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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawCOVID-19: Will Thai Business Visas Still Need to Be Extended?

COVID-19: Will Thai Business Visas Still Need to Be Extended?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Coronavirus outbreak or COVID-19 and we are specifically discussing the topic of Non-immigrant Thai Business Visas or specifically I should State we are discussing Thai Business Visa Extension here in the Kingdom and we are discussing in the context of this COVID-19 thing. 

There is a lot of news out there, there is a lot of information. Frankly the raw data is a little bit difficult to sift through at times and  I scour the internet daily for as much information as I can get from the various news sources regarding Thai Immigration and the documentation associated with maintaining status here in Thailand. 

The thing to take away from this video is the short answer "Yes, B visa extension Visa holders need to continue extending their status as they normally would."  I am going to go ahead and quote a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration Bureau Pursues Visa Relief for Foreigners. Quoting directly: Now they talk at great length about folks who are in permanent resident status and got stuck abroad due to COVID-19; folks that are in Tourist status and got into Thailand and stranded in COVID-19 as well as migrant labor but there is a nice sort of nugget of information in this article and this information is coming directly from the Head of Thai Immigration. On this channel sometimes I get a little bit of flak. People say you read the newspaper a lot on your channel. Well we do and we often do that for this exact reason. Oftentimes for example the Bangkok Post in this case, will get a quote directly from the Head of Immigration and we can use that quote to provide insight to our viewers as well as analysis on how to deal with things.  So the quote here, again coming from Police Lieutenant General Sompong Chingduang:  quoting directly from the article and they were quoting him:  "This proposed measure however won't apply to those foreigners who are working in or have a family in Thailand. They will still be required to report to Immigration Authorities regularly he said." 

So as stated previously, those who are in Non-immigrant status,  be that Thai non-immigrant O Visa status based on marriage to a Thai National, O Visa status based on having a Thai child, or Thai B Visa status or Thai O-A Visa status for Retirement, these types of Visa categories still require extension under the normal rules. Folks that are in Thailand under these types of status need to deal with their extensions according to the general rules in which they usually deal with extentions. So take that for what you will. In a B Visa context, we are looking at you are going to have to maintain your Work Permit as normal and you are going to have to maintain your B Visa extension as you normally would.