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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Business Visas here in Thailand. The title may be a little confusing I should say insofar as we are not talking about ongoing Business Visa status but we are talking about folks that end up in a transitional state with their visa in Thailand and need to switch out of a Business Visa into some other form of visa. Most notably they may be able to get some kind of ongoing discretionary extension due to the COVID-19 pandemic that Immigration Officers have been empowered to deal with.

I was reading an article and it brought this issue to my attention. I will go ahead and cite the article here in a minute but there can be problems because Business Visa holders, there is a lot that needs to be done for them to be out of Business Visa status and then over into some other kind of Visa status so they can continue maintaining lawful status here in Thailand. A recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Chonburi Immigration Issues Reminders to Foreigners. Quoting directly: "However Non-Immigrant B Visa holders with a Work Permit are ineligible for the COVID 2 month's extension unless they first cancel their Work Permit." That is key, I will get back to that here in a second. "The COVID crisis has resulted in some foreigners being declared redundant or facing the closure of their businesses." It is a sad state of affairs no doubt. Quoting further: "Economic migrants from neighboring countries are under different regulations and can receive one year extensions whether employed or not." On that last point, yeah folks from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, there is a different sort of regime if you will for them dealing with their status here in Thailand that doesn't pertain to other types of foreigners.  

Again what we are talking about here is folks that again they have been rendered redundant; they have been laid off; their business is not doing well so they are looking to close their business but they want to maintain their status here in Thailand. Whatever visa they want to go over to, there are certain folks that may be able to use a Retirement Visa, in some circumstances a Marriage Visa may be in order or they may just have to rely on the discretion of Thai Immigration to continue to maintain status. Under any of these circumstances, you are going to have to cancel your Work Permit and Visa first and this can be nettlesome dealing with all of this. We deal with it rather often and candidly I often find that the folks here in the office, usually the two ladies that deal usually they work in tandem in dealing with cancellation of Business Visa and Work Permits, they often talk about the fact that  cancellation is harder than even getting a new one under certain circumstances. Cancellation of this stuff requires a fair amount of paperwork and documentation. I can tell you for certain that we recently had a client go through down at Immigration and they basically said the experience was less pleasant dealing with a cancellation than it was dealing with a new Visa. 

So again depending on circumstances, it may be rather straight forward; it may not be but understand if you are here in Thailand on a Business Visa and your work situation is ending, you need to deal with the cancellation of your Business and Work Permit before maintaining status through some other type of Visa category.