Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing how Visa Run patterns may be impacting one's ability to get a Visa Extension from Immigration here in country here in Thailand. Let me just jump in. 

This comes from basically the Thai Government Press Office thailand.prd.go.th, under the headline: Visa Runs Limited to 2 Under New Thailand Immigration Measures, under Sub-section 3, quoting directly: "Tightening screening for extensions of stay by Provincial Immigration Offices. If a Visa-Run pattern is detected, the Immigration Bureau will refuse the extension request or cancel the visa, followed by deportation." So this is really important to understand. If anything, this is kind of a paradigm shift. And I have noticed - this was announced back in the fourth quarter of '25, we are sitting here in sort of the middle of the first quarter of '26 - I have noticed a change, and folks in our office that work down at Thai Immigration have also noticed a change in attitude by Immigration Offices and Officers recently. It's not anything that has had an impact on our clients, but I think it may be the upshot of this policy. 

Again, I want to read that again. "If a Visa-run pattern is detected, the Immigration Bureau will refuse the extension request or cancel the Visa, followed by deportation." The point being here is, "gaming the system" is not something Immigration likes folks to do; that's the message to be taken away from this, and they will be more proactive in either just saying "look I'm not going to grant you an extension, so just let your time play out and move along" or "you know what, not only am I not going to grant an extension, I'm going to cancel your status heretofore, and place you into deportation proceedings", all of this being predicated on a "Visa-Run pattern". 

What does that mean? Folks that have been using Border Runs to simply remain in Thailand in inappropriate status, in visa exempt status or Tourist Visa status, rather than a long-term Visa that is in line with Non-immigrant Visa status as conceived by the Immigration Act of 1979 etc. They basically are saying, "hey, if you can't get yourself into a proper long term Visa, you are going to start having problems with both being able to border run in Thailand, as well as even being able to extend, and I expect in rather extreme cases, they may even say, "look, not only are we not going to extend you, we're going to cancel you and we are going to kick you out of the country." Again this, it tightens things up. It is also interesting, as I have said, policies tend to change at the end of the year, and we usually tend to see these things executed at the end of the high season. As we are now coming to the end of the high season, it looks to me like it's possibly time to start seeing this stuff happening practically.

That being said, it remains to be seen how this will play out, so we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.