I am starting to plan for a tour to Thailand for 2 to 3 months.

I am a Malaysian and have a Malaysian registered motorcycle.
Plan to enter Thailand and go from South Thailand to North Thailand.
I did Northern Thailand in 2022 on a rented bike and had a blast.

I found out that entering Thailand from the land border, you only get a 30 days import permit for the vehicle. Is there a possibility to get at least 60 to 90 days or longer?

As Malaysian is part of ASEAN, I don't need a visa to enter Thailand but it is also for 30 days only.

I plan to do Thailand in 2 sections. Somewhere between 30 to 45 days mark, leave the bike in Thailand and then either fly/take the train to Penang, Malaysia and then fly back to Kota Kinabalu. Then go back to Thailand after a few weeks to pick up the bike and complete the tour.

How can I get a longer vehicle import permit in Thailand? And can I also get a longer entry stamp for myself?

I also have to figure out where to store the bike for a few weeks if I decide to pause the tour for a few weeks.

Thanks

I am not sure about the bike mate

But you can apply for a tourist visa from the Royal Thai Embassy in Kualalumpar and you can get 60 days I believe. Once in country you can extend this for 30 days just before it runs out. The price was 1900 baht when i last did it, which was a few years ago.
https://kualalumpur.thaiembassy.org/en/index

The embassy may also be able to give you info on the bike

Ref the bike, You could possibly leave it here for a few weeks.

Cheers

Wayne

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Morning mate.

I have left a PM at the official FB page of Royal Thai Embassy at Kuala Lumpur as it's the public holidays here for Chinese New Year.

Appreciate the offer of leaving my bike at your place for a few weeks.
I did look at your place but my plan is to go all the way to Mae Sai again (most Northern part of Thailand) and ideally leave the bike somewhere nearer to Chiang Mai as that would be about 50% of the tour.
Then come back and pick up the bike to complete the balance by riding East to Nan again and slowly go back to Malaysia.

Anyway, have to wait for the reply from the Thai Embassy.

Mae Sai is nice, I was right up there in 2014

No worries, the offer is there if you need it mate

Wayne

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The Balkans
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Wayne,

Appreciate the offer again!

Thanks.

I recently went through all this with an Australian registered bike. As far as first entry goes I believe an agent is necessary to obtain the requisite Temporary import Permit from Bangkok which usually has a 5 day turnaround time. Although the agent I used did it in 2 hours and required payment only after I had successfully entered Thailand.


Renewal after the first 30 days does not require an agent ( and $250 fee despite what my otherwise helpful agent claimed). As my 30 day visa on arrival visa expired I renewed at the Chiang Mai immigration office as per normal with a legislated fee of THB 900 (I think, but my memory hazy). With that 30 day extension for myself in hand I rode the bike to Chiang Rai customs just this side of the Friendship Bridge Border Crossing and personally requested a 30 day extension of the bike TIP to match my visa extension.


The additional 30 day TIP was processed and given to me for free within about 30 minutes. Easy Peasy.


And he Customs staff also helpfully explained the reality behind some agent bullshit people seem to believe (as I did). Vehicle TIP’s are always only granted for 30 days maximum, less if your visa has less than 30 days left. So if you only had 14 days on your visa they’d only give you 14 days TIP extension for your vehicle.

But, the exciting good news was that there is legally no limit to the number of times you may request both a TIP or a subsequent extension to your TIP. Commonly agents say your vehicle may enter Thailand only twice per calendar year. Or they say only one entry and one extension because law limits foreign vehicles to 60 days per calendar year.


The Chiang Rai officials explained to me that they work to enforce the legislation and that legislation has no limit on either number of TIP’s or TIP extensions BUT each is limited always to a maximum of 30 days.


I’m not sure what would happen if you got a 60 day tourist visa from the Thai embassy in your country and then tried to obtain TIP. I suspect it would still be 30 days but you would extend it at Customs office halfway through your two month visa.

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Thanks for the info.

Much appreciated.

Update:
No FB PM reply from Thai embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

I sent an email instead to the Kuala Lumpur Thai Embassy.

Ok. I think I worked this out for you since I have some similar needs to leave the bike in one country while I exit to deal with some business in another.

You need a freight forwarder prepared to store the bike in their Bond Store (like a big duty free warehouse for companies importing/exporting non-dutiable goods and 99 % of the ****-arounds we face with bikes stem from them being dutiable imports).

You need a written storage agreement from the freight forwarder the commences before the end of your Temporary Import Permit (TIP).

You also need a hotel booking for the date you want to return to get your bike and continue your trip, proof of funds (income is what they look for, not savings) with very current date, a written and realistic 30 day max post-pick-up itinerary that ends with you exiting Thailand to Malaysia at Bukit Kayu Hitam. You can get this extended for freee for another 30 days later.


You then take your all that, but especially the storage agreement to your nearest Thai Customs Office and ask them for something like:

1. A 30 day TIP extension specifying the bike in storage and an itinerary that shows it in storage for less than 30 days and the written reason "Family Emergency in Malaysia". You could conceivably try your luck for longer than 30 days but I doubt it would fly.

ANY CUSTOMS BROKER/FREIGHT FORWARDER WORTH HIS SALT SHOULD BE ABLE TO MANAGE GETTING YOUR BIKE INTO HIS BOND STORE AND KNOW THE RIGHT GUY AT CUSTOMS TO GET FOR FORM SIGNED.

Return, collect your bike, immediately proceed to different customs office and ask for new 30 day extension with new itinerary specifying "Further Tourism". If you apply for 2 MONTH TOURISM VISA (Not Visa on Arrival typically used by Malaysians) you'll find it''s extendable by several months with a Thai sponsor.

CAVEAT: This is a plan pieced together by my past, current, and future problems in Thailand and Malaysia - it has not been tested in full. But change your Malaysian citizenship to my Australian and touring country with temporary exit needed from Thailand to Malaysia and I am in the middle of organising this procedure for myself.

It's likely gonna cost a few Ringgit for me and plenty of Baht for you.

Also, nobody calls an embassy for consular matters. You turn up an take a number and queue or you trust your agent to sort it out during lunch at at KTV after work with his mate working there.

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