Do I need a re-entry permit for my Non-OA visa while returning to Thailand before my health insurance restarts?

The Non-OA Visa is a visa meaning it has a validity period. Take a look at your Non-OA Visa. It has two important dates: Date of Issue and Enter Before Date. The example used here shows the Non-OA visa has a Date of Issue of 13 May 2012, and an Enter Before Date of 12 May 2013. This means that you have until 13 May 2012 to enter Thailand and you will receive permission to stay for one year. Let's say you entered Thailand on 25 May 2012. You would have received permission to stay until 24 May 2013.

What happens if you leave Thailand and re-enter before 12 May 2013 (your Enter Before Date)? Let's say you re-enter Thailand on 11 May 2013 (the day before your Enter Before Date). Then you will be stamped in for one-year permission to stay starting from when you entered, 11 May 2013, until one year later, 10 May 2014.

What happens if you leave Thailand and re-enter after 12 May 2013 (your Enter Before Date)? If you haven't purchased a re-entry permit that keeps alive your current permission to stay date, you will be stamped in for non-exempt entry (30-45 days), because your Non-OA Visa has expired before you tried to re-enter Thailand. If you did purchase a re-entry permit then that will allow you to re-enter Thailand using that re-entry permit until the date specified on your re-entry permit, which is equal to the permission to stay date when you purchased your re-entry permit.

So, one of the important dates on your Non-OA Visa is the "Enter Before Date." This is the date you must enter before in order to take advantage of the visa's ability to get you one-year permission to stay. Enter before this date and you will be stamped in for one year. Enter after this date and you will not be. If you purchased a re-entry permit then that allows you to re-enter Thailand even after your initial Non-OA Visa has expired (passed its Enter Before Date).

The "Enter Before Date" listed on your Non-OA Visa is the important date to determine if your visa is still valid (and thus will get you one-year permission to stay) or it's expired (in which case, barring a re-entry permit, will not get you one-year permission to stay).

When you are dealing with the boundary conditions of your Non-OA Visa, it is critically important to know exactly when your Non-OA Visa expires and that is the date specified as "Enter Before Date" on your Non-OA Visa.

It's not the stamped in date you need to return by, it's the visa expiry date. It's probably a lot earlier than the 31st of March!

Your visa is multiple entry, meaning you can't even get a re-entry permit. You can enter an unlimited number of times until March 31st and each time you'll be given 1 year (or as long as your insurance is good for).

So you should buy another year of insurance and then when you return on 21 March you'll be stamped another year. This is how most people get 2 years from a non-OA Visa, and then in March 2024 you would go back to Australia and apply for a new non-OA Visa, meaning you never have to show money in a Thai bank account.

If you leave Thailand during this second year, after your visa stamp has ended, then you would need to get a re-entry permit.