Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Immigration options, Land, Air and Sea and we are talking about this in the context of Visa free entry so we are talking about Visa exempt status. So this only applies to those nationalities that can get into Thailand without a Visa, that can arrive Visa exempt. 

This video was kind of inspired by a recent comment on our channel and I am going to go ahead and quote that comment directly. Quoting: "Thanks Ben. Very helpful to get this message across again. Maybe one other question which could be interesting for a broader audience as well. Some years ago I remember when I entered Thailand via land e.g. at the Malaysian-Thai border, I got an exemption stamp for only 15 days instead of when flying into Thailand I received a 30-day exemption stamp. Do you know what the current situation is at land borders? Does someone who is eligible now get a 45, 30 or 15 day exemption stamp?”

So a couple of things. Well let's start at the baseline. Thai Immigration Officers have the unfettered discretion to decide to admit anyone or deny anyone entry. They also have the unfettered discretion, a lot of people don't know this, to admit people for any amount of time they see fit and they can do this under a number of different sections and statutes that are under the Thai Immigration Act of 1979. They have discretion with regard to Public Health and Safety, National Security. If somebody has just come to Thailand too much on Tourist Visas they can deny them entry on that and they can truncate the amount of time that one can come in. Now as we have discussed many times in other videos on this channel there has been an announcement in the Royal Gazette where the presumptive and it's presumptive, amount of entries to Thailand for Visa exemption are two. Two per year if you are eligible for Visa exempt status you can get two entries per year and it is whatever the longest prevailing exemption is at that particular time. As far as I am aware, that part is not actually in the Royal Gazette, but that is the presumption. It's just whatever Visa exemption is at the time it is in place, that is what type of Visa exemption one will get twice when coming into Thailand, Land, Air or Sea is my understanding. Now that is not a requirement. Again immigration has discretion to turn anyone away but you can pretty well rest easy on the notion if you have only tried to come in to Thailand visa exempt one time in a given calendar year and you are looking to come in again, you should be okay with that. Now understand they do look at this in the totality of the circumstances so if you are coming in in January for your second entry within a given calendar year and then you try to do a third one although that third one is technically your second one for that year, you are playing some games there and an Immigration Officer may or may not be willing to go along with that game. Again it's up to their relatively broad discretion. 

But long story short at least for now, to the best of my knowledge, everybody that is coming in Visa exempt, is coming in for 45 days of status; land, air, and sea regardless if it's within their first two entries within a given calendar year and bear in mind, that 45 days status is only set to continue through March of 2023. Now we will certainly keep people updated on this channel if that exemption rule changes or is extended, come March 2023.