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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai Immigration Form TM 86: Application for Change of Visa

Thai Immigration Form TM 86: Application for Change of Visa

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are going to be discussing another Thai Immigration Form, specifically the TM 86 application for change of Visa; that is this right here. As you can see two pages and the little box there for visa photos.

As with some of the other immigration forms, this phone's brevity is somewhat misleading insofar as there is a great deal of documentation that is probably also going to be necessary for the individual that needs to change their visa status. The thing to take away from this video from personal and professional experience in the past, I can say that the application for change of Visa is rather a cumbersome process and frankly it is my personal opinion that the Immigration Officers don't as a matter of course really like to undertake them. They would actually prefer that the individual change the visa status, basically left the Kingdom, got the proper visa at an Embassy or Consulate abroad and then returned to the Kingdom in the proper status in order to extend that after.

That being said, there are extenuating circumstances.  There are circumstances where an individual does need to change their visa status and it is a meritorious reason for that change and for that reason Immigration will allow it. But that being said, they do have a substantial backlog at Immigration and in a lot of cases it has been my experience that they basically would just prefer to see an individual leave the country, get the proper visa and come back in.

There are some exceptions to that sort of general policy thinking, most notably where one is changing business visa status or changing over from one business to the other, it may be necessary to change status in country. I have seen circumstances where that has been sort of accepted or more readily accepted. Another one is where an individual gets married in the Kingdom and maybe on a B Visa or an ED Visa or even a retirement Visa; really any other kind of visa. They get married and they want to go ahead and change status into an O Visa. I have seen circumstances where Immigration Officers were a little bit more sort of amenable, for lack of a better term, to going ahead and undertaking that type of change of status. But those who just really don't kind of want to leave and they are just looking to changing over from one visa status to another, I have seen instances where basically Immigration Officers in their discretion have just sort of refused to change the Visa status in country and they have basically requested, look you need to leave and come back in on a proper Visa status from a Visa issued from an Embassy or Consulate abroad and go ahead and extend thereafter.

The thing to take away from this is, it is not, there is no guarantee that the change of status will be permitted. Moreover, there is more than just a couple of documents usually associated with a change of visa so depending on circumstances, one may want to go ahead and research or get a legal professional to assist in changing ones visa status over here in the Kingdom.