alishinto

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone is in the same situation as me. I am a UK citizen who came here on a 90-day tourist visa which is about to expire in a couple of weeks. With so many flights cancelled and countries closing borders, if your visa expires during the lockdown period, are you expected to leave the country before the expiry date or is there some kind of waiving of visa rules until after lockdown, like some other countries have done?

cheers

SanDiegogirl

So why not leave before any lockdown is implemented.?

Appears to be plenty of flights leaving Malaysia for the UK currently.

Seems to be an awful lot of people (hopefully) looking for visa extentions these days.....

hnd

Surely it is up to you to make sure that you leave the country before your 90 days pass expires? While there are still flights to the UK why should there be a visa waiver scheme?

alishinto

I can't post a link because I don't have 5 posts yet, but I was thinking about something along these lines:

"LONDON: The UK on Tuesday announced the extension of all expiring or expired visas of foreign nationals, including Indians, who are unable to return home due to the coronavirus pandemic until May 31." That's from the New Indian Express.

I believe Taiwan has done the same thing, and China did too at the beginning of the outbreak.
I guess it's in all countries' interests to do this, so you minimise the number of people travelling back and forth trying to beat their visa expiry dates.

WiredTight

I thought during Regular Times... you could apply for a 30 day extension directly with the immigration department (???). Flights still seem to be available to get-out, but once out, you will be blocked from returning until this lock down period ends. Best bet to call immigration directly.

SushiFan

That will not be possible as the Malaysian immigration department has closed all offices for the duration of the MCO.
The official notice, in Malay (I couldn't find and English version):
https://www.imi.gov.my/images/fail_p...LAYSIA.pdf.pdf

SushiFan

I don't recall having read specific measures related to tourist visas. However, Malaysia does not block foreigners from leaving the country. So, from their point of view has there been no limitation for you to leave before your visa expired. And therefore you could face legal problems when you do get caught with an expired tourist visa. It might be advisable to follow the instructions from the UK's High Commission website.

eCdD

I have read that that there will be no punishment for tourists which had their visa expired during MCO.

IanBlakeley

I did see this raised elsewhere. My understanding is that while the MCO is in force you're okay, you have 14 days from its end to renew your visa or to leave the country. If you want to get back to the UK best get cracking, airlines are suspending and/or cancelling it could cost a lot more if you need to book a new ticket and the FCO have advised all travellers to return to the UK so ignore that and you may find your insurance company unhelpful. My step-daughter curtailed her long visit and went back early yesterday, she had to go via KL the Penang - Doha flights are not running from what I've seen SIA have cut nearly every flight and no transit allowed, ditto for Emirates and Air Asia just announced a load of suspensions.

RedApe

As of yesterday, US Embassy has said that there are still Daily Flights on Malaysian Airlines from KLIA-London (two flights on Tuesdays) and Qatar Airways has one flight a day to Doha with onward transit. JAL and ANA also have flights eastbound from KLIA to Narita/Tokyo. Each flies every other day except Mondays. So JAL Tu, Thu. Sat...and ANA Wed, Fri, Sunday.

eCdD

Yes, Qatar is continuing to serve and has no plans to stopp. And surprisingly the flights to Europe are not really expensive.