Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what has been referred to as the Special Tourist Visa. Now I have made other videos in the past discussing this but basically the Special Tourist Visa was created about a year ago. It was promulgated on kind of an ad-hoc basis when things were much more in flux and Thai Immigration Authorities were still trying to spur some more tourism to Thailand, they created the Special Tourist Visa. It essentially operates for nine months but as we have discussed in other videos it has a hard out; you have to leave on a Special Tourist Visa. 

I recently had a question in a comment on this channel. Actually this may have been an email correspondence but basically correspondence from a viewer. Quoting directly: "May I ask if you have looked into the fact that the STV ends 30 September and if this means one can or cannot do the 2 extensions in that program after 30th September? I know someone that just got the STV issued and the issuing Embassy manually changed the date on the sticker to 30th September. Will everyone that is on STV need to extend one final last time just before September 30th or will we still be able to extend after this date?" What I would say is presume you won't so deal with your extensions sooner rather than later. It is my understanding that this is a hard end. They are terminating this visa. Basically it was being used when not all the Visa categories were available out there; the exemption stamp was temporarily suspended; the Tourist Visa was temporarily suspended but they had this Special Tourist Visa. So, I would view this as a hard end. I am not speaking definitively here. The other thing is Immigration Officers do have some discretion; Embassies have discretion with respect to these but yeah I think it would be safer or more prudent to presume it is definitely going to end the 30th and it may result in folks not being able to even get an extension in Thailand after that point or even only being able to extend to that point. 

So as we have discussed, it is something of a boxed-in Visa. It was intended for those using it to use it only up to a certain point and it appears at least that we may be at that point basically now.