Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing restrictions now on Visa-exempt entries. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Calls to publicize updated entry rules. Quoting directly: "One measure is to tighten restrictions on multiple 90-day visa-exempt entries often used by foreigners to carry out Visa Runs without returning to their home nation. Foreigners are now limited to two Visa Runs, and those exceeding this without valid reasons will be denied entry at airports and border checkpoints." 

A couple of things to unpack there. One, most nationalities don't get 90-day Visa exempt at entry; there are a couple. To the best of my knowledge, Kazakhstan and Russia were granted that about a year and a half ago; most other nationalities have 60 days. That being said, as noted there, there was a Royal Decree, not a Royal Decree, it was published in the Royal Gazette - excuse me I need to be precise on that. It was published in The Royal Gazette years back - I want to say 2018 roughly - where they publicize that folks that have a Visa-exempt passport, the presumption per year is they can do two Border Runs per year without any real heavy scrutiny. After that, they are scrutinized heavily and could have problems. That is being reinforced under these new policies, but more to the point yeah, it looks like the whole notion of Border Running is now being looked on, it's now being looked on, it’s not being looked on askance, it's sort of looked upon with suspicion more. This is a growing trend; this has been going on a while. 

I remember following it when Laos, the Thai Embassy in Laos, the Consulate there, which a lot, a lot of visas to Thailand - I would bet of all the Tourist Visas issued to foreigners that are in Thailand at any given moment - a very large percentage of them were probably at that time issued out of Laos. The per capita numbers of folks that were using Lao Border Runs to get Tourist Visas at that time was probably pretty high when you looked at the overall population of foreigners in Thailand. When that got digitized, I remember when they went to the digital appointments, and then we have now upgraded to the whole digital system, I mean we just saw that as a Border Run hub really sort of dry up. It just changed. I remember doing the videos on that; I remember talking about it going back into the blog days. This is an overarching trend. Now again, what does it mean?

If you're a real tourist, this doesn't mean anything to you. If you've never been to Thailand before, and you are watching all these videos about the nuances of Thai Immigration and you've never been to Thailand, and you have a British passport or US Passport, Canadian, Russian or Scandinavian somewhere, French passport or something and you have never been to Thailand, don't even worry about it. You'll come in, you'll end up with visa-exempt status; that's just how it will end up being. But if you are from abroad and you've been using multiple Border Runs over the years and you have tons of tons of Tourist Visas and Visa Exemption stamps, yeah you may end up in some issues as these policies start to tighten down.

That being said, they have opened up options for folks to be able to use, to be able to enjoy long-term status here in Thailand. For those who feel a bit overwhelmed by what the best options are, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.