What if visa expires?

Thailand's second biggest industry is probably everything that has something to do with visas. There are embassies and consulates, governed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which are employing thousands of Thais and in addition there are all kinds of officers with drivers, secretaries, cleaning staff, agents, cooks,assistants...

Thailand's Immigration officials are strictly monitoring visas and their validity, changing of status and collecting fees. For these activities, there are a lot of service points and offices that employ and all kinds of helpers from judges to maintenance workers.

Effect on employment

There are even hundreds of companies which are offering different kinds of visa tours to the nearest countries. There are drivers, caterers, secretaries, managers, etc. There are a lot of copy shops, only for taking photo-copies of foreigner's visa applications and other papers. There are taxi drivers who take clients to different offices and back home. There are countless agents and intermediaries. For some people, there are even interpreters and very beautiful ones too J...It is a fact that in the visa business there are billions of Baht moving around. You can only image how serious damage it would be for Thailand to be a member of Schengen countries or some other visa free country.

Take it seriously

Fortunately one part of the visa regulations is not so familiar to most of us. But still it is going to be the next step if your visa gets expired and you don't obey the rules. A small overstay of visa validity time causes a small penalty to you, and likewise, a bigger one causes a bigger penalty.There is a stamp in your passport that indicates when you have to leave the country or at latest apply for a visa extension. If you don't do either of these, you will be illegally in the country.In case you show yourself to boundary officials, for example at an airport, or if you go to the immigration office by yourself, there will be just a penalty to be paid. The first day after exceeding is free of charge and causes only an extra stamp to your passport and nothing more.After this, every day will cause an extra payment. The second day causes 1000b cost (it is kind of the payment of the first day too) and then 500b for every day. This pricing is up to 20 000 baht which is the maximum penalty. (Children under 17-years old don't have to pay penalty when traveling with their parents).This kind of big exceeding will also cause a stamp to your passport which makes it very difficult to get a visa or a work permit in future. However, there won't usually be any harm if you stay just a short period in Thailand when there is no need for a visa anyway. This is maybe because officials in Thailand realize that you will spend a lot of money in Thailand and they don't want to stop these money flows if there is no threat for the national security.With heavy exceeding (and especially when supplemented with other offences such as stealing, forgery, drugs, abuse and fraud) you will be added to the black book which prevents you to come back to Thailand. And it is much easier to get your name into the black book than erasing it again.

How you could get busted

Usually foreigners get caught when they act disorderly or when they are randomly checked by police but most commonly, when they have irritated or made someone jealous and he or she wants to have revenge. There are angry lovers, neighbors, creditors, landlords…If you get caught, in other words, you haven't showed up for officials by yourself, you will be screwed so to say.The first thing to happen is that you will be detained in a jail. In Pattaya, there are usually hundreds of foreigners in jail for visa exceeding and waiting for their case to be handled. The most common reason for exceeding the visa are problems with drugs and furthermore lack of money.Inevitably these are men who are acting irresponsibly towards themselves and don't use their return tickets to their homelands and without any further thinking, they just keep drinking alcohol and "enjoying" their life.In other words, they are not usually bad or evil people but just so confused that they shouldn't have traveled away from their homes in the first place.Sometimes there are legal cases waiting for these visa exceeders back in their homelands which make them willing to stay. In this case, international cooperation between police officials works and big fish will be caught eventually. (However, the bigger the fish with bigger assets of cash, the slower the police in Thailand will work...)

What happens next

Once detained at the police station (for example in Pattaya or Jomtien police station) or at the immigration office (for example Jomtien Soi 5) you have to wait to your first trial which is going to happen in 48 hours. The conviction will be at first penalties for 10 days and one day is 500 bahts and also you will be banished, no matter how much you exceeded. However, you won't be instantly banished because it will take a little time to deal with your papers. All this waiting is going to happen in jail!

Friends are gold

Now they give you a chance to call your friends and if you are lucky, you will get somebody to pay your return ticket back to home (in case there is an airline which will transfer banished people...).   If you don't have any friends or they don't loan you any money, you just have to wait that your embassy gives you a loan for the ticket back home. This process takes usually months because embassies don't like these exceeders too much. And it's good to remember that it is a loan and you have to pay it back when you are at home.At this point and with this delay, I'm sure you will never want to do all this again.After the first trial you usually won't be kept by a police but you will be transferred to an "apartment" where they keep hundreds of exceeders and others who are illegally in the country together in the same room.I think all of us have heard stories of prisons in Thailand so I also think it's quite clear to all that you must have quite good reasons for exceeding your visa if you can handle this all told above. (Amnesty International rates these Thai prisons with quite fewer stars than western prisons...)

Let's obey the rules in Thailand and enjoy our vacations free as birds instead of jail. Have many sunny days in Pattaya!

References:

Pattaya Today -magazine
www.judiciary.go.th/cnbjc/'
http://www.thaivisa.com/
PBRL-Group co.ltd.
www.imm.police.go.th