I'm on the verge of being banned from Thailand.
There are some serious changes afoot in Thai Immigration laws this month. It is a very confusing situation, but the way I understand it now is that Thai Immigration is trying to crack down on foreigners who live in Thailand on tourist visas. As I have talked about here before, this year I have not been working in Thailand and instead I have been going to the border every now and then to renew my tourist visa.
What I was doing was not illegal but now the rules are changing so that I won't be able to do this any more. So for those of you who also make monthly tourist runs, here's the situation:
The old rules:
* You are given a 30-day tourist stamp in your passport at the BKK airport or at the border.
* Every 30-days, you have to leave the country and re-enter. This is often done at border crossings. Just step across the border and re-enter Thailand and you're good to go. You can do this indefinitely.
The new rules:
* All of the above, except: You can only get THREE 30-day stamps. After that, you are banned from Thailand for 90 days.
That's right, I said BANNED. And since I have had more than three 30-day stamps this year, the next time I leave Thailand there is a chance that they won't let me back in.
In some ways, it makes sense because I am not really a tourist so I shouldn't be living on a Tourist Visa. So, what I have to do is just figure out what kind of visa I should have before I leave the country, and then apply for that visa at the Thai Embassy wherever I go. I think I should be able to work it out, but I'm afraid that there are a lot of farang who are going to have a difficult time staying in Thailand.
The discussion boards at ThaiVisa.com are raging now. For more details about the new rules, and some insight into the people that they are affecting, check out the Thai Visa discussion board:
and
and here's the link to the article from the Phuket Gazette from yesterday:
On-arrival visas: 90 days and you're out!
Personally, I think I will be OK, but I am afraid that these changes are going to have a big effect on the expat community here, and quite possibly on the Thai economy as well, since it it seems to be so dependent on foreign dollars that are spent in Thailand.
