Why was my friend questioned at BKK airport for his frequent entries with a DTV visa?

This personally happened to me. I don't think it's common, but it did happen.

I did my DTV in Kuala Lumpur. They only gave me the DTV for the time that was left on my passport. 3.5 years. I tried many times talking to many different people about it. Nothing changed.

So...I was screwed out of 1.5 years on my DTV.

My opinion? Renew your passport. Better safe than sorry.

I just take both passports when I leave the country. IO knows what’s going on with and had no issues.

You do not need to transfer the 180 day stamp from old passport to new passport. When you exit Thailand, you hand in old and new passport, and the IO will stamp you out of Thailand in your new passport. When you come back into Thailand, you will get the new 180 day stamp in your new passport.

FYI the DTV stamp in your passport is not a visa stamp. It is an entry stamp valid to stay in Thailand for 180 days.

Your visa is the paper that you print out and hand in together with your passport when you enter Thailand through immigration.

So I suggest no need to get a new passport, use your old passport for the next 2 and a half years. Make sure you renew it in time so that you do not run into less than 6 months validity on your passport expiry date

You can get a new passport when abroad as well .

Can you actually apply and get a new passport if you have three years left on your expiry and no good reason to actually be getting a new passport?

Yes it's better.

yep, it is extremely difficult to get your e-mail account transferred into your passport.

If you have no idea what you ask, do not ask nonsense.

Passport get lost or stolen, if people insist telling you have to carry old passports, just imagine that according their ..... logic, you have to retrieve a stolen passport before you are able to travel.

ONLY your new passport it has a microchip with data, like your biometric details and that it is a replacement of passport number ,,,,,,,,,,,

People can not read a microchip, but that is why you hand over your passport to an Immigration Officer or keep it close to a scanner at automatic gates.

Waste of money. It's not hard for immigration to update your passport. For the first time on the new passport, show the old, new, and DTV printout and the officer should update their records and just keep a copy of the old passport on your phone.

since you have to leave every 6 months just make one of your exits back to your country and stay long enough to get your new PP. I would wait till your last year of your PP.

The DTV visa itself is not a stamp in your passport. That’s why a DTV cannot get “transferred”.

Only the very first DTV in 2024 before all Thai embassies went to the e-visa online system, were stickers in the passport.

Immigration might have transferred entry stamps from the old passport to the new one, but they NEVER would have transferred any "visa", because visas and the DTV are issued by Thai embassies, and Immigration is not allowed to invalidate or transfer any visas.

*** Immigration will only transfer their own stamps.

If you have a new passport, just keep the .pdf printout of the DTV that was emailed to you by the Thai embassy - as THIS printout is your VALID visa for 5 years from the date of issue.

You should laminate it – most Immigration officers at the borders will love you for that.

Get a new passport to avoid any issue

Chris Holmes . . "I've been reading that people have a hard time trying to get the visa transferred to a new passport when renewing if they already have the DTV.

" . . . . . . . . .what you read is total nonsense.. . . . The DTV is a visa on a piece of paper. Only the very first DTV's in 2024 were stickers in the passport. Immigration can only transfer their own stamps, which means they will NEVER "transfer" a DTV, regardless if it is a sticker or a .pdf document. Immigration CANNOT TRANSFER any visas. Your DTV remains a valid visa on a piece of paper, a printout which you should laminate and carry with you all the time in these 5 years of visa validity. If your DTV was a sticker, you need to keep that old invalidated passport with you all the time as the sticker remains a valid visa.

If you’re not in a rush, and/or don’t plan to spend much time in your home country over the next few years, I’d just get a new one.

As others have said, you only have 2.5 years, not 3.

You only need to renew the passport in advance if you plan to travel and return to Thailand while there are fewer than 6 months remaining. Airlines won't sell you a ticket if you're re-entering Thailand during those final 6 months.

If that is your plan - DTV border runs for example, then start your passport renewal about 9-10 months before it expires. Otherwise 6 weeks before it expires if you don't need to exit and re-enter Thailand.

In my experience it was easy to get the stamps transferred to the new passport. I just made an appointment at the Immigration office, handed over both passports and then collected them about 4 days later. All current and relevant stamps were put in the new passport.

I don't know where you see people having a hard time transferring to a new passport, because the reports say they were not able to transfer it to a new passport at all. So it's not hard at all, It was simply not possible. All the reports I've seen say you bring both the old and the new passport with you all the time. It's up to you whether you want to renew before applying. But if you have time to renew, why not? And if you expect to use the DTV for more than 3 years? Most countries don't allow you to enter if your passport expires within 6 months. So it's not just 3 years but two and a half years