Thailand Visa Question No. 356/21: Immigration Pattaya – Visa Exemption – Extension
Questioner: Ruud
I went to immigration in Jomtien today to extend my 30 day stay, received on arrival. I can advise everyone to make sure to leave the Netherlands with a visa. In my case that was always a non-immigrant O, for 90 days.
Not only did it cost me three visits to immigration, almost a day and a half in total, but they also refused to give me 2 months. So in a month I will certainly have lost another day and Baht 1900. At about 9.30 am there were at least 200 people waiting to be allowed in, and that went with 10 to 20 people at a time!
Reaction RonnyLatYa
I understand that you have now entered Visa Exemption. In principle, you can only extend this once by 30 days.
So the question is whether you will get it again next month. It is best to keep in mind that you will of course have to convert to Non-immigrant.
The fact that you have not received a 60-day Corona extension is actually no surprise and I have already warned you about it several times. It is actually only for those who cannot return to their country due to COVID reasons, but until last month this was handled very smoothly. In the last extension of the measure, however, an extra paragraph was included that it should be applied more strictly. It then depends on the IO how strictly he follows those rules. Apparently whoever you had in front of you was aware of that paragraph after all.
For your information:
It might be an idea for future applicants to try out the appointment system to try and avoid the crowds. Worth a try anyway I think. Otherwise you haven't lost anything.
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