New a regulation against visa-runs in Thailand ?

The rules for obtaining a visa for Thailand by land may change in a near future. The goal: to discourage travelers to male visa -runs. Phuket News website announced it today.

Currently, visitors from certain countries can obtain a visa on arrival and then just cross border to a neighboring country and directly go back to Thailand to have a new 30 days visa (only the seven countries mentioned in this article get 30 days others only get 15 days) . A practice called visa -run . Some foreigners repeat the operation indefinitely.

To limit this, Thai Immigration plans to restore an old rule last : arrivals by land will obtain only 15 days. This will not apply to the first arrival in Thailand, whether by land or by air but to all subsequent arrivals. But above all and that is the real new thing, the number of consecutive visa -runs could also be limited. No figures have been announced yet.

The main aim is to discourage foreigners from staying long-term in the kingdom by doing multiple back-to-back tourist visa runs.

A Phuket Immigration officer told The Phuket News they knew about the new rule, but that it is not yet being applied, and they are not sure just when it will go into effect. To be continued…

Find here all the information on visas for Thailand.