The category determines how long you may stay, whether the stay can be extended, and whether a work permit can follow. Choosing the wrong category at the start usually means leaving the country and applying again, at cost in both time and money.
The most frequent misunderstanding is entering on a tourist visa or under a visa exemption and assuming the status can simply be converted to Non-Immigrant inside Thailand. That is possible only in defined cases and only where the conditions are already met.
We check your current status first, then set out what can actually be done, with the order of the steps and the deadline for each.
The categories asked about most often
- Non-Immigrant B, for employment and business.
- Non-Immigrant O, for spouses and family of Thai nationals, and for retirement.
- Non-Immigrant ED, for study.
- Tourist visas, which never permit work.
What we do
- Check the current immigration status and the date permission to stay expires.
- Advise which category fits, and whether to apply inside Thailand or abroad.
- Prepare the supporting documents, for the applicant and for the sponsoring company.
- File extensions of stay and arrange re-entry permits.
- Handle the ninety-day reporting.
- Act where an application is refused and where there is an overstay problem.
Dates to watch
- The date permission to stay expires, which is not the same as the expiry date of the visa itself.
- An extension must be filed before permission expires, not after.
- Leaving Thailand without a re-entry permit ends the permission to stay immediately.
- The ninety-day report, which is finable even while the stay itself is valid.
- Overstaying, which carries a daily fine and can lead to a re-entry ban.
The criteria and required documents are administrative rules that change periodically and differ between offices. Tell us your current status and the applicable rules can be checked.