Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing O-A to O Retirement Visa conversion. Let's start off with a notion so folks understand. There are O-A Retirement Visas in Thailand classified under the designation O-A, and there are O Retirement Visas in Thailand. There are two different types of Retirement Visa and they have different rules associated with them. O-A retirees need things like insurance and some other requirements. O retirees do not need all of the insurance that O-A Visa holders need in order to not only obtain an O-A Retirement Visa but also to maintain an O-A Retirement Visa.

That then begs the question on the lips of many would be expats or expats already here in Thailand, "Is it possible to convert from an O-A to an O?" First of all, I want to go ahead and quote a really good article that has been written on this topic from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Long Stay Retirees in Thailand to be Allowed to Self-insure, and a small excerpt from this I thought was very useful. Quoting directly: "It is not easy to change the initial O-A Visa to the less onerous O once granted by the Thai Embassy abroad. The procedure requires the pensioner to leave the country and enter again with say a 60-day Tourist Visa which can then be converted to 3 months O at Thai Immigration plus 12 months extension then you are in the clear for now anyway." I want to be clear this article is really insightful. I urge folks to go check out the Pattaya Mail website, a lot of insight in this article but I have to kind of beg to differ on a few key things here that may seem a little bit semantic but I don't really think so. 

One, I never use the word "easy" with Thai Immigration and people will ask me "well how easy is it to do this?" Well "easy" is never a word that in my opinion should very much be in the same sentence with anything pertaining to Thai Immigration, Thai Immigration Laws or Thai Immigration regulation. "Straightforward" and "possible" are words I like to use and while I definitely agree this writer is very insightful with respect to this, we do deal with a lot with respect to Immigration including Retirement Visas on a daily basis and when it said “the procedure requires the pensioner to leave” that may not be the case. We have seen this a lot during the last 21, 22 months since the promulgation of the Emergency Decree here in the Kingdom. The fact of the matter has been there has been a lot more conversion, various types of discretion exercised that oftentimes we didn't see before. Even under normal times so to speak Thai Immigration Officers do reserve discretion under certain circumstances to allow for things like conversions or extenuating circumstances to allow for extension of stay in situations that wouldn't "normally" be allowed. So what I would say is maybe it is not terrible to presume that to change and let's be clear the prevailing paradigm prior to March 2020 regarding Non-immigrant Visas was if you want to change from one category to another in Non-Immigrant status, the presumption was you needed to leave the Kingdom and come back in in order to do that. Now that stated, that is not always the prevailing presumption and right now for example, that is not necessarily the case because there are circumstances at play which may preclude that kind of activity; leaving and coming back in, the so-called Border Run or Visa run. 

So, the thing to take away from that video is while it may not necessarily be a good idea to just assume it is "easy" to change from an O-A to an O it may be depending on your circumstances possible. For that reason it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.