Thai-Italian Chamber of Commerce THAI IMMIGRATION UPDATE Thai immigration has made some important changes to its regulations regarding expiring passports (see text below). In addition, we will hear tomorrow from the Board of Investment of its new incentive schemes to be implemented as of January 2015. The news is not good. We will keep you up to date. Effective immediately, the Immigration Bureau has issued new regulations concerning the duration period of a visa in the case that a passport is expiring. The rule also covers the transfer of the visa from the old passport to the new passport. 1) Long term employment visas will only be issued/extended to the date that the work permit holder’s passport expires. 2) Dependent visa(s) for family members of the work permit holder will only be issued/extended to match the date of work permit holder's visa. The dependent’s visas will expire on the same date that the work permit holder's passport/visa expires, even if the dependent’s passports will still be valid. 3) The long term employment visa will no longer be automatically transferred from the old passport to the new passport. Instead, when the long term employment visa holder has obtained a new passport, the visa holder and family members will need to re-apply for a new visa application by submitting all the required documents for long term visa extension and paying a fee of baht 1,900 per person. 4) At the same time that the work permit holder transfers the visa to the new passport, the dependents can also extend their dependent visas to match the permitted period of the work permit holder's visa. Note: For a non-BOI company the old visa will be transferred into the new passport based on the expiry date of the old visa (which is the date the old passport expired). The passport holder will then be given a new one-year period from the date the old visa expired. For BOI promoted company, the validity period of the new visa after being transferred into the new passport will be the same as the permitted period specified in the BOI approval letter originally granted to the work permit holder. In this connection, the employer must issue a confirmation letter to the Immigration Bureau certifying such employee/s is/are still currently employed until present.
1126/2 Vanit II Building, 16th Floor, Room 1601 New Petchburi Rd., Makkasan, Rajdhevee Bangkok 10400 Tel: (+66) 2 255 8695 Fax: (+66) 2 253 9896 Email: info@thaitch.org
Thai-Italian Chamber of Commerce Any BOI visa application filled before August 26, 2013 will be processed as per the previous regulation. Therefore, no new visa application must be made in such case.
Prepared by: Paolo Tavolato GM TMF-GROUP
1126/2 Vanit II Building, 16th Floor, Room 1601 New Petchburi Rd., Makkasan, Rajdhevee Bangkok 10400 Tel: (+66) 2 255 8695 Fax: (+66) 2 253 9896 Email: info@thaitch.org