Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, I am doing a series of these, what I am calling Thailand Tales. It is information in the expat sphere about how things were. By the way for you old expat hands out there and maybe some of you don't want to be called old but for you guys who have been here a long time even probably longer than me, I am sure there are many of you watching this channel that have been, if you have any ideas for stories about stuff that went on here in Thailand in the Expat world, things that would have impacted Expats back in the day as they say, we are all ears. We are curious to hear what you have to say in the comments or feel free to send us an email.

In this video we are talking about the so-called infinite 30-day stamp. What are we talking about here? There was a time in Thailand, for those who are unaware, those coming into Thailand under standard Immigration procedure, if they are coming from certain countries mostly Western countries, they can get a 30-day stamp just at the airport. They could get on a plane; it is almost weird to talk about this now because the Government response to COVID has changed so many of these protocols especially since the Emergency Decree of March 2020. Prior to that somebody for example from America could get on a plane, get to Thailand come to Bangkok, Boom! 30-day stamp stamped in their passport right when they come in. They just got a 30-day stamp. Now, as opposed to back then, there are only a certain number of those you can get. You can only get a certain number, it is called a Visa exemption stamp. We have done a number of videos on this. There are only so many of those you can get. Basically, the way I look at is about three a year is kind of where you max out. Back then, there was no rule on that. It was sort of infinite. I know a number of people that lived in Thailand for a long time, some that are still here, they are generally in some kind of other non-immigrant status but yes especially folks that lived up country oftentimes with a spouse that were near a border, they would just often times set a shopping deadline to go over to the other side to Laos or Cambodia, and pick up some things they might not otherwise be able to get where they lived and then come back in and that usually got the husband’s status for another 30 days and you could just continuously do that. There was a time that was feasible, that was possible. 

That time has come and gone. They first initiated it and they basically said you can only get three of those for every six months. It evolved into a dance where you could get three and then some folks would run to an Embassy and get a Tourist Visa and then use that to come back to basically take another 90 days that would give him the 6 months and then they would start over again. They eventually phased that out. 

Now again we are under the Emergency Decree here right now so it is kind of a different setup. Currently actually, an inbound exemption stamp you get 45 days on this opposed to 30. That is to account for the time one has to spend either in the Phuket Sandbox, the Samui Sandbox or just in quarantine. So they have taken into account that initial 14-day period but yeah there was a time here in Thailand where yes it was possible. The infinite 30-day stamp was a possibility. I have seen many folks that have used it. I have seen older passports that just have reams of these 30-day stamps in there. Occasionally folks would run into an Immigration officer that didn't really like that after a certain point but for the most part it was pretty much common practice and then they changed the rules on that.