Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing how can I stay in Thailand without getting a Visa. For those who are unaware about last week I did a video where I basically said look we are coming out of dealing with the past couple of years and all the shutdown of Thailand, travel restrictions associated with Thailand and frankly talking about that which was a major topic for years, more than two years actually. Basically I have more time to talk about other stuff and I asked what would people like me to talk about which led me to a comment that I'm going to quote here directly that was on that video. 

Quoting directly: "How to stay in the country as long as possible without getting a Visa? Can I stay indefinitely just making Border Runs every couple of months?" Okay so the first question let me quote directly again: "how to stay in the country as long as possible without getting a Visa?" Well you can't. Long story short is there is not going to be a set of circumstances where you can stay for a very prolonged period of time in Thailand without some sort of Visa. So as we have discussed in other videos, yes presently folks of certain nationalities are granted 45 days Visa exemption on arrival in Thailand. So, if you fly into Thailand for example on a US passport, you will be given 45 days at entry. If you want to go ahead and extend that status in Thailand, you can get another 30 days of status in Thailand, and then one could in theory go do a Border Run although you need to be careful about how you do that, there are formalities associated with dealing with Border Runs right now but go do a Border Run, hop back in, come back in get another 45 days at entry and then at theory also be able to get 30 on top of that. Now, as we have discussed in other videos, the Royal Gazette, there has been an announcement, it was years back but it's still in there, it is still good law that basically says, look, you only get to do sort of a Border Run twice a year. We are only going to guarantee it for lack of a better term, twice in a calendar year. Now as I have discussed, it's not a hard and fast rule. If there's good reason why you need like a third border run there maybe circumstances where Immigration might let you back in. That being said, if you have been living in Thailand maxing out your Visa exempt time for the first two, don't expect that. In the circumstances where we see a third "Border Run" granted, it is usually granted where somebody is coming in and out a lot. They come in, they do like a couple 3 days, it might be they are not necessarily here on business but they maybe want to meet someone, and then they fly back out, they go to Singapore, they go where they are based or something and then they fly in a little while later and they stay a couple of days and then months go by and they fly in, they want to stay a couple of days, Thai Immigration is probably going to let that happen. A third time just trying to live here, not so much which leads me to the second question: "can I stay indefinitely just making Border Runs every couple of months?" No, that era has come and gone’ we've discussed this in a number of videos in the past. 

Prior to about 2008 I want to say, it was about 2008 if I recall, '07, '08 right when I was coming on the scene here in Thailand, it was possible prior to that essentially live in Thailand indefinitely on 30 days stamps. There were people that lived up along the borders, especially the northern borders of Thailand and the borders with Cambodia that would do that all the time. It was just their monthly excursion. Oftentimes I talked to folks that would say oh yeah once a month we would go over to the market in Laos or the market in Cambodia and we buy some stuff that we couldn't otherwise get in Thailand and we just used it as an excuse to cross out, cross back in, get another 30 days and I would just keep on going. I mean I remember seeing passport of people that had just stamp after stamp after stamp of 30 days. Well that ended in about 2006, 7/8 somewhere around there. Then they brought in you can only get three boom-boom-boom back to back and then you had to get some kind of visa and then after an interval of another 90 days you could get another three. That then fell by the wayside when we got into about 2012, '13, '14 if I recall when they started going after people because they specifically said they didn't want them living here on Visa exemption and Tourist Visa status. They basically came down and said No, you need to maintain long-term Non-Immigrant status if you want to maintain presence in Thailand and that is basically the system we are dealing with now albeit a little bit tighter, even more so on things like Retirement Visas and Business Visas than we were dealing back with in ’11, ’12 which is now ten years ago which is worth thinking about. But long story short yeah indefinite exemption stamps are gone, indefinite Tourist Visa is gone; you need to maintain long-term Non-Immigrant status if you want to live in Thailand for the long term.