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If you stay beyond the expiration of your visa, then you will be fined when you depart. This is called "overstaying your visa". The fee is 200 baht/day up to a maximum of 20,000 baht. It's well known that there are foreigners who overstay their visas instead of doing visa runs, some by many years and who just pay the 20,000 baht fine when they finally leave. Many have left this way without any hassle except filling out the paperwork and paying the fine at the airport.

However, if you are found in Thailand by the authorities with an expired visa, for example in the center of Bangkok, then you can be put in the immigration detention center and held there until you have sufficient funds and a plane ticket out of Thailand. The immigration detention center is a crowded and very uncomfortable and unpleasant place, and you may be laying down among some serious criminals. Also, if you overstay a visa, then you will normally be denied another visa until you've left Thailand for a minimum of 90 days. Many people have still entered Thailand on a visa on arrival for 30 days, though, after such an overstay.

For people that are new to international travel. Some have accidentally overstayed their visa because they didn't understand that one of the official expiry dates stamped in their passport was not the one to go by. For example, if you go to a Thai consulate or embassy in your country and get a nonimmigrant visa on April 15, 2008, then that visa may have an expiration date of April 14, 2009. This does NOT mean you can enter Thailand and stay until April 14, 2009. This is NOT a 1-year visa. This means you must enter Thailand before April 14, 2009, or else you will need to go get a new visa. If you enter Thailand on July 8, 2008, you will get an entry stamp on another page, and it will have your entry date of 08 JUL 2008 and the new "admitted until" date of 06 OCT 2008. You must ignore the big prominent official visa stamp with an expiry date of April 14, 2009, and instead follow the simple little entry stamp on another page that includes the little "admitted until 06 OCT 2008".

In this example, for a tourist visa, 06 Oct 2008 is the end. However, for a non-immigrant business (B) or marriage (O) visa, you can extend those visas with the proper process and paperwork as discussed elsewhere on this page and in this website.

If you have a multiple entry B visa, you can actually renew it up to 1 year and 3 months, if you enter Thailand the last time on April 13, 2009, according to the above example, whereby you are given another 3 months up to July 11, 2009. To be extra clear, July 11, 2009 is well beyond April 14, 2009. If you have arrived in Thailand on April 16 on that business visa, then you would have gotten nearly 1 year plus 3 months out of it. I have known some people to do this (most are usually not in Thailand continuously, but some are).

You can extend a business visa forever with a work permit and all your documentation done well, or with a marriage visa. Extensions are granted only if you fulfill certain requirements such as work permit, marriage, or retirement, as discussed elsewhere...

Just don't overstay your visa! Once you get an overstay stamp in your passport, many officers will have a change in attitude and may scrutinize your paperwork much more closely or outright reject a visa application. It is common to have officers not even consider a visa application from a fresh overstay, instead requiring you to either wait or else enter Thailand and exit again without an overstay.

If you come in on a multiple entry B business visa, then a year should be enough time to figure out if you really want to do business in Thailand or retire here -- do the market research, establish the relationships, get enough investors organized, hold the proper promoters meetings, compose the articles of incorporation, etc.

You are not allowed to work in Thailand unless you get a work permit, i.e., you are not allowed to get a salaried or consulting job employed by a company in Thailand. (Of course, you can still work by Internet for companies outside Thailand.) You can explore doing business, attend meetings, and many other things without a work permit on a clearly temporary basis as a clearly outside entity with a clearly limited purpose here, but you must know the limits of what you can do. The work permit issue is discussed in the section on Work Permits. You also cannot enter into many kinds of service contracts or own registered property unless you have a work permit, except those married to a Thai and who fulfill certain requirements (though many places sell you things or sign off on service contracts anyway, and the illegality of it is just overlooked as long as nobody objects).

However, Thailand is not a police state with harsh punishments or penalties, and in fact is a fairly easygoing place business wise and living wise. This is why a lot of people do business here and live here. There are not officials going around demanding to see all your papers. In fact, Thailand is generally much more relaxed than most Western countries. However, if you engage in activities that offend others or flagrantly violate the law, then these laws can and often will be used against you. When in Thailand, be like the Thais ... or go elsewhere!

If you plan to travel to another country, you will be happy to find that most countries maintain an embassy or consulate in Bangkok where you can get a visa. Many accept visa applications only during morning hours, and give back passports in the afternoon. Some process your passport on the same day, others may require you leave your passport with them several days.