Phuket Visa Runs to Ranong End: Immigration Crackdown Drops Tourist Renewals to a Trickle PHUKET: Once a busy place for visa runners, the number of tourists extending their trips to Thailand by visiting the border port of Ranong has dwindled by 90 percent to five or six people a day, an Immigration official said today.



The officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that no companies now do visa runs to Ranong from Phuket.



Once, Ranong was the most popular visa run from Phuket because it was just a life-threatening hurtle along the highway and back, all in a day.



Real tourists extending their stay in Thailand continue to be welcome - but they need to carry 20,000 baht in cash and their return ticket out of Thailand to prove they are genuine.



The officer told Phuketwan today: ''The policy of the government is aimed at tourists who stay in Thailand and work illegally on tourist visas. In the past, people have been allowed too much leniency.



''Real tourists are fine. We are checking individuals who ask for single-entry or tourist-entry visas.



''If people come to Ranong and they have stayed in Thailand for three years by repeating visa runs on a tourist visa, that will be it.



''If foreigners are married to a Thai or on retirement visas, there is no problem.''



The crackdown on visas is accompanied by harsher penalties and proposed blacklists for overstayers, so going underground on Phuket or in Thailand is being made more difficult.



Phuketwan's travel expert says the system presently allows two kinds of visas that should cater to people such as fly-out, fly-in oil rig workers who are employed overseas, but living in Thailand in between shifts.



Visa on Arrival, Single Entry



THE SINGLE ENTRY visa is for three months, but the stamp at the airport on arrival is for only the first two months. A visit to Phuket City Immigration headquarters will enable a tourist to extend for the extra month.



Once the full three months has been used, anyone who wants to stay longer must fly to an overseas city where there's a Thai embassy. They will be granted another three months, and on arrival the stamp will again specify two months, with a third month available on a visit to Phuket City Immigration headquarters.



Six Months Multiple Entry



A SIX MONTH multiple entry visa holder will again be stamped with just two months at Phuket International Airport Immigration. The holder must then travel twice to Ranong or another border to activate the next two months. Once that's been done twice, the holder has to leave Thailand and repeat the process.



With no visa runs now operating to Ranong from Phuket, travellers must go instead to Tammarang in Satun province, on the Thai-Malaysia border. Comments Comments have been disabled for this article.

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