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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawRetirement Visas in Thailand: What Financial Evidence is Accepted?

Retirement Visas in Thailand: What Financial Evidence is Accepted?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Retirement Visa and we are discussing some anecdotes that recently came to my attention from various people that have contacted me regarding Retirement Visas over here.  

A recent email regarding a recent application for a Retirement Visa extension reads thusly: "Just before heading to the US, I renewed my Visa at my hometown Immigration Office.  Even though I had the Embassy letter, they wanted to see my bank book showing my last year's transfers to Thailand. I didn't have the bank book with me so I went and had a local branch print out what I had transferred to Thailand during the past year.  They would only print out the last 6 months but during that 6-month period, I had transferred over 600,000 Baht to Thailand so they let me slide.  I was told that next year I needed to show 800,000 in the bank for 3 months prior to applying for the Visa or change my Visa to a Marriage Visa with 400,000 baht in the bank for 3 months prior to applying for the Visa."  

So that was an interesting set of information there.  Some of that would seem to comport with the rules that we have been reading in the various sources across the internet. For example, they are showing leniency throughout 2019 while folks are transitioning into this new regime with respect to financial evidence. Meanwhile, something I thought was interesting there is that that particular Immigration Office which was outside of Bangkok went ahead and said "No, you need to show 800,000 baht in the bank account for 90 days prior to the application of the Retirement Visa and that is very different than what we have read which is 60 days prior." I think 60 days prior is the hard and fast rule and I think if it is sort of brought to bear with respect to those rules, I think you can fall back on. That being said, this particular office said 90 days. Now they may just be reading the rules wrong; I don't know, but that was rather interesting. Also it should be noted this individual is married to a Thai and so for that reason has the option of either maintaining retiree status or switching over to a Thai O Visa based on marriage and then seeking a Visa based on 400,000 baht in the account. Again I thought it was quite interesting. This individual also had a validly issued Income Affidavit that was issued back in 2018 and as I have stated on another video on this channel, there has been some question as to how long they are going to keep maintaining that particular piece of evidence.  It appears now, at least anecdotally, that they are not going to keep accepting that, so it's a good idea to just go ahead and not assume that that is going to happen.  

With that being said I thought it was interesting.  That is why I went ahead and made this video.  As we get more information as further things come in with respect to Retirement Visas, we will certainly update this channel.