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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawTriple Entry Tourist Visas and the 6 Month Tourist Visa Scheme

Triple Entry Tourist Visas and the 6 Month Tourist Visa Scheme

Transcript of the above video:

In this video, we're going to be discussing the tourist visa, the Thai tourist visa specifically in the way it's sorted in the halls. In the past, we had what was called a triple entry tourist visa. There were certain consulates that were willing to issue essentially simultaneously three separate 60-day tourist visas at the same time. Now, those who have been around the Thai visa system, the Thai immigration system will know a 60-day tourist visa can be extended by another 30 days here in the Kingdom. Therefore, getting three 60-day tourist visas would allow the individual holding such travel documents to essentially spend nine full months in the Kingdom of Thailand at a given stretch.

As has been noted in previous videos on this channel, there has been quite a movement within the Thai immigration system and within the apparatus of enforcement of immigration law to go ahead and sort of weed out the people that are using temporary visas in order to essentially live and possibly work here in the Kingdom. One thing that's kind of become a casualty of the change in policy is this triple entry tourist visa scheme. It's my understanding there's still certain posts that are willing to issue three consecutive tourist visas, 60 days but they're becoming fewer and further between. They're not exactly a regularly done thing as it was in the past. And the one system that's been brought in to sort of phase out the old tourist visa scheme is this new tourist visa system associated with the six-month tourist visa. This is discussed more at length in another video on this channel.

But it's of note with respect to the so-called triple entry visas of the past because in the past, it was a multi entry setup. One had to leave presumably every 90 days if one went ahead and got the 30-day extension on top of the 60 days in every rollover of the visa, in every rollover of status here in the Kingdom. The new 6-month visa is multi entry and the holder of it will go ahead and get 60 days stamp at each entry into the Kingdom. And then that individual is going to have the option to go ahead and extend by 30 days or do a border run and just pick up another 60 days, then do another port around to pick up another 60 days.

Again it's a six-month visa so however, one does it - either extending in country or for 30 more days or leaving the country, getting three sets of 60 you're going to end up with the same thing. You're going to end up with six months. It looks like they're trying to do this to go ahead and sort of phase out the old system and it looks like they're phasing out the triple entry tourist visas although again, it hasn't been fully phased out at least as at the time of this filming. I know that from anecdotal evidence.

However, it looks like that the fundamental policy moving forward is one of you basically can't be in Thailand longer than 60 days out of any given one year in what can only be described as a temporary visa. So they're getting harsher and harsher on 30 days stamps. If they see more than about four or five in a given year and no more than six in a given year, they start turning people away. And also with respect to tourist visas, it doesn't look like it's going to be possible moving forward to easily or with any kind of certainty get longer than 60 days in tourist visa status out of any given one year at a stretch in order to remain here in the Kingdom.