Last week, my wife (German passport holder) and myself (British passport holder) did our annual extension of our Non O (based on retirement) visas at the main Phuket Immigration Office in Phuket Road. This was about 35 days prior to the expiry of our existing extension. Phuket Immigration allows 45 days.
We arrived at about 09:30 following a trip to the bank. The covered waiting area for Room 103 was significantly busier than previous years, Our documents were checked outside within a few minutes and we were then given a queue number. After about 15 minutes, we were called inside together by a Captain. The inside of Room 103 has been revamped to squeeze in several more officers than in previous years. The Captain processed our papers extremely quickly and gave us receipts to collect our passports at 2pm the next day. From arrival until leaving was less than 30 minutes.
The only difference from previous years was that the officer told us that in the future we could use a map from Google Maps, instead of the hand drawn maps they had previously insisted on. New this year was also the requirement that the Longitude and Latitude of our condo was shown on the map which, in our case, it was. Our TM30’s were also checked.
At around 13:45 the next day we were given our passports back, complete with a 90 day report, at which point we could go to Room 101 to obtain our multi re-entry stamp. This room was significantly less busy than previous years, and we were called to the desk with 10 minutes and the stamp issued within another 10 minutes.
