Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing E-Visas and Immigration checkpoints. So I initially thought of making this video after actually one of the folks here in the office, the Head of our Immigration Division brought up a point where she was talking to me about the fact that someone had come through Immigration and had gotten the incorrect stamp, and then they had to go back and fix it; this is not uncommon. Immigration sometimes can make mistakes at the airport. For example, in the past, this was actually more frequent. We would see people that had like their Retirement Visa Extension or a standard B Visa or something, and when they were coming through the checkpoint, they didn't - I actually made a video on this sometime ago, and I like that I have the opportunity to kind of rehash this because I think it's an important data point, this is something important for expats to know - it's always best to have your passport open to your Visa page if you have a proper Visa or Extension of a Visa here in Thailand, to have it open to that page and give it to the Officer on that page when you come through the checkpoint. And in the past, this was all done through stamps in the passport. Now with E-Visas, it's a different thing, and I'll get to that in a moment. But what I'm trying to explain here is failure to do that sometimes - we've seen that in the past - where the passport was given over, the immigration officer goes through and they see, "oh here's the first blank page" but they don't ever make it to your actual stamp to see that "oh this person is in a Retirement Visa or a B Visa or an O Marriage Visa" and then they just presume oh you are coming in and they just give you the 30-day exemption stamp or the 60-day exemption stamp. And then most people don't immediately look, or most people don't think to double check what immigration is doing because mostly they just want to get through that checkpoint, get on with their lives, and sometimes they erroneously will admit someone. They will admit someone in the wrong status, and we have had to deal with this in the past. It oftentimes requires going back to the original checkpoint, having them look over it again and seeing "Oh yeah, this person had a B Visa, or this person had a Retirement Visa. Okay, we will change the stamp that they were conferred at entry.” We have dealt with that in the past; it's not the most fun thing to do but it can be done. 

What I'm talking about here in this video is E-Visas now, because it's not a stamp in a passport anymore, or a sticker in a passport, it's just issued to somebody's phone or in my opinion the best thing to do is to print a copy of it off and just tuck it into your passport. But the point of this video is to reiterate, you should present your visa for the Visa you are wanting to be admitted on at the time you come through the checkpoint. So print off a copy of your E-Visa, for example a 90-day O if you are coming in to be on a Retirement Visa and extend from here, or a whatever, B Visa whatever it is you have got, not a terrible idea to go ahead and have that in your passport because we have been dealing with this. Especially the case load I saw a photo today of Immigration and I think it was on, I was looking at somebody's feed on X, on Twitter, and they were saying, "oh look at these crowds. I don't think tourism is down in Thailand." I think that person is right by the way. If anything I think it is continuing to go up actually which again the cadence of the high-low season I think is changing.

That being said, the point to be made here is, there are tons of people going through immigration checkpoints at any given moment. The Immigration Officers have their protocols but if you just hand them a passport and they go to the first couple of blank pages, they may just go ahead and stamp you in as exempt. In one situation we saw recently, somebody had been admitted on a previous, I think it was a multi-entry Tourist Visa, but they were trying to come back in on their 90-day O Visa issued abroad, and they just didn't explain anything to the Immigration Officer at the checkpoint, and they just re-admitted him under the multi-entry Tourist Visa; they just sort of waved him through if you will and they thought that that was the Visa they were coming back in on. I think they saw some of that in their system. Not everything is coordinated. Remember, visas issued abroad are issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Immigration checkpoints here in Thailand are manned by folks under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior. It's two different things and sometimes things fall through the cracks. 

The thing to take away from this video, if you're getting a new E-Visa and you are coming into Thailand, the best thing you can do, print a copy of it out and just put it in your passport and then show it to the Immigration Officer when you are coming through a checkpoint here in the Kingdom of Thailand.