Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas specifically the issue of financial requirements and financial evidence associated with Thai Retirement Visas. The reason I thought of making this video, I recently received some correspondence from somebody who was talking to us and they were basically talking about the pension requirement in the context of a Thai Retirement Visa, specifically he was an American.

As we have discussed in videos going back into '17, '18, '19, the US Embassy here in Thailand will no longer issue what were called Income Affidavits. It used to be a time to prove up financial requirements you would go down the Embassy, get an Income Affidavit issued and use that; they would notarize it, get it legalized, you could use that at the Thai Immigration Office to prove up retirement status. Just to quote directly from this person's message, quoting: "My premise is to "convince" Immigration to accept the information from "my Social Security" website along with the appropriate Thailand Bank statement showing the deposits for acceptance of the extension or even initial application for a Non O Visa." Yeah, Thai Immigration doesn't get “convinced” like that. That isn't it all how they do it. I do understand people's consternation here, okay and I know a lot of people out there are pretty frustrated by the way the Income Affidavit kind of went away, it has now totally gone. Proving up documentation associated with pension is pretty tough; it really is kind of a catch 22 scenario. The girls here in our office that deal with retirement extensions and conversions etc., when you can do a conversion, not always a foregone conclusion, but the folks in our office that have to deal with them, yeah it's a convoluted, nuanced process. It often times requires some back and forth between Thai Immigration and folks in our office for us to explain the situation to get things sorted out. 

Again, they are looking for certified documentation. In the past, the Income Affidavit was considered certified. Something from a website, I just don't see it and this this may also rankle especially folks in the Anglosphere, United States, UK, Australia, Canada; there are jurisdictions that are still issuing Income Affidavit letters, they are issuing them and they are attesting to the veracity of the statement. In the past all the Embassy, I can speak directly with regard to the US Embassy here in Bangkok, all they were ever doing was notarizing somebody's signature, that was it. They weren't attesting to the veracity of the information. I would say you are probably hard pressed to find the US Government willing to attest to the veracity of financial data information especially in the context of the Thai Government. I suspect because the Thai Government might take the position of "hey if somebody gets sick here or something and you have attested to the veracity of their ability to pay for themselves and their illness and they can't pay, then hey we are coming to you, US Government." I mean that is just one speculation on my part as to why this policy has moved the way it has, but it remains to be seen. 

So yeah, the thing to take away from this video unfortunately, yeah you are not going to "convince" or "finesse" financial documentation issues with Thai Immigration, at least it is not been my experience that that's going to happen.