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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility of online extension of Retirement Visas. 

For those who are unaware of major news in Thai Immigration last week or so has been the announcement that Thai Immigration will allow on a pilot program for now up here in Bangkok, will start allowing folks to do their extension, their visa extension online. A question posed has been among many: "Can retirees do this? I thought about making a video on this anyway but then I saw a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, that kind of cemented in my mind the notion of making this video and also had some really good insight. I urge those who are watching this video, read that article for yourself but I'm going to quote an excerpt here from the article: Thai Immigration updates: November 2022, under the subheading: Why are annual retirement extensions of stay excluded from the electronic scheme for renewals recently announced? Quoting further: "For the moment, the electronic Visa extension for expats and visitors already in Thailand is on pilot in Bangkok." Yeah that's the first thing to understand. It's only happening in Bangkok for now. Quoting further: "Those requiring extensions of stay of Tourist Visas and Visa Exempt categories, annual extensions based on marriage or family, student visas and certain work-related groups can submit documents and payment online and collect their new permission from Chaengwattana Immigration Headquarters." Well hold on a minute. We have talked to Chaengwattana already. Anything that is not Tourist right now, we've been told it's not going to be either easy or doable or at least as with everything, it's one of those where they come back to you and say "well we're working on it, we're upgrading the system." But it's our understanding for now from a practical standpoint, if you are looking to do this stuff online you are only going to be able to do Tourist or Visa Exempt related stuff with respect to the extensions online.

Now as we have discussed in other videos there are certain Business Visa categories as well as the BOI which have already been doing stuff online for a while now, that doesn't really apply here. As far as the family and Student Visas yeah I think the jury is still out on that. We haven't, at least here in Bangkok the folks we have talked to, our contacts in Immigration have not said “yeah that's a go" yet. But the response is "hold on, we are working on it", basically. Quoting further: "The exclusion of Retirement categories reflects the different rules operated by Immigration Officers nationwide and the specific documentation required." Yeah that's well put and that is always going to be out there. I have got to be honest, I'll always be cautiously optimistic when something like this comes along but on the one hand I am kind of concerned, well I am curious to see if a uniform online system is going to be feasible here in Thailand, again reflecting exactly that notion that look different offices do things if only slightly sometimes, but do things differently and that's just a fact of it. Quoting further: "Examples include exact insurance requirements for O-A renewals, precise proof that income or cash in the bank has been submitted from abroad, and documents to prove the address where the applicant is living in Thailand." Yeah again from office to office that's going to vary a lot.

What I would tell people for now with respect to the notion of online extensions, this is going to take a while. We're not going to see this practically in place I think probably through the end of this year and I would bet that it's going to take a good chunk of next year before you see a lot of efficiency associated with the online processing. I'll be the first one to correct myself if that turns out to not be the case but just having watched them roll out things of this nature in the past, I suspect it's not going to be an overnight process where we just go from dealing with the hard copy paper filings to these online extensions. I don't think that's going to be an overnight thing.