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Thai Visas Being Available Doesn't Mean They Are Easy

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are talking Thai visas which is quite a popular topic on this channel as I am sure those who are our viewers and subscribers are well aware.  We thank you for viewing and subscribing to this channel. 

There is kind of a misconception out there. It is not a broad misconception. I think people are aware of this conceptually but people default to the familiar and the way the Visa process worked the last time you came to Thailand, it is not illogical to presume it will be similar. Well in the POST-COVID response era, yeah it is kind of illogical to presume that, in fact it is wildly illogical to presume that because it is not the same process. Although for example Thai Tourist Visas have become available from countries such as the United States and the UK and some parts of Europe, and there are also Retirement Visas again available, Business Visas have been available for some time now; notwithstanding the fact that we have most of the Visa categories folks are used to dealing with sort of back on the table if you will, they are not processing in the same manner that they used to. There is a huge amount of cumbersome paperwork and administrative processing that now goes into dealing with issuing just one single Thai Tourist Visa. Documentation such as Certificate of Entry, things like proof of Alternative State Quarantine, Insurance, flights; all of this kind of thing can be exceptionally cumbersome to deal with and there is a kind of alchemy now that comes about when you are processing these visas from an administrative standpoint. I don't mean to overblow just exactly what this looks like but truly it has got a lot of moving parts and everything just kind of falls together all at once and BOOM, you have got your Thai Visa issued with your Certificate of Entry. Frankly, I have got Thai Attorneys that are handling this pretty much on a full-time basis right now here in our office. It is a full-time job dealing with corresponding with the Embassy, corresponding with things like insurance, Alternative State Quarantine, dealing with flight arrangements etc. All of this has a level of complexity that the Thai Immigration process has never had before. 

For this reason presuming that the process works like it used to, that is a bad presumption to make based on the situation as things stand. That stated, it is possible to do it oneself. I certainly don't begrudge anybody for trying but you could end up in a situation as we have noted in other videos, where you can end up overpaying for things like flights or having to make cancellations, you get into paying too much or not being able to be refunded for things like Alternative State Quarantine, you could over pay for insurance that you may not need.

So again, depending on the circumstances of your case, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional to gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed on this and maybe get some assistance so that you don't end up in a situation where you put yourself out unnecessarily.