Thailand is not the easiest country to be a long-term tourist or expat in, and one of the reasons for this is the necessity for constantly renewing your visa—which often means a trip to outlying countries for a few days. All of this can get a bit tiring and bothersome—not to mention that sometimes misfortunate things just happen—and as a result, many allow their visa to expire and end up on an overstay.

This might be for a few innocent days, which is not the end of the world, but in the case of longer-term expats, it may end up becoming months or even years.

In the case of just a few days, you can usually settle up on your visa by going to the immigration office in whatever city you live in and paying a small fine—I believe it is about 500 baht per day. In fact, an even better idea is to get over there before your visa expires and pay for a one week extension. The fine will buy you a few days to get to the board and get a proper visa renewal—and
no problems.

Even the long-term overstays can just show up at the airport when they are ready to go, with a ticket in hand. In these cases, the ultimate maximum fine they can be subjected to is 20,000 baht—which for many people is worth just overstaying rather than constantly going on visa runs. In the great majority of cases, they have no problems just paying the fine, getting on the plane, and leaving the country.

But if the immigration officer is having a bad day, it can be worse. They have the right to arrest you and force you to go before a court, which means a couple days in jail. Even then, you will likely be forced to pay only 20,000 baht, but be aware that in these long over-stay cases, another option within the law is 2 years in jail.

This very rarely happens, and for that reason, many foreigners choose not to renew their visa and gladly pay their fine on the way out.

But the problem arises if you get stopped by the police before you turn yourself in and get busted for having an expired visa without turning yourself in. In these scenarios, even if it’s just a day or two, you will most likely be arrested, deported back to your home country, and it is possible to even be blacklisted—though this isn’t likely to happen for such a small overstay.

To make matters worse, and this isn’t confirmed yet, recent reports have surfaced of immigration announcing that the policy has changed and that anyone overstaying 42 days or more will not be let onto the plane when leaving. Rather, they will be put in jail and made to see a judge to have their case considered.

This announcement has caused an uproar online and many are saying a month warning would have given for over-stayers a chance to get out of the country due to the new policy. Now, other reports are now saying the first report was false to begin with. The matter has still not been cleared up as of writing this article.

So why have I mentioned it here at all?

The reason is that I want you to be aware of the danger of taking advantage of loopholes in countries you don’t necessarily understand. The best policy is to stay current on your visa at all times.

In fact, make sure you renew EARLY every time, and here’s a tip, set your date calendar in your cell phone so that you get reminded. Don’t have a cell phone while traveling? Use a Gmail account as your email and you can use Google Calendars to have an email sent warning you in advance.

If anything else, just watch the date like a hawk and don’t put yourself at risk.

You’ve been warned, and I’ll post in the comments when I get to the bottom of the truth with the recent overstay situation.

UPDATE: Before I even had the chance to post this, it was announced by one member on a forum that he left Thailand after the initial report that started the scare mentioned above. With a 7 month overstay, he was not only allowed to leave by simply paying a fine but came back that same evening and was stamped back in. I’m leaving the article as is to stress once again–because of the possible volatility of the situation, DO NOT ever overstay your visa.