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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawHow Many Tourist Visas is it Possible to Get to Stay in Thailand?

How Many Tourist Visas is it Possible to Get to Stay in Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are going to be discussing Thai tourist visas. I hear this question a lot. I think it is because folks, friends and acquaintance, know what I do and they know that I I deal with Thai Immigration rather frequently, either directly or indirectly, and I do get asked, “How many Thai Tourist Visas can I get?” The answer is “I don’t exactly know. It is sort of like I think it is Justice Holmes, back in the United States Supreme Court said about obscenity. He said, “I don’t know what Obscenity is but I know it when I see it.”  I think Thai Immigration Officers might say to themselves, “I don’t know exactly know how many Thai Tourist Visas are too many but I will know it when I see it!”

I have seen many, many people over the years that have a couple of Thai Tourist visas every year; and let’s be clear, we are talking visas, not visa exempt status. And these folks, they come to Thailand. They want to spend a prolonged period of time at a couple of different points in a given calendar year. So they have a couple; never a problem. I think the Adjudicating Officer at the Port of Entry is basically looking at that individual summing him up based on their specific circumstances and making the determination that, “Yeah, this person was already here once on a tourist visa this year but we are going to go ahead and let him back in, in tourist status again.” This is very different than the individual or individuals that have 6 tourist visas over the course of 14 months or something like this and are seeking re-admission again in tourist status. There does come a certain point where I think the Thai adjudicating officers at the Immigration facility, either at the airport or at a land border or a sea port saying “wow you spend a lot of time here in tourist status and we are really going to maybe delve a little deeper into what exactly you are doing here.”

So the thing to take away from this video, it is going to be circumstantially dependent. But if you are trying to, if you are watching this video to find an exact number that  if you just stay right under it, that is going to keep you free and clear of any problems, that is not the case. They are looking at everything in a “totality of the circumstances” kind of mindset and they are going to want to go ahead and see that the individual in question really has tourist intent before they go ahead and admit him into the Kingdom of Thailand.