Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the O Visa category as well as Thai Retirement Visas specifically, and one may be the other. A Retirement Visa generally speaking, is always an O category Visa in the traditional Visa categories. Meanwhile an O Visa may not be a Retirement Visa. What are we talking about here? 

Well I thought of making this video, we actually got an email with a question. This is kind of one of those questions that I often forget, I have done over 5,000 of these videos, so to me it's like I talked about this X number of years ago or months ago, whatever, we did a video on it and I forget not everybody has seen all of our videos and I totally understand that because frankly I think you would have to be some sort of masochist to sit through 5,000 videos about all of the topics that we discuss on this channel. That said, in the email, quoting directly: "I am a follower of your channel in YouTube. I would like to know what is the difference between a Non-O Visa and a Retirement Visa?" Good question. These terms are sort of thrown about and sometimes they are used interchangeably and sometimes they are not because they are not always the same thing. What are we talking about here? A Retirement Visa, the traditional Retirement Visas, I am not talking about some of the new things that have been created recently but let's just stick with the standard Retirement Visas, so either an O-A Retirement Visa or an O Retirement Visa, both fall under the O category. The O category was sort of a miscellaneous catch-all category, I almost call it sort of a residuary category associated with retiring in Thailand, visas associated with retiring in Thailand, but the category itself is broader. The O Visa could be for somebody married to a Thai National, it could be for somebody who has Thai family including but not limited to a Thai child, a child of Thai nationality. The O Visa is very much, the category is very much a miscellaneous category but within that category, they created a regulatory structure that provided for retirees so that can either fall under an O-A Retirement Visa; traditionally, those are going to be issued at Embassies or Consulates abroad and then you are going to come into Thailand and if you want to extend your status while in Thailand that can be done under the O-A category but the main category is O. It is O-A. Meanwhile, the standard O Retirement Visa just sort of is what it is. It is the Retirement Visa under the O category. 

Now there are different types of O Visas as previously noted. O Visas for marriage, O Visas for children who are Thai; there are even kind of more miscellaneous categories. We have seen them issued over the years for no particular reason. They just said "okay we don't have another category to throw you under but we want to give you a non-immigrant Visa, here is an O." We saw a lot of O Visas issued back when condo ownership was a determining factor, a much more compelling factor to Thai Immigration and we would see O Visa extensions issued with regularity associated with Thai condo ownership. That practice discontinued some years ago; we did videos at the time explaining how that had changed. 

But long story short, yeah, I can see how people get confused because a Retirement Visa falls under the O category but it is one of the many iterations of an O Visa that could be obtained here in the Kingdom of Thailand.