Today we received a complaint about visa overstay fees listed in our magazine guide. Our magazine lists the daily rate for visa overstays as 500bt, however he claimed he was charged 500bt for the first day and 2,000bt for the second day.

I cannot find any information about this on the internet, as a far as I can see the information we published is correct. Normally visitors are not fined for the first day overstay at land borders, and thereafter it's 500 baht per day up to a maximum fine of 20,000 baht.

Information taken from our guide:
[quote]Make sure your visa is up to date and try to avoid overstaying your visa. You will be fined 500 baht per day and there have been reports of tourists facing jail time with expired passports.

Maybe best not to quote a fine, if it can vary. I would anticipate that if they wanted to be difficult they could also detain you for a period. In fact I think I recollect with the 20K maximum fine, there was also the possibility of doing some formal "time".

Afriend of mine had an 11 day overstay when he came to visit.We went to the bridge where he paid 5500 baht for the overstay,went across to laos and came back to start his 90 days!There wasn't any hassle.Just go through the turnstyles ,turn left ,go in and tell them you want to pay for overstay,very polite,no problems!

Over stays are not too much of a problem when you are leaving the kingdom, just pay the fine. If you are found to be in the Kingdom with an over stay you will pay a hefty fine and go to immigration jail for 45 days then deported. If too many over stays stamped in your passport a visa could be denied.

lee wrote:Today we received a complaint about visa overstay fees listed in our magazine guide. Our magazine lists the daily rate for visa overstays as 500bt, however he claimed he was charged 500bt for the first day and 2,000bt for the second day.

I cannot find any information about this on the internet, as a far as I can see the information we published is correct. Normally visitors are not fined for the first day overstay at land borders, and thereafter it's 500 baht per day up to a maximum fine of 20,000 baht.

Information taken from our guide:

Make sure your visa is up to date and try to avoid overstaying your visa. You will be fined 500 baht per day and there have been reports of tourists facing jail time with expired passports.

How many days was he over stay? So sounds like he got ripped off, everything I've ever read states 500 daily with max of 20,000. Oh well lesson learned...don't over stay your visa.

Today we had a call from a magazine reader to say that that he was misinformed about visa overstay fines in our guide publication.....



however he claims he was charged 500bt for the first day and 2,000bt for the second day.

Maybe he will think twice about overstaying next time ... we live and learn....sounds like he was trying to claim it back from udonmap..

I took a visiting friend to the bridge in January, he was 2 days over his visa on entry, rather than joining the queue to exit Thailand I sent him to the office on the left where he paid 500 bht, signed a form and was told to take the bus across the bridge, he said they were very courteous but did ask why he was overstay, he told them he was enjoying his time in Thailand so he changed his flight home not thinking about his visa.
The actual fact is he did change his flight home but could only get one 2 days after his visa had expired and I told him a 500 bht 2 day overstay is cheaper than a 1,900 bht visa extension.

Just remember that with everything pertaining to laws and regulations in Thailand there is a clause which basically states that the stated rules and regulations are to be implemented at the official's discretion.

Just because they have a law written down somewhere doesn't mean that it will be followed to the letter.

TiT.

arjay wrote:Maybe best not to quote a fine, if it can vary.

I thought it was a standard fee of 500bt per day which was increased from 200bt per day last year.

papaguido wrote:How many days was he over stay?

Two days from what I can make out.

Marmite The Dog wrote:the stated rules and regulations are to be implemented at the official's discretion.

Yes that's true. It may be worth adding this to the paragraph about visa fines.

Maybe there's more to the story than the guy's telling.

merchant seaman wrote:Over stays are not too much of a problem when you are leaving the kingdom, just pay the fine. If you are found to be in the Kingdom with an over stay you will pay a hefty fine and go to immigration jail for 45 days then deported. If too many over stays stamped in your passport a visa could be denied.

Spot on you old seadog.

The fine is 500 baht per day up to the max 20k amount. Normally the first day is not charged at airports when leaving but a stamp is most often made in passport noting the overstay (although it has not effect on future entry). I have not heard of any change in this (since they changed from 200 baht per day).

I went 3 days over last time... Pure carelessness on my part. Expired on Feb 2nd I left on Feb 5th. A pleasant young immigration lady said "No problem" but when she called for a supervisor I was wondering what was on the menu at the detention centre. An equally pleasant chap led me to a desk, filled out a form, made a note in my passport and he handed it back with a smile and I was away. I didn't pay a single Baht!