Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Visa Exemption specifically in the context of the recent announcements of expanding the Visa Exemption in terms of both nationality; as we have discussed at length they have added a number of nationalities that can now arrive in Thailand Visa-free but also expanding the overall duration of certain Visa Exemptions. If people that watch this channel recall, some weeks ago I discussed the fact that the United States and Canada seem to be on the list for getting a 90-day Visa Exemption on arrival. Well I saw a comment on a recent video where we were discussing the overall expansion of the exemption program to specifically Chinese nationals and I read this comment, quote: "Whatever happened to the 90-day Exemption?" Well yeah that's a good question. As we discussed they were talking about expanding the 90-day exemption to Americans and Canadians; they had already started allowing it for Russians and Kazaks I believe, folks from Kazakhstan, but as of yet we have not seen this expansion. 

That said I dived a little bit on this, I did a bit of a deep dive, well not a deep dive but I checked it out, did a little research and I came to a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: TAT calls for extended tourist visas. Quoting directly: “90-day stays for Russians proving popular, and more long-haul countries should be added". Quoting directly: "The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is asking the government to extend the Visa-free stay duration for long-haul tourists, including those from the United States and Europe, to 90 days aiming to lift the long haul revenue to 40% of the country's total in 2024." Quoting further: "Thailand currently offers Tourist Visas on arrival" - that is not really true, they offer exemption to Visa status on arrival. I get it, I am not trying to be unnecessarily pedantic but honestly, these little nuances confuse people and I have seen people get into issues that cause them problems in a real world context so let's be clear what this is. We are talking about a Visa Exemption stamp, so this is you get on a plane, you come to Thailand, and depending on your nationality, you are granted an exemption from Visa status for a certain duration meaning you don't have a Visa per se, but you are exempted from it; you have lawful status in Thailand. That is why it is called Visa exempt, it is not a tourist visa on arrival. Tourist visas are a different thing. They can be obtained at Embassies and Consulates abroad then you travel to Thailand and you are admitted on that Visa but you do have a Visa. It is not an exemption. Quoting again: "Thailand currently offers tourist visas on arrival (again they mean exemption) to nationals of more than 60 countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France and Scandinavian nations. Most are eligible to stay for 30 days before they must apply for a Visa” Well that is not necessarily true; you may not be able to convert into a Visa in Thailand using an exemption; that's not a foregone conclusion. You may have to leave; Border Runs as we have discussed in many other videos, you may have to do a Border Run, hop out of the country, come back in, get another stamp that allows for lawful status or you may have to do what I call a Visa Run which is you go to another country, go to an Embassy, apply for a Visa at that Embassy, get that visa, come back to Thailand. It may be possible to convert into Visa status, we discussed this at length both before, during and after COVID because they were different things associated with the discretion to allow conversion during the Emergency Decree, before and after. Again it is not a foregone conclusion that you can just convert in-country into a Visa off of a Visa exemption; that's going to be at Immigration's discretion and in many circumstances they don't exercise that discretion favourably to allow someone to convert into an actual Visa status. 

Now that said, again that is all going to be driven by circumstance so different cases are going to vary differently depending on again the facts in that case. But the thing to take away from this video is as of now, no there has been no extension of the exemption status for Americans for example as well as other Western countries. We still are only granted if you will, only granted 30 days of exemption status upon arrival. As discussed in other videos, there is also a rule regarding two Border Runs per year which are allowed which if used properly as discussed in another video specifically, one could get 120 days of lawful status in Thailand using that methodology. Not perfect, a lot of moving parts to that, so many people don't opt to go down that road. But that being said, it may be possible to convert into long-term status or maybe get a Non-Immigrant Visa and go ahead and maintain long-term status that way here in the Kingdom of Thailand.