Dear editors,
A friend of mine (43 years old) has been living in Thailand for over 5 years now. He does not work in Thailand, but still has income from the Netherlands to lead a reasonable, but not luxurious, life. He currently has no partner. He has been granted a student year visa for 5 years.
He studied Thai three times a week and had to report to immigration every three months for a stamp. He is now a bit tired of going to school three times a week and he wants to travel abroad every two months for a few days and then travel back into Thailand with a two-month tourist visa. I wondered whether, based on current Thai legislation, it is possible to stay in Thailand year after year on a two-month visa, always with a few days' break. Or could you run into problems with this at some point? After all, your passport will be full of Thai tourist visa stamps after a few years.
Regards,
Stefan
Dear Stephen,
In principle, there is no restriction on the number of SETV (Single Entry Tourist Visa) that you can apply for in succession. However, if there are many in succession, it is possible that at some point upon entry, people will perhaps ask some questions about what he is doing here, or ask for financial proof, but that does not happen very often. Normally, however, this will remain with questions. Therefore, it will not be refused.
What does happen is that an Embassy or Consulate only wants to issue a limited amount of SETV in succession. In Vientiane people only hand out a maximum of three SETV in a row (I thought). So it is quite possible that your friend will have to change embassy or consulate regularly to apply for his SETV. With the SETV he can stay for 60 days each time, but he can also extend those 60 days by 30 days at immigration in Thailand.
Another option is the METV (Multi Entry Tourist visa). The visa has a validity of 6 months and has a multiple entry. Costs 150 Euros. It is then sufficient to make a border run at least every 60 days.
In theory it is possible to stay in Thailand for almost 9 months with this visa (border runs every 60 days included). If he makes one last border run just before the end of the 6-month validity period, he will receive 60 days for the last time, which he can extend by another 30 days. (60+60+60+60+30).
However, the METV is not available in a country neighboring Thailand. It is only available in the country of which he has the nationality, or where he is officially registered. (If that happens to be a neighboring country of Thailand, he can also obtain it there, of course)
More information about SETV/METV can be found in the Dossier Visa: https://www.thailandblog.nl/wp-content/uploads/TB-Dossier-Visum-2016-Definatief-11-januari-2016.pdf
Regards,
RonnyLatPhrao
Disclaimer: The advice is based on existing regulations. The editors accept no responsibility if this is deviated from in practice.