Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing overstay in Thailand and specifically avoidance of overstay being the name of the game. We've had a number of emails, various correspondence, I've talked to a lot of people here recently who are trying to navigate their way through the Immigration system one way or the other. You always kind of run into folks either by email or what not, they are trying to kind of game things in the sense that they are trying to get, I see this a lot with folks that don't really have a lot of basis for a Non-Immigrant Visa and they are just kind of looking for ways to use like Visa Exemptions, Tourist Visas and things of this nature to stay in Thailand as long as possible. 

Well the first thing to understand is Thai policy and this has been this way for going on 6, 7 years now even further back than that probably, the overarching paradigm is Thailand does not want people using tourist like visas, for example Visa Exempt, visa-on-arrival or a

standard Tourist Visa to live in Thailand on a prolonged basis. That's not what they want, what the Immigration apparatus "wants" in the sense that it is not the policy, the prevailing policy. So what does that mean?

Well for those folks who have an issue maintaining status, and in the aftermath of the Emergency Decree, we no longer have the kind of discretion we once saw in the Immigration apparatus to maintain long-term status on a discretionary basis. You are now having to deal with visas as it was prior to the pandemic, going back to quarter one of 2020. What does this mean? Well primarily what it means is avoiding overstay is the name of the game here. So Border Runs are back; being able to fly out and fly back in quickly is back, even water Border Runs I guess in theory are probably a possibility, using a ferry type thing. I know there are various places in the South that occasionally have those kind of facilities, even in the gulf. But the avoidance of overstay is the name of the game. Understand, once it's noted that a person is in overstay, even if they are not specifically banned, if they don't go in the Blacklist, there is still kind of a stigma attached to overstay, even a day. I have seen people that have overstayed a day and they come back weeks later and they get extra scrutiny associated with re-entry.

So the thing to take away from this video, just kind of a general piece of advice, for those who are out there that are trying to kind of cobble together their status, they are wanting to do kind of a long vacation, I totally get it. Believe me, Thailand is encouraging of that type of thing. I think Thai Authorities, Immigration Authorities understand, like people coming in. we get it. You want to stay a month, a month and a half then you want to run to Cambodia maybe see Angkor Wat, or run up to Laos, or go down to Malaysia, or someplace like this or maybe fly over to Vietnam or the Philippines or Singapore and then come back. Avoiding that overstay is the name of the game because it just creates extra heightened scrutiny. Yeah, you are probably not going to have any problem coming back in but why put yourself through it? So where possible, early and often, avoid overstay as much as you can.