What is the best way for a UK expat to stay in Thailand for 6 months using tourist visas?

@Christian *******

in order to get a non-O-A visa like

@Al ******

mentioned you have to be OVER 50, meet the financial requirements, provide a police background check and a medical certificate;

-Non-Immigrant-visas.html#7

@Christian *******

it is a non imm o-a, must be obtained via a Thai embassy or consulate in your home country and you must be over 50 years old.

Hi Tod can you apply in person for this?

And this link has the information about a 6 month METV

-Tourist-Visa.html

Robert Lagas Correct, the change is in the application of the law. A lot of school are having headache with documentation while trying to help because they are *half-legal*, they are trying to craft their way into government compliance, which was not really needed years ago. This is important because advice given before 2017 about how to use school to help you with the process is no longer relevant.

Also OP statement about *rule keep changing about how many ED you can have* could be changed to *application of the law keep changing about how many ED you can have*, which is true. The 2 years max to learn Thai was either not a rule before 2017 or not apply much.

So no change in the Visa rules. Only changed for those who abused this Visa to stay inside Thailand.

Robert Lagas It's a huge change, no more *pay the school, go to Vientiane, come back, don't go to school AT ALL, get extension very easily with zero Thai, rince and repeat!*. A lot of school didn't offer to help for visa after that because they could not met government standard. I'm talking from experience, don't need to be cynical.

OMG, I need to go to school if I want a Visa to go to school. What a change is that.

Robert Lagas He's probably talking about due process with school (more and more school don't met the standard and therefore application will get denied). It was not the case 3-4 years ago a lot more school were filling papers for you but government have now crackdown on them.

Also, it is now required to go to school if u get the ed visa. Officer will NOT give u extension if they judge that ur Thai is terrible. School are not even allow to help u with extension process if u are not going to school. Again, this was really different few years ago.

And before it was easier to have ed visa for 12 months, now a lot of school only offer 6 months.

But the rules about documents needed to apply in neighbor country have not changed. What have changed is the length of back to back ed visa. I think it's 2 years maximum after that u need to change language. I'm not sure about the past ruling on that but years ago it was much easier to go for more then 2 years (was it a law years ago that I don't know but if it was they didn't apply it much).

Please inform us where to find the keep on changing of ED visa rules?

Paul is right on but, let me also comment that you do not have to go to immigration at all for the six months. You can just do border bounces every 60 days and get another 60 days (stamp out, go across, stamp in, turn around, come back into Thailand). But it really depends how close/convenient a border is. Or just plan a little trip to Malaysia at the 60 day mark. No need to buy a new visa... just go and come back and you get 60 more days. Your visa will have a 6 month validity from the date of issue so you can even go on the last day the visa is good for and do another border run to essentially get 8 months out of the visa (which can also be then extended by 30 days). Cheers!

Christian Stones no worries mate

If you don’t pm me mate. I’m in UK now for a couple of more weeks before going back

@Christian *******

you get 60 days on entry then go to immigration and with paperwork and 1900 Baht get a 30 day extension. Do a border bounce before extension is up and get another 60 days in entry. Before finish go immigration and get 30 days extension again. If you go out just before your 6 months ME visa runs out you come in with 60 days again and then get another 30 extension from immigration. Therefore you can make a 6 month ME visa last nearly 9 months. Get it mate ?