Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question, does Thailand have a Visa Wall? I thought of making this video actually after I actually saw this on Samut Prakarn Phil's Twitter account, @Ajarncom. Quoting directly: "This is definitely my favourite Thai immigration clickbait graphic so far. "The Visa Wall" (cue dramatic music) Enough already." And as you can see from the thumbnail, we will go ahead and throw it up here on screen, we’ve got the “Thailand: Visa Wall. Tourism industry demands clarity in the rejection chaos. Visa run nightmare, Visa Run Nightmare, dadada..” 

Okay. We're in a New Year here, and by the way, thanks to everybody for watching over the course of the holidays. We took time off as I noted. We are back to business as of January 5th, we are back in the office for normal operations, so we very much appreciate our clients and the public's patience as we moved through the holiday. Frankly it's very necessary. We have to get away just for a certain period of time; the entire staff does, to be able to take some time off just sort of decompress so that we can deal with the work that we need to deal with and especially in the first part of the year, the first 90 days is intense here in Thailand. A lot of work to be done; no holidays, by the way. But let's talk about this Visa Wall and I tend to agree with Samut Prakarn Phil with regard to the hyperbole and all of this stuff. And yeah, some level of I guess, I call it warning, or caution or notice - maybe notice is the right word - to the Expat Community regarding Immigration matters is very pretty much warranted in my opinion; I've been doing it for years. Some of it is over the top and frankly some of it is very duplicitous and used to put people in things that may not be to their best interest. There are a lot of different visa options out there and in my opinion there are good options depending on people's facts and their situation and there are bad options, and unfortunately there are a lot of fly by night and ne'er do wells out there and charlatans who will put people into things that aren't really to their best interest. That being said, a couple of misnomers going into 2026 that I think are worth noting.

One. Border Running - not impossible. That has been sort of touted as if oh, you can't do border runs anymore. Now again, it's going to depend on the border greatly. As we have discussed in other videos, the incidents along the Thai-Cambodian border have been such that let's just say Border Running has not been conducive for most expats, okay. It's just not been something to use, well frankly, because the border has been closed and frankly, we had a war up there. But it is possible to still do Land Border Runs but as discussed last year, and it looks more and more like there's going to be heightened scrutiny associated with either land or air or sea border runnings, if and only if you go over two in a given calendar year, and we have discussed that in the past. There was a Decree in The Royal Gazette years ago that stipulated that basically everybody gets two. If you're on a Visa exempt passport, you can use Border Runs twice in a given calendar year without much hassle or scrutiny. After that it's sort of becomes a problem, so that's the thing to understand first. Border running, not impossible. Further, true tourists, don't worry about all this stuff. Honestly, I can't give more reassurance to real tourists than telling you look, if you're a true tourist, do not worry about this Immigration stuff. It's just not really, if you have never been to Thailand before or you come once a year, or even come twice a year, if that's the max that you come to Thailand and you're a true tourist - and you know who you are if you're a tourist or not - don't worry about this stuff, okay.

If you're not a tourist and you're trying to live here and again you know who you are, you need to go ahead and find the correct visa to get you into that status, so you stop having problems, because again there has been a major paradigm shift in 2025 going into 2026 regarding Immigration. I don't see that paradigm shift going backward if you will anytime soon. Further, I think it's important to understand, Thai Immigration matters are very much in flux I would say, especially during this first quarter of 2026, and I expect once we get a Parliament - now the late great Barry Kenyon talked about this that he thought that there would be movement within the upcoming Parliament to see a new Immigration Act or major revisions or major reformation if you will regarding Thai Immigration - I didn't agree with him when he said that. I have since decided it looks like he had far more foresight than I was giving him credit for, and yeah I think in the upcoming Parliament, we are probably going to see Immigration be a major issue if for no other reason than its connection tangentially or otherwise to the incidents that have happened along the Thai-Cambodian border. So I expect probably in this next Parliament, we will probably see major political momentum behind the notion of reform in the Immigration apparatus here in Thailand. Then the question is asked, well is that good, bad, indifferent? As I have discussed at length, it tends to not get easier when it comes to Immigration. That being said, that's not always the case. There are examples of it moving in the opposite direction. We've seen a few of them in the last couple of years, an example of that is the increase of Visa Exemption Stamp time went from 30 days to 60 and even 90 in certain cases depending on nationality. That was something that was a relaxation of the rules compared to the past. So I'm not saying it's all destined to be bad, but understand, when we tend to see major reforms on Immigration, it doesn't tend to make things easier overall with regard to visas and things of that nature. So that's something to also keep in mind. The Immigration system is sort of in flux and again I think we'll get more clarity after the election. 

I go into rather more detail regarding this stuff in our long-form videos which by the way we are forming what I'm calling bwh.club in the upcoming days. There will be more announcements on that. If you are interested in either, you can discuss it with me by emailing [email protected] for information on long-form content, as well as the new Club that is rolling out and details regarding that. I'm also making another video contemporaneously with this one where we are discussing sort of the terms and things associated with the Club and exactly what we are going to be doing with respect to that. Things like courses and talks regarding expat matters are going to be part and parcel of this but it's not directly under the rubric if you will of the firm itself. It's more of kind of an educational kind of endeavour. I'm trying to put out information, again in a more closed manner especially because I can speak more freely regarding details - not freely but look, there are just certain topics in Thailand that for various reasons I think discretion is the best way to handle it because if for no other reason than there are certain tips and tricks if you will - I hesitate to sound like there's anything nefarious going on - but look, at the end of the day you learn how the system works and folks that have a good institutional knowledge, which in my opinion I think I and much of our staff and folks around the firm have a lot of institutional knowledge, we know how to move through the system in such a way that it is beneficial to both our clients or to anybody that we might be assisting. In the Club that is going to come to fruition a lot more as time moves on and I want to be, again it's not strictly speaking legal services or anything like that, it's just, I  guess you could call it sort of expat services for lack of a better term, that's I guess primarily what I'm going to be undertaking with respect to that, but details on that in another forthcoming video. But yeah, much appreciated to everybody who has gone in for the long-form content. You're not going to be forgotten; you're going to be part of this upcoming Club. Folks who are prior clients, you are going to have access as well, so again details will be forthcoming on that. 

But that being said, for the time being, I very much agree with old Samut Prakarn Phil here where he says, "Hey enough already with some of this hyperbole." Yeah, it is getting pretty over the top. Look, Thai Immigration is what it is. It needs to be to be discussed seriously. There's a difference between putting people on notice of relevant genuine information and basically putting things out there that are just self-serving. A perfect example of this was putting out the notion last year the Visa conversions were just completely impossible. They're harder but yeah we've done them, as I've talked about in other videos; again depending on the underlying facts in a given case it may be possible to do that. And there are many instances of that and Samut Prakarn Phil over there on X pointed some of that out; I thought it was worth pointing out in this video. 

But that said, moving in to 2026 understand, no Border Runs are not impossible, although they may be more difficult; there may be more scrutiny associated with them. I also think we are going through a situation where real Immigration or I should say where in a very real way Immigration Policy is likely to change here in Thailand especially with the convocation of a new Parliament. But that being said, and to sort of round this off, if you really are a genuine tourist to Thailand, none of this should really concern you.