Legal and Visa Updates

How to do it from Thailand: Go by air  or bus to a country bordering Thailand with a Thai Consulate in a major city like Vientiane Laos, Penang or Kuala Lampur Malaysia or Phnom Penn Cambodia .In the morning Monday through Friday  go to the Thai Consulate and apply for a threemonth Tourist Visa. Ordinarily it costs 1,900 baht, but thanks to this promotion your 60-day visa is free and granted to everyone.

You submit a simple application they will give you. Apply for a three-month visa or if you plan to stay in Thailand longer you can request a double entry visa. Leave the completed form and your passport with the Thai Consulate offce. The next day return to the Thai Consulate after 1pm to pick up your passport and visa. Check to make sure you got the amount of time for which you applied. 

The Thai Consulate will give you a 60-day entry and then you go to any immigration offce in Thailand for a 30 day extension just before the 60 days is up and pay 1,900 baht giving you up to 90 days stay. You get the extension while you-wait most of the time. If you applied for the double-entry tourist visa in the beginning, then all you have to do is a ‘border run’, you go out of Thailand to get your passport stamped and get an additional 60 days. After that two months free visa holders can go to any Immigration Bureau in Thailand and get an extension for  30 days more.

Another alternative to constantly having to obtain tourist visas and extensions is to apply for a Education visa and learn to speak,read and write Thai. For those that wish to acquire an ED Visa, you must enroll in an MOE certifed school such as the CTLS Language School in Pattaya. The course is 180 hours, 4 hours per week, 2-2 hour lessons.  

A great advantage of the ED Visa is that you can remain in the country without the constant threat of overstaying and in accordance with the desires of the Thai authorities who themselves recommend this method of a long stay visa. The ED Visa greatly enhances a foreigner’s experience and makes it easier to live here, and students get to further their knowledge of Thai culture and language as well as saving time and money having apply for visas in countries outside Thailand and having to do ‘border runs’ constantly.

The way the process works is a qualifed school issues the 25 pages or so of documents to the student, who then applies for the visa at one of the Thai consulates outside of the Kingdom. The student is then issued a temporary 3 month ED Visa, and then more documents are then submitted to the MOE for approval of a 12 month extension, payable every 90 days at a cost of 1900 baht. The better schools can offer education visas for up to 10 years, but not all schools are the same.

For many visitors here that wish to stay long term, but don’t have a work permit or some other kind of long term visa such as a retirement visa, the ED Visa is a wonderful alternative. With all the changing rules by the immigration dept, the ED visa is seen by many as a lifesaver, and this truth will certainly come to light after the free tourist visas are discontinued on March 4.

For more information call CTLS on 038 416 891