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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawImmigration Offices Open Saturday October 31 as Thai Visa Amnesty Ends

Immigration Offices Open Saturday October 31 as Thai Visa Amnesty Ends

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Visa Amnesty.

For those who are unaware, when the restrictions and the lockdowns associated with COVID came upon us, we did have a number of tourists and other folks who were stuck here in Thailand and unintentionally they were threatened with falling out of Visa status. As a result, Thai Immigration imposed an Amnesty so folks that fell out of status, basically they were not penalized for that fact. However, that Amnesty is now it appears unequivocally ending and we have been dealing with this off and on throughout this process. Initially it was supposed to last a month, then it went all the way out to the end of July; we thought it was going to end then. Then it went to the end of September; we thought it was going to end then. They did actually a retroactive extension of the Amnesty and that took us out to October 31.

In a recent article from the Bangkok Post print edition, from October 30th, 2020. This is the front page of the Bangkok Post, again print edition: Visa Offices to Open Tomorrow.  "Immigration Offices will be open to accept and process Visa renewal requests tomorrow, the last day of the Visa Amnesty. Many foreigners are expected to apply for Visa renewals before the Amnesty ends on October 31 so Immigration Offices at Chaengwatana Road and at Muang Thong Thanee which are normally closed on weekends will open tomorrow from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. said Immigration Bureau Commissioner Police Lieutenant General Sompong Chingduang yesterday. The Government has allowed foreigners stranded in the country to expand their permits due to border closures prompted by COVID-19."  Then they note that more information can be found at Thai Immigration's website.

There is also this announcement. We are going to go ahead and throw this up on screen for folks. This was put out a few days ago.  Aliens must submit an application or extension of temporary stay within, (I think they mean by) October 31, 2020. Again we will just read this. “Late applicants will be fined as prescribed by law and application for visa extension can be submitted at each local Immigration Office. Terms and conditions are as specified by the Thai Immigration Bureau.”  And we will get into that. I suspect sort of in the aftermath of this we will try to make some updated videos providing some insight into how they are handling this. “Each permission will be initially granted for up to 60 days. All Visa types will be effective from November 1, 2020”. 

A couple of things to take away from this: it looks like Amnesty is in fact ending. I do not see based on everything we are reading, based on what we are seeing, that we are going to see another extension. It appears that they now have the plan in place. There is a system in place whereby folks who otherwise are stranded still, can still gain some sort of ongoing status via the 60-day stamps but it looks as though at this point, that Amnesty is coming to a conclusive end and Thai Immigration is opening their offices on a Saturday, October 31st, that will be tomorrow, from the making and presumably the publication of this video, tomorrow, Saturday October 31, 2020 here in the Kingdom of Thailand.