Will going to Laos affect my retirement extension application in Thailand?

@Phil *****

lol, no.

He can leave just fine. There is no application in process.

He needs a re-entry permit and return in time to actually apply for his extension of stay.

That is all.

@Marianne *******

still can't leave thats the rule

@Phil *****

But he has not applied for extension. He is waiting for the money to be seasoned before he applies

@Todd ********

better don't say anything 😂

@Greg **********

just giving options, what can I say

@Todd ********

a multiple re-entry permit for 3800 Baht would only make sense if you plan to exit and re-enter more often than three times within those 90 days

@Gregory ********

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 that will expire.

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 terribly 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!

I need absolute clarity in my visa consultations, I ignore the immigration office's error and will always use the correct terminology.

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 you don’t understand this, I really can't help. Then all my efforts are in vain and you need to get educated.