Over March and April it became apparent nationwide that many foreigners were deeply concerned about the process of renewing their visas, in often overcrowded, offices. The result of this was for the government to offer a visa amnesty which has been extended to July 31st. It relates to the following;
Visa extensions
90 day reporting
Border passes
Much of the confusion caused over these edicts, has been due to the fact that immigration has stayed open and continues to process all types of visa extensions and 90 day reporting.
So this now leaves many people with the question of whether they should carry on as normal or wait until July? At Assist Thai Visa Services we are aware of the constant changes to rules and regulations. Therefore when it comes to your visa it is our advice that you extend as normal.
After contacting immigration, and following concerns from many clients who wish to be cautious, we have suspended reporting on the 90 days reporting until June 15th. We will restart after that date.
Our only caveat to the above statement is if you are in a very high risk group and do not wish to visit the immigration office, then that is a personal choice, and we would always suggest you put your health and safety above your visa.
Come July there will be a lot of questions to answer about how immigration will deal with a full re-opening, Chiang Mai immigration has taken measures to ensure social distancing as well as putting into place procedures to cope with large volumes of people. So we will see how effective this is.
Once flights resume (hopefully June 1st), we will start to see the first cases of people who lost their visas due to not being able to return to Thailand. The current rules have given a grace period of one year. However we are not sure how this will be implemented yet. Once we have processed one of these cases we will update everyone.
For any questions please contact nico@assistthaivisa.com
