Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing the Certificate of Entry. For those who are unaware, at least as of the time of this video, the Thailand Pass system has been brought online and the COE or the Certificate of Entry system is being phased out. For those unaware, we have been dealing with this COE System since March of 2020. It came about as a result of the Emergency Decree that was promulgated March 26th of that year and we have been dealing with it ever since. There have been some up and downs dealing with COE's. Obviously at the beginning there was a lot of confusion in the process and then things kind of smoothed out for a while and here in the past month or so we have started seeing some issues in dealing with Certificates of Entry most notably things like backlog and quite frankly requests for in my opinion some rather superfluous documentation, but okay, it was what it was. But now it is being phased out and we are now dealing with this Thailand Pass.

The question is, kind of in this transition phase, I know some people may be asking the question: “What if I have a COE? or What if am I processing it? Can I still use it? What is going on here?” So we are going to go ahead and throw this up on the screen. This is Thailand Pass FAQ's. This is from the Department of Consular Affairs under the authority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this is from October 29th, 2021 and it is from mfa.go.th. Some questions are pretty well answered here; I will go ahead and go through this real quick. 

"Is registration in Thailand Pass required for all 3 schemes traveling into Thailand?

- Effective from November 1, 2021 all travelers arriving in Thailand by air are required to register with Thailand Pass in order to travel into Thailand." 

"Can I use my approved COE to enter Thailand?" (Now this is kind of where the rubber hits the road here.) 

-If you possess an approved COE you can travel to Thailand using that COE, and will be eligible to enter Thailand via one of the three schemes, depending on whether you meet the scheme's requirements. Your COE will also describe your eligible schemes."

And then: 

"What should I do if my COE is under consideration?

- If your COE has been pre-approved you will need to submit the rest of the required documents by November 7, 2021. Otherwise your COE request will be automatically rejected and you will need to register with the Thailand Pass system to travel to Thailand. If your COE has not been pre-approved by November 1, 2021 your COE request will be automatically rejected and you will need to register with the Thailand Pass system to travel to Thailand." 

So I am sure there is going to be a fair amount of consternation out there especially with folks that are coming in during this transition. As noted we should note this again: "Can I use my approved COE to enter Thailand? -If you possess an approved COE you can travel to Thailand using that COE and will be eligible to enter Thailand via one of the three schemes depending on whether you meet the scheme’s requirements. Your COE will also describe your eligible scheme." So if you have gotten an approved COE, rest easy, you are going to be able to use it at least according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website. So that is that.

The folks that are going to be in limbo or the folks that are going through processing in this first week of November, in any event we do understand, frankly we are dealing with correspondence daily from clients and from folks just across the world that are finding overall processing right now to be a little bit frustrating. Bear with us. For those who do feel like you have got some issues with this overall process, it might not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed here. I do think things are going to start running smoothly quite quickly and thus far I have been actually pretty happy with the way that the government is kind of rolling this out but things don't always work perfectly when they are first brought online so I think it is kind of one of those "bear with us" and hopefully we are going to be seeing folks coming into Thailand in a smooth and straightforward manner here shortly.