Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing mixing of income and bank balance for purposes of Thai Retirement Visas. The Thai Retirement Visa is a very popular Visa category here in Thailand and I get a lot of folks that contact us about various issues surrounding the financial requirements associated with the Retirement Visa. I got a recent email from a viewer and it says, quote: "In your YouTube video, says that it is not possible to use half of income and half of bank deposit." Then this person quoted from the Royal Thai Consulate-General Los Angeles' website which we will go ahead and pull that up and put it on screen for you so you can see, but quoting directly: "Bank Statement or evidence of adequate Finance showing. - a deposit of the amount equal to and not less than 800,000 Baht;" (okay so that's the 800,000 Baht bank balance requirement), "or an income certificate (an original copy) with a monthly income of not less than 65,000 Baht;" (okay so that's the income. We have talked about that before: pension and things like that. Now bear in mind, we are talking about Embassy here, talking about the Royal Thai Consulate. That operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; they have a different set of criteria sometimes. It's not too far off but there is sometimes little administrative differences between the way they do things at Embassies and Consulates, versus the way things work here at Immigration domestically here in Thailand.) So again, I'll read that again. “An income certificate (an original copy) with a monthly income of not less than 65,000 Baht or," (so it's either or, so then they go down to 'or' and I can see where this might confuse someone), "a deposit account plus a monthly income totalling not less than 800,000 Baht,” (plus a monthly income totalling not less than 800,000 Baht). One, I see where people get the sort of “mixing” here, this does not work domestically at Thai Immigration, I'm here to tell you. We've tried this, it doesn't. 

Now again Thai Authorities at Embassies and Consulates have different prerogatives with regard to what they look at okay. A couple of things though, and what is key, “not less than 800,000 Baht” so monthly income totalling not less than 800,000 Baht. Now a deposit account plus a monthly income, I don't know what that means okay, and again overseas, Embassies they are not operating under Ministry of Interior which is what we are dealing with Immigration here in Thailand. Overseas, they have a little bit more discretion. That said, I did the math and if you sort of divide 800,000 by 12 it still comes out to 66,666 Baht and then it's .6666 into infinity till you get to a seven back there somewhere. So at the end of the day, it's basically the same thing that you are looking at. And then in case of “submitting a bank statement or letter of guarantee from the bank, an original copy is required”, yeah. Then he says “it's a mixed match between this site and he cites Royal Thai Consulate-General Los Angeles. Sorry my English but can I please look into this." (I think can you please look into this, is what this person meant).

Again what happens Consulates and Embassies abroad is what happens at Consulates and Embassies abroad. We've discussed this at length in many other videos where look, they have broader discretion and they don't have to set the same regulations that Thai Immigration here domestically does. In point of fact and in my experience, I have never once seen Thai Immigration except any kind of “mix” on the financials they want to either see 800,000 Baht in a bank account or 65,000+ Baht in income. Now this particular Consulate may take a broader approach and may kind of exercise their discretion but at the end of the day if you annualize 800,000 Baht or you put it into monthly increments, it's still going to have to come out to over 65,000. So I look at it as 6 of one, half a dozen the other; it is all basically the same thing. The other thing is you never really want to put yourself in the position where you are relying on the discretion of an adjudicating officer. You want to be clearly within the parameters of one or the other requirement in my experience because otherwise you are just muddying up the waters and quite honestly kind of making a problem for yourself in trying to ultimately get the visa issued.