was told a further 7 day extension would be available in case of emergency. according to the officers interpretation, after this extension is up i must leave for 90 days.he sees the visa exempt entries and days spent on tourist visa the same apparently( maybe ,dont really know ,completely confused by his interpretation)

what really adds to the confusion is that if the officer sees the days on tourist exempt visa and tourist visa as both counting towards the 90 days, why did he give me another 30 days??

Oh great counting by hand????? If this wasn't so serious, I'd have to laugh.

Then if this is the case it changes things for the legions of oil workers I know who fly in and out of Thailand every three to four weeks! I was informed and heard thought it was only the land crossing visa runners who would be getting clamped down on with the 90 days out of 180 rule.!
What a shambles!

Also remember a man sat at an incountry immigration office isnt going to be the one sat at the border deciding if you can come in or out..

I know its owrrying but its the land and air points that we really need to pay attention to the implementation of.

Mike why on earth are you putting yourself through all this ? if you are regularly coming here for genuine business purposes and you have
an Austrian passport plus you don't have any criminal record - you should be eligible for an APEC Buiness Travel Card.
This will solve all your problems plus you get to use special lanes at immigration - in some countries it's the diplomatic channel Lane !
I must warn you it will take up to a year to get all your clearances for all 17 participating countries ( the People's Republic of China
takes athe longest ) but you could get an interim card in far shorter time. for places like Thailand they usually only take 8 to 10 weeks
to give you their clearence. I'm telling you in your situation it would be a real investment !

My understanding is after 90 days in Thailand, you have to leave the country for 90 days. It seems like they treated you fairly. Better to upgrade to a legitimate visa, and avoid the potential BS.

The common factor is the word "tourist" - whether it's a (tourist) visa-on-arrival or a tourist visa stamped into your passport by a Thai embassy or consulate. That's my experience from applying for a 2-month tourist visa & wanting another one within 6 months -- the lady at the consulate said that she could only issue a 1-month visa as the second one (meaning: I might as well do it on a visa-on-arrival, which is free).

So: it seems as though any sort of visa below a non-immigrant is considered a tourist visa and thus counts towards 90 days within 180...

Uncool.

Dear Mike:

You actually should be entering Thailand on a Multiple Entry Non-Immigrant "B: visa, available at either the Thai Embassy or Thai Consulates-General in Australia. You are going to Thailand as a consultant and therefore are eligible for this type of visa, which allows you to enter Thailand as many times as you can fit into one year less a day (be aware that the longest you can stay at any one time is 90 days and then you must do a visa run. The Thai Government looks at each visa (in your case, 90 days) as an entity unto itself and therefore you must show in your passport by stamps that you have exited Thailand and entered another country. You then simply get stamped out of that country and into Thailand, usually with little or not waiting time. You have then satisfied the "letter of the law".

I am employed at the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Calgary Alberta Canada and run into this situation quite frequently. We strongly suggest to all our clients NOT to use the "3 30-day entries", as they then cannot enter Thailand for 6 months after utillizing this rule 3 times.

I would suggest you contact either the Embassy or a Consulate-General in Australia - I am sure they will be very pleased to assist you in entering Thailand legally.

With very kind regards,
Francie L