Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Border Runs. A lot of folks have been talking about this, pretty good news; borders are reopening, Border Runs are more frequent, they are also more possible now where they were essentially impossible some mere week ago.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Pattaya Visa runs to Cambodian border now "much easier". I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article for themselves but quoting directly: "Visitors to Thailand say that the restarted Visa runs to Pong Nam Ron (Hot Water Springs) on the Cambodian border are much more straightforward than before. The Border post was quiet without long queues and we only needed our passports, not even a photo," said Mr. and Mrs. Turner on a long vacation from London." Just as an aside, yeah it probably is pretty quiet right now. As High season kicks in, as there starts being more demand, I would not presume that in even the relatively immediately perceivable future. These things tend to kind of have a stampede effect where yeah the first few weeks nobody really knows about it or they don't need it. Most people that have arrived in the past month or so can still get an extension in-country or they may have time left if they arrived right after October 1 they are now going to get 45 days so it is going to be like mid-November before for certain people may even need a border run and again and that's if they decide not to extend in-country. Quoting further: "They added that they began their journey from outside Jomtien Immigration in a minibus at 8 am and were back before 5 pm. However, the long-standing Thai rule," (and this is key for purposes of this video) "however the long-standing Thai rule that a new land entry stamp to the country is restricted to two in a 12 months' period remains intact." 

So yeah that is something out there; we did videos on this some years back. There was a Royal Gazette notice put out there that is basically a Decree that said "look, you get 2 a year", that's sort of the, I hesitate to call it a guarantee, because Thai Immigration does have the discretion to refuse admission to Thailand depending on the circumstances. Basically the rule of thumb is if you don't have any other underlying issues of inadmissibility to Thailand, you can always do a Border Run twice a year, you can get two stamps via borders twice a year, that's the rule. 

I like that they have kind of made that rule hard and fast, made it black and white so people know where they stand. In the past it was a much more vague thing. I remember there was a time when you could do three in a row but then you had to go get a Tourist Visa and then you would extend that, then you could do another 3 Border Runs in a row. Again, different time, different Immigration apparatus in many ways. Long story short, yeah Border Running is a more available option that it was anytime in the last two and a half years. However, bear in mind, it's not a sort of an infinite way of maintaining status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.