You should be fine. Just hand over your passport and printed pdf of your visa.

Some reports of Chiang Mai having a special form for first time entrances on DTV, so avoid that airport if you are worried.

The only way to change is if your passport will expire in December or January, and you apply for an extension the year your passport expires. Instead of receiving 1 year, you would only receive up until your passport expiration date.

@Jim ******

Go to a print shop. How could they fill out a visa application and provide all the required paperwork before it went to e-visa system?

@Kerry ********

No, not at all. Marriage is 400,000 for 2 months before applying, and then nothing else. No requirement to keep any money in the bank until 2 months before the application next year.

@Klaus *********

most people are getting single entry visas. This doesn't matter to them. They get the full days of their visa even if they enter the last day of validity. But a multiple entry visa is very different and you can use it until it expires but that validity starts the day it's issued.

All Thai visas are effective the date they are issued. For a single entry visa this is not a big deal, because you have the entire 90 days or more to enter Thailand before the visa expires and then once you enter Thailand it's used and done.

But with a multiple entry visa, it's effective the day it is issued, and the clock starts ticking immediately. The longer you can wait before applying, the longer you'll have to actually use the visa.

You can already get a 60 day entry stamp without a visa and apply for a 30 day extension, giving you 90 days total.

Are you already married to a Thai? If so, you should get the non-O based on marriage before you go to Thailand.

If you already have a Thai bank account, you could do what you propose, but it's still not a good option because you'll have to go to immigration many times (4) and it'll take a long time.

If you're not already married and you don't have a Thai bank account, you're going to find things very difficult.

So there's a couple of considerations:

First, if you plan to get another extension when you're in Thailand, that extension will only go until the end of your passport validity. That means if you don't get a new passport either in the UK or in Thailand, you'll only be able to get a ~6 month extension.

Second, to answer your specific question, you can always return home even if you have less than 6 months on your passport.

I would get a new passport when you're in Thailand since you'll have plenty of time there. Then when you go to apply for your next extension in Thailand, you can transfer your current extension into your new passport, and then apply for the new extension which will also go into your new passport.

14 days ahead