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Thai Multi-Entry B Visas: Presence In-Country & Work Permit Renewal
Transcript of the above video:
In prior videos on this channel we have discussed so-called "holes" in work permit and visa status and how that relates to Permanent Residence application.
When I say "holes", what I am talking about is one may have forgotten to go ahead and extend for example their B visa extension. They may not have renewed their B visa extension and that results in an expiration of the underlying Visa which results in the need to do what is called a "border run"; leave the country, get a new B visa, come back into the country and seek extension thereafter which basically if you look at it from the standpoint of Immigration perspective there was a "hole" where one was no longer in lawful status; essentially their lawful status lapsed.
The same thing can happen with respect to work permits. Work permits can basically result in a "hole". You can have a "hole" with respect to, for example a B visa extension. It is extended for a whole year but one's work permit which is not directly tied to that underlying B Visa, that work permit could go ahead and expire during the course of that year. I've seen folks, they just forget. The work permit expires and they go ahead and apply for a new work permit rather than a renewal and there may be a 2 week time delay but there was this period where the wok permit was expired and then a new work permit was obtained but there's this period where there's a "hole" in that person's lawful employment status.
I have talked about that with respect to Permanent Residence. There seems to be a new phenomenon going on specifically with respect to multiple entry B visas and work permits for folks that have multiple entry B Visas. In subsequent applications for B visas, I have been seeing the Labor Department now is taking the position under certain circumstances, and this is highly circumstantial, so there are going to be certain circumstances where this isn't an issue and certain circumstances where this is, but we are seeing more and more, Labor Department is failing to renew, renew let me be specific on that, renew a work permit based on the notion that that individual using a multi-entry Visa was abroad and it resulted in a lapse in their underlying B Visa status and therefore, notwithstanding the fact that they are back in the country in a 90-day be status, I have seen Labor now making the determination that they want to go ahead and see people apply for a whole new work permit rather than simply renew it. Now this can be a rather convoluted process. It can require the cancellation of the old permit, re-application for the new one and some additional costs associated therewith. But that being said, again it is circumstantially dependent. I've seen some folks where it wasn't ruled that and it mostly seemed to be based on the timings of their reentries and if there really was sort of a seamless B status maintained throughout. But that seems to be at the present time an issue the time the Thai Labor Department is having with respect to Immigration status. There's always kind of a little bit of friction if you will or tension between these two institutions because Immigration is not necessarily tied to the Labor Department and meanwhile the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which actually issues 1 year multiple entry B Visas is not directly influenced because they are all three different organizations. They don't have the same rules with respect to all these things. So there is some redundancy in many ways and there is some, for lack of a better term, organizational conflict with respect to the internal rules of these bureaucracies that can have an impact on a very practical level with respect to somebody who is staying in Thailand with a work permit on a multiple entry non-immigrant B visa and often times doing border runs in and out of Kingdom or even not even doing border runs necessarily, just making business trips in and out of the Kingdom, it may cause issues with respect to a subsequent application for a work permit extension.