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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas. Unfortunately yeah there seems to be a lot of just sort of general honestly kind of complaining a little bit from time to time I see on the internet about the Thai Retirement Visa. It's worth noting that quite honestly as far as requirements go, the Thai Retirement Visa and I am specifically going to talk here from the context of the O Retirement Visa, not the O-A Retirement Visa; I know that there are a number of requirements associated with medical coverage that can be rather onerous associated with the O-A. But regarding the O Retirement Visa, the requirement in that one has either 800,000 baht in a Thai Bank account or 65,000 Baht per month income, presumably pension income, in order to maintain that type of status, that's a pretty low threshold if you compare that to the Immigration Systems around the world. 

If you compare the Thai Retirement Visa to something similar in South America, I think you are going to be hard-pressed to find such a Visa where you can maintain that status on an ongoing basis without needing to spend that money. Again, that 800,000 Baht is just a bank balance; you can take it with you when you leave, whatever. Now again there are some of that complain that you have to keep it on hand in the bank account, yeah I can see how that might be a problem but again there is also the option of using pension income rather than maintaining a standard bank balance. But again, if you compare this to other Immigration Systems around the world honestly, again South America, virtually no place else in Southeast Asia has anything nearly as accommodating as the Thai Retirement Visa. Then you look at South America, Europe, these kinds of places, all of these programs are substantially more expensive than the Thai Retirement Visa program both from the standpoint of actual guidelines in theory as well as in practice when you actually look at the cost associated with maintaining retiree status. 

Now I get, things like 90-day reporting can be kind of annoying; there is an online system for that. We assist a number of our clients and doing their 90-day reports to the point where it really isn't even an issue for them. Yeah you do have to show up once a year to renew your status but again compared to for example the US Immigration System, the ability to just maintain long-term Immigration status in Thailand on a year to year basis, where basically the main requirement is you have to show up in person at the Immigration Office, that's a pretty low bar at the end of the day.