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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawIs a Thai Visa Extension Application Considered a 90 Day Report?

Is a Thai Visa Extension Application Considered a 90 Day Report?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Visa Extensions and 90-day reporting.

Specifically this video is on the topic of the conflation or the confusion about extending one's Visa and whether or not the process of just applying for an extension is considered the same thing as a 90-day report. What I am talking about specifically and I have actually dealt with this when I was still dealing with my visas was, you go in and your extension date would happen to fall around the same time as your 90-day reporting which makes sense because it happens quarterly. You are going in there to deal with your extension and you just kind of presume "well I have reported to you, I have applied for this extension, isn't that the same thing?" 

A recent commentator if you will, someone who wrote a letter into the Bangkok Post, Postbag in the Bangkok Post print edition December 19th, 2020. It is titled: Immigration Games and it was written by someone calling themselves Farangs Anonymous. So quoting directly: "Of course the 90-day report unit also declares that our yearly Visa renewal does not qualify as a report to Immigration. Figure that one out."  There is a lot of detail in this. I would urge those watching this video to go check that out. Again, Immigration Games, Farangs Anonymous, Bangkok Post, I am sure it is in the online edition but this is Bangkok Post print edition December 19, 2020. What he is talking about there is exactly what I am saying. So he is saying "of course 90 report declares that our yearly Visa renewal does not qualify as a report to Immigration" and he means the 90-day address reporting. I can answer the reason why. It is probably not going to make anybody happy but I often find that when people know "why" they can at least deal with things a little bit better rather than it just seeming like sort of an arbitrary and capricious way of doing things. But long story short, the section of the Thai Immigration Act that does require 90-day address reporting is a different section from the section that pertains to Extension of Status in the Kingdom. For this reason, the way that it is interpreted by Immigration Authorities is these are two separate things. They don't have anything to do with one another. They are mutually exclusive for lack of a better term. You are either reporting on your 90-day report or you are dealing with your extension. They are not to be conflated. Do not confuse the two, they are two different things. Now again I would argue that that may be a little bit of a process of dealing in semantics, sort of parsing that out, but it is relevant and it is pertinent that this is two separate segments of the Immigration Act and it deals with two policy issues that are kind of different from one another. One has to do with a person gaining increased lawful status and the other has to do with just address reporting. Now I have said many times on this channel, I think they could do something differently with respect to address reporting. I think the time frames could be dealt with a little bit differently. Rather than every 90 days, maybe every 6 months or something. 

That said, I am not in a position to make those changes but I hope this video provides some clarity as to why they don't view those two things as being essentially the same thing. So hopefully it will, if nothing else lead to less frustration for folks down the road because they at least know "why" it is happening and they can plan for it and deal with it accordingly.