Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what I have heard referred to by someone who sent us an email as the “Last Piece of the Thai Visa Jigsaw”. This person was specifically referring to COVID testing for those if they are coming from abroad to Thailand. 

We have gone into great detail on this channel regarding the overall Visa process to travel to Thailand and for those who are unaware, Certificates of Entry are now part of the process. There are new online portals associated with processing a Visa case; documentation is frankly a bit more cumbersome than once was and then on top of that you have got to deal with coordination of flights and Alternative State Quarantine at least for the time being. So it sort of begs the question that "what is the final piece?" and the final piece in many ways as this person noted when they sent me an email and I do appreciate emails, the final piece is sort of this COVID test; the test and the "fit to fly" documentation in order to actually board the plane.

He brought up the fact that there are different places that have different standards for the time frames in which the test can be administered and the results can be given. In some cases, 24 to 36 hours and that is fantastic. It should be noted that a result has to be issued with a validity that is 72 hours prior to the departure time of the individual coming to Thailand. There is some ambiguity on this because some Airlines actually take a slightly more conservative policy with respect to this. So it is not a terrible idea if you are dealing with an Immigration Attorney, generally speaking we have been handling this just clarifying where things stand with respect to this but it is not a terrible idea to double check with an air carrier to make sure what the policy is regarding the duration of time between the results coming out and the actual flight taking off because if you fall outside of the window and the rule of thumb really is 72 hours but I have seen snafus come up in the last three four months test, a little sooner than that, the last few weeks we had one situation arise where we had to really get somebody's test out quick and ultimately we were able to do it but it was close. It was almost going to be required that things get rescheduled. 

Long story short, yeah the COVID test really kind of is the last piece of the jigsaw if you will with respect to Visa processing to come to Thailand.