Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the so-called LTR Visa - that acronym stands for Long-Term Residence Visa. As we have discussed in many other videos on this channel for a couple of years roughly now, ever since this was being bandied about and discussed and then it was promulgated in 2022, the LTR Visa stands for long-term residence. It isn't really a Residence Visa, it isn't Permanent Residence, that's a different thing in Thailand. I don't want to sound like a broken record but I'll keep going. As far as long-term it is often called a 10-year Visa although in reality it's really two increments of five and even then depending on the category, there's an adjudicatory process associated with that. So again not quite what it at first appears. 

The reason for the video though is as noted in the title, it does appear that yeah this isn't really quite having the adoption rate that some folks thought it might have. I am quoting from a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's 10 year Visa needs a bail out. I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article in detail. A lot of good information in there, I think it is worth a read. I am going to quote a small excerpt but there is a lot of good insight in there. Quoting directly: "Less than 3,000 Expats have shown any interest in Thailand's Golden Visa," (yeah this LTR is sometimes called a Golden Visa too) quoting further: "and there are no figures on how many of those have dropped out. Data from 10-year schemes in Malaysia and Cambodia suggest many potential applicants fail to complete. There are problems to overcome."

So it remains to be seen. They get into it further in this article and again I urge those who are watching this to read it for yourself but they get into it a little deeper where they do some comparative analysis to the Smart Visa which we have discussed on this channel as well that really a lot of this from an employment standpoint was covered by the Smart Visa and we are seeing that used to one degree or another. There wasn't huge adoption of that either. I suspect this LTR will end up very much like the Smart Visa insofar as it may be highly useful and it may provide substantial benefits to a rather narrow subset of potential expats here in Thailand but in terms of sort of the broad expat community, I don't see where it is going to be a visa, much like the Smart Visa, that is going to be something that just every third expat you meet or something is going to have that kind of Visa. I just don't see that being the case moving forward.