Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are comparing and contrasting the Long Term Resident Visa, or the LTR Visa, which residence, that is kind of a misnomer to call it Residence Visa. It does not confer Lawful Permanent Residence in Thailand. It's basically a really long specifically a 10 year Non-Immigrant Visa, that's the way I look at it. It does not confer Residence under the Immigration Act of 1979, it's not the same thing. Now it confers a great deal of benefits, we'll get into those in a minute but that is something to bear in mind.

The other thing to bear in mind with respect to this is we are also talking about the O Retirement Visa. Let me be clear, we are talking about the O Retirement Visa extension here in Thailand, not the O-A Retirement Visa which is a different animal altogether if you will. Well, I mean it is a Retirement Visa but it has different requirements most notably it has an Insurance requirement where the O Retirement Visa does not.

I got to thinking of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's 10 year visas will be launched September 1. Quoting directly: "The income and investment requirements differ according to the application category, but umpteen thousands of high-value (rich) foreigners are being sought to boost the Thai economy. If you think 1 million Baht is a fortune, this visa isn't for you. The authorities are thinking more in terms of 1 million US dollars. The cheapest category is for retirees over 50 and your annual income must be at least 80,000 Baht monthly, or less with additional cash or bond investments in Thailand. But whether seniors will want to bother with the bureaucracy and readily ditch simpler alternatives such as the annual "O" extension of stay or the Elite - remains to be seen." Good point. I would urge those who are watching this video to go check out that article, there's a lot of good information in there.

Yeah just this excerpt, that is an interesting point because, one 80,000 Baht monthly that is higher than the 65,000 Baht currently associated with inbound pensions going into a bank account in Thailand associated with "O" Retirement extension. The other thing is Insurance. O Retirement Visas do not require Insurance whereas these new LTR Visas are going to require rather substantial insurance, at least based on what we are seeing right now. 

Again, this has yet to be rolled out at the time of this video. We still have not seen the LTR Visa rolled out. It's coming out September 1 and we are going to get some more information about that as time moves on. Some of this is to some degree speculation, but we have got a pretty good idea what this thing is going to look like and I think it's safe to say yeah there are pros and cons to O Retirement versus the LTR Visa. I will say the O Visa, yeah you got to renew it every year. Now for many that may not be that big of a deal if they've got all their ducks in a row. For some they just don't want to deal with it and they would like to just have 10 years and be done with it, I can see that. Different people are going to require different things. We will definitely keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.