Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Permanent Residence in Thailand, Visa runs, border runs, what are we talking about? Why would you say we went from Residence to Border Runs to Extensions? That doesn't make any sense. Well, what we are talking about, well in a sense it is kind of a history of the expat experience if you will in Thailand in microcosm if you will. I got to thinking of this after reading a really good article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thai Immigration: past, present and future. I would urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail. There is a lot of information in there; good insight into the evolution of the Thai Immigration apparatus going back into the twenties all the way up to now, I think Immigration is almost 100 years old, I think it is 95 years old as of this year.

The reason for the video came from an excerpt, again I urge folks to read the article, it came from the excerpt in this article, again Thai Immigration: past, present and future. Quoting directly: “The 1980s and 1990s witnessed an unparalleled boom in InterContinental air travel. Thai Immigration Authorities, under Government instructions, consciously soft pedaled visa restrictions by allowing long stay foreigners to make repeat border runs or in-out flights to renew or extend their visas. By 1991, one year Visas and extensions of stay had appeared whilst Work Permit holders were no longer forced to fly to Penang and back every 3 months. Retirement Visas were also permitted although the minimum age at first was 60 years and the money in a Thai Bank was described as "any six-figure sum", or a minimum of 100,000 Baht. So that was an interesting one and then again, from the same article there was this excerpt as well: "Although regular expansion occurred particularly as mass air travel became a world feature, it was the 1979 Immigration Act which established the features of registering and controlling foreigners which are still dominant today." Quoting further: "The 1979 Act toughened up Visa regulations and insisted on knowing the whereabouts of foreigners during their stay. In fact the origin of address registration and 90-day reporting was to track economic migrants from neighboring countries rather than the millions of leisure tourists who also became caught in the net. Well yeah the 90-day reporting was never really intended for so-called tourists. I mean as evidenced by the fact that the standard Tourist Visa, not talking about the Special Tourist Visa which came into effect during COVID, a standard Tourist only maxes out at 90 days anyway so that wasn't really what that was designed for. 

Interesting stuff here but one thing I would add is to go back a little further than '79, if you go back into about mid-70s I believe it was '74, prior to 1974 it is my understanding, I have talked to people over the years, they are older gentleman usually now, quite a bit older, or when that came in I believe it was '74 when if you were at the airport when you were coming in they said "hey are you are you a tourist or are you going to stay here?" and if you said "I am going to stay here", they literally stamped you in as a Resident then, your Permanent Residence was issued on arrival. I have met people in Thailand, they are still in Thailand that have been resident ever since that moment. They had their Residence issued right at that time and they just kind of got grandfathered in because over time the rules did change and yes in fact 1979 did see the introduction of the Immigration Act and the promulgation of the non-Immigrant Visa categories that we are all very familiar with today, O Visas, B Visas and the like. So, it is rather interesting as noted by this article that yeah if you go back into the '70s that's why I started the video by saying okay Permanent Residence and then it went to Border Runs, well yeah because people basically it was very easy to Border Runs. Up until really about the time I came on the scene some 15 years ago it was possible to do infinite Border Runs. You would just run to a border every 30 days, you would get a 30-day stamp and stay in Thailand that way and there are many people who utilized that for a number of years. So you went from kind of this Residence system to the Border Run system and then the Border Run system they started clamping down on it a little bit and then they introduced non-Immigrant Visas and people kind of said: "Hey, I don't really want to have to run to a border every 30 days. I am just going to get into a non-Immigrant Visa." In some cases they went into Retirement Visa, that type of thing depending on circumstances.

Now one thing I didn't really understand was "forced to fly to Penang and back every three months" excuse me: "whilst Work Permit holders were no longer forced to fly to Penang and back every three months", well it is my understanding the initial Work Permits that were issued in Thailand were lifetime so the initial Work Permit holders, I believe that was promulgated in the early 1980s, those folks didn't have to leave at all or didn't have to deal with their Work Permit at all. Now I'm not sure if we're talking about the old multi-entry Business Visa which did require folks to come and go but the extension system existed at that time so it was an option to just extend status in Thailand although maybe some people just didn't want to do that; it was just easier to get on a plane, go out and come back in whatever. But yeah Border Running was much more common and then sort of extensions became more the norm and then to tack on to the end of that, as we have seen roughly the past 10 years where it was once possible to stay for prolonged periods of time on Tourist Visa status, Thai Immigration has cracked down a lot on that. They have said, “Look, we don't want to allow that anymore”, so more and more they have created a system wherein you need to be in some form of Non-Immigrant status in order to maintain Long-term Immigration status here in the Kingdom Thailand.