the trick is, don't buy the first 30-days extension. Don't look like a "cheapskate" and buy the extension . . . Leave Thailand before the first 60 days expire. Stay in an neighbour country for 2-4 weeks. Re-enter Thailand visa-exempt for another 60 days, and then try your luck to extend by 30 more days. You will be looked upon as being a "real" tourist. You will be able to do this at least once within every 365 days period
Greg Alexander you are right, I have come upon this "rule of thumb" as well, in other groups reports are abundant. There is no fixed or official rule regarding the total number of visa-exempt entries or touristic stays, however Immigration when they see an extensive stamp history, they start to count backwards across a period of previous 365 days ( NOT within a calendar year) and if you exceed 180 days, they will pull you aside and interrogate
You aren’t working "remotely from Thailand". You are working OUTSIDE of Thailand. A DTV is for people who work "remotely FROM Thailand"
Your oil-rig job does not make you a digital nomad or "remote worker"
I don't see your application going through. If it does, you can count yourself as being a very very lucky man
*** if you are over 50 years old, your got the option of applying for a 90-days Non-Imm-O over 50/retirement Visa, enter Thailand, get a bank account opened ASAP and put a deposit of a minimum of 800,000 THB into the account.
Then apply for the “1-year Extension of the Stay Permit”, and buy a multiple re-entry permit for this one year stay permit.
This would allow you unlimited times of exiting and re-entering Thailand within this one year. The annual “extension” only needs to get applied for every year
the OP isn't working "remotely from Thailand". He is working OUTSIDE of Thailand. . . . . . his oil-rig job does not make him a digital nomad or "remote worker". . . I don't see his application going through. If it does, he can count himself as being a very very lucky man
if your country's embassy in Bangkok issues a certified income affidavit, confirming you make over 40,000 THB equivalent monthly, you can use this affidavit to apply on Immigration for the "1-year Extension of the Stay Permit based on being married to a Thai wife" . . . . for the application to the initial 90-days Non-Imm-O Family Visa through the online e-visa system of the Thai embassy in your home country, you can use original income documents
Buriram Immigration is one important step ahead. They discontinued the wrong terminology . . . no more "visa extensions" in Buriram. Thank you very very very much . . .
""Merriam-Webster: visa - (noun) - an endorsement made on a passport by the proper authorities denoting that it has been examined and that the bearer may proceed." So, every stamp in your passport is a visa. By definition." . . . . . complete nonsense. A visa is an endorsement to allow ENTRY into another country. AFTER you entered, the "visa" is used or "expired". It stops existing! . . . . .your Merriam-Webster obviously is wrong!
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 which expires.
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 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!
If I want to be clear in my visa consultations, I have to ignore the immigration office's error and use the correct terminology.
Even the "visa exemption" (visa-free entry) isn't a visa, but simply a stamped stay permit.
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 someone doesn't understand this, I really can't help them; then all my efforts are in vain