Thailand is a strange place as far as their constant "get over here! now go away!" attitude towards foreigners is concerned. On the one side, their entire GDP is heavily dependent upon tourism and outside visitors, but at the same time they seem to have this objective to periodically purge the people that decide to stay here long-term, which is a lot of people.
The problem with trying to live in this country is that you never feel secure in your visa since the rules could change at the drop of a hat and also, various local immigration offices just kind of make up their own rules regardless of what the national policy happens to be.
If you kick up a fuss and try to show them the law, you are simply inviting even more trouble for yourself because built into virtually every visa application I have seen includes the following article on the list of requirements
- (h) anything else the immigration official determines to be necessary at their discretion
Now I am not specifically stating that this article exists purely to enrich the immigration officials who are looking for under-the-table money, but it certainly starts to feel that way after a while. I have been here for over 6 years now, and the only reason why I continue to be an in-person teacher is because the government school that I am employed by is able to protect me from such corruption due to the fact that they too, are the government.
People that are running legitimate businesses, are here on digital-nomad visas or retirement visas though, they are facing an entirely evolving set of rules. This is a massive problem because it seems like everyone, regardless of how legitimate their claim is to a visa, keeps facing problems when it comes time to renew their visa.
I have a friend down in Phuket that has lived here for now, over 20 years. He has done so the entire time completely above board and legally. He owns a media company that employs many Thai people (which is required) pays its taxes, and gives full invoices for literally everything that the company does, all of which is 100% legal.
But recently he was told by immigration that his 1-year visas are no longer renewable and he has to exit the country each year in order to be assigned another one. Why? Because they said so.
This appears to be a situation that ONLY exists in Phuket and you might say to yourself "well just go to another city's immigration" and that is a complete acceptable level of reasoning if you were displeased with your local Burger King, but immigration doesn't work that way here. If your business in registered in Phuket, you are subjected exclusively to the Phuket regional immigration office without exception.
Again, attempting to go over the head of the local authority and appeal to a higher power will only result in more problems for you. He has attempted to bribe them to no avail, because it appears as though they are looking for an astronomical amount of money that would bankrupt his company if he were to pay it.
So now he has to take a large load of papers with him on a flight once a year and go to what he researches as being a "friendly" Thai Consulate out of the country every year. At the moment that friendly Consulate just happens to be in Vientiane, Laos for now.
Nearly all of his fellow business owning buddies in Phuket are facing the exact same treatment and there is no legal justification for this. The officials do have the authority to demand whatever the hell they want from you in article (h).
This isn't the only example of how things are changing either, but I will detail those at a later time and honestly, this is a bit of a Neverending Story because by the time people adjust to this new "rule", new ones have been enacted without warning.
We do not face this level of corruption here in Chiang Mai fortunately, because (and this is merely what I have heard, the Thai government would never have this standpoint) Chiang Mai is home to one of the largest military bases in the country, and therefore tends to rule more by the letter of the law, rather than just kind of making it up as they go along.
Also, Phuket is well known to have a very wealthy international population, so the immigration office there probably holds their hands out looking for substantial "tea money" (bribes) and actually ends up receiving them.
This is troubling, but for a time there after Covid it seemed like Thai Immigration was going to "play nice" as the country struggled to get back to the levels of foreign residents and visitors that it regularly experienced prior to 2019.
Well it appears as though the honeymoon is over again.