Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Land Border Runs. A recent article from TAT, that is Tourism Authority of Thailand, that is tatnews.org, and this is titled: Thailand Eases Entry Rules from 16 December 2021. Quoting the byline: Land and sea arrivals will be allowed, while rules on testing, staying period, and vaccination for young travellers are relaxed. Quoting directly: "What's new: In addition to arrival by air Travelers will be allowed to enter by land (at Nong Khai border checkpoint, starting 24 December 2021) and sea provided that they meet the vaccination and testing requirements." Well that is pretty big news, we have been kind of keeping an eye on this.

Border Running was once quite a ubiquitous action taken by foreign nationals here in Thailand not so long ago, a couple of years ago. Folks that needed to maintain their lawful status here in Thailand oftentimes would do a night or two over the Border or just run over the Border and come back in depending on their status. You saw this a lot even in a Non-Immigrant context for example the old multiple entry one year Non-Immigrant B visas, multiple entry non-immigrant one year O Visas, you would see these issued quite frequently and folks would only have 90 days of validity for each entry so oftentimes they would run to a land border, cross and come back in. 

In the old days, as we have discussed in other videos, it was possible to basically maintain perpetual status in Thailand for many passport holders utilizing the 30-day Visa exemption by just simply crossing over a land border and coming back in. As time passed, they made rules where the infinite Border Run was kind of closed off as an option and then we went into this whole situation with COVID where basically border running was impossible the last roughly 18 months or maybe at this point about 18, 19, 20 months something like that. Now it looks like here going into 2022 it will be possible up at the border crossing at Nong Khai for folks to be able to go out and presumably come back in. So again there are more requirements on this. Those who are looking to do this, you probably are going to want to do some significant research to understand your situation because I can see a lot of different ways where the moving parts if you will of getting in and out, things may not move so smoothly. It is going to depend on circumstances obviously and those looking to do this, it might not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.