How long do I have to transfer my retirement visa stamps to my new passport in Thailand?

@Colin *******

lucky man you are

So Merriam-Webster is wrong, but guy on Facebook is right? Is that what I'm getting?

BTW I was just at Immigration an couple hours ago (buying another motorbike). She asked me, in very weak English, for a copy of my "visa". I handed her a copy of my "extension" and she was happy with it. So I can say for sure based on very recent experience that Immigration doesn't care if you call an extension a visa.

@David *******

""Merriam-Webster: visa - (noun) - an endorsement made on a passport by the proper authorities denoting that it has been examined and that the bearer may proceed." So, every stamp in your passport is a visa. By definition." . . . . . complete nonsense. A visa is an endorsement to allow ENTRY into another country. AFTER you entered, the "visa" is used or "expired". It stops existing! . . . . .your Merriam-Webster obviously is wrong!

A "visa" permits and regulates the ENTRY into the country.

Depending on the visa category, you will receive different lengths of stay permits. For Thailand, these can be 15, 30, 60, 90, or 180 days. They can also be 5, 10, or even 20 years.

The STAY PERMIT regulates STAYING in the country.

The duration of the permitted stay depends on the visa category with which you entered.

A single-entry visa becomes invalid upon entry and cannot be extended or used for another entry.

You have entered the country “on a visa” and you are now inside the country on a stay permit. This is also evident from the entry stamp:

This stamp states "admitted until" and a date. This stamp is the actual stay permit. This stamp is not a visa. The entry date is in red, and the expiration date of the "admitted until" permit is in blue.

In the upper right corner, next to the wording “visa class”, the visa category under which you entered the country is either handwritten or stamped.

If you leave the country before the expiration of your stay permit without a re-entry permit, the visa itself does not expire (because you no longer have any visa)... it is just the stay permit which expires.

The "extension of the stay permit" is not a visa. It is an “extended stay permit”.

No immigration office can extend any visas; technically, that's impossible, even though they often refer to a "visa extension" in their bad English

Unfortunately, immigration doesn't differentiate between the terms "visa" and "stay permit." They consider them one and the same. This is not correct.

However, a handful of immigration offices have seen the light and stopped talking about "visa extensions." See the image below the comment!

If I want to be clear in my visa consultations, I have to ignore the immigration office's error and use the correct terminology.

Even the "visa exemption" (visa-free entry) isn't a visa, but simply a stamped stay permit.

Lack of words also plays a role. It's easier to say you have a "retirement visa" than to use the correct term, "you got a one-year extension of the temporary stay permit based on retirement."

If someone doesn't understand this, I really can't help them; then all my efforts are in vain

@Nongnuch *******

Well, your efforts *are* in vain. The distinction you make appears in the English on that sign, but not in the Thai. One says 'stamp' and the other says 'request for temporary stay,' no visa, no extension. So again, a distinctions neither Immigration makes nor OP (whose question was about something else) needs.

Which is my larger point, arguments about definitions aside. Poor guy comes to a visa advice group with a simple question and gets Akshually'd over a pointless semantic detail. Happens multiple times a day here. I just picked this one to comment on. Maybe I should have included a trigger warning?

@David *******

Buriram Immigration is one important step ahead. They discontinued the wrong terminology . . . no more "visa extensions" in Buriram. Thank you very very very much . . .

@David *******

where in the extension stamp is anything mentioned that says "visa"?? The 1-year extension is a "stay permit" . . here is the proof:

@David *******

This has been an ongoing nonsense for decades.

Immigration in their sometimes insufficient English doesn't make a difference between a “stay permit” and a “visa”, regardless that these two are technically spoken, two completely different things.

A visa allows you to enter a country, and according to the visa-class, you will be granted a “stay permit” for a specific period of time. It clearly says on the entry stamp “admitted until” and a date the stay permit expires.

A stay permit is the period of time your stay inside the country is allowed.

Now, after entering, you are inside the country holding a stay permit. You are NOT inside the country on a visa, or with a visa.

You got a stay permit and not a visa. A single entry visa expires upon entry. It can’t be used for another entry anymore.

It is “used” or “void”, and that’s why you can’t “renew” or “extend” it any more.

Only multi entry visa-classes remain valid for use for the period of their visa validity. On each entry within the validity period, you will receive a new stay permit. Multi entry visa cannot be extended

So when you enter Thailand with a “90-days single entry Non-Imm-O Retirement/over 50 visa”, this visa expires upon entry, and you will receive a 90-days stay permit.

The “reason” for this stay permit is “retirement”, so the officer will put a small stamp or handwritten note into the upper right corner of the entry stamp, to inform other officers about the reason you have been granted entry into Thailand. This small note will either say “Non-O” or “Non Re”

This 90 days stay permit can be extended for one year. Immigration wrongly calls this extension a “visa extension”, although you do not hold a valid visa any more.

They should know better. At least the stamp you will receive tells everybody that you now are on a “one year extension of stay permitted until” and the date. NOWHERE this stamp says that it is a “visa”. All immigration did was extending your 90-days stay permit for one more year.

Only the “reason” this extension was handed out will be stamped alongside the “extension of stay” stamp. It either says “Retirement” or “Thai wife” or “support Thai child”

I don’t want to change the fairy World of Thai Immigration. Let them have it.

I tolerate them for using wrong descriptions of what they are actually doing.

However, I have my own visa advice group, and that’s why I shall NEVER start using wrong terminology. Not in my group, and not when I comment in groups which are intended for Thai visa advice