Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Thai Immigration is pressing the "self-destruct button" with respect to specifically retirees but just sort of in general I guess.

Quoting directly from a recent comment posted to our channel, quote: "The way to stop retired people living here is the way they are doing things now. They seem to be pressing the "self-destruct button". I hope they change their thinking on this as it is a wonderful country to live in." So interesting. The person who made that comment actually left a lot of other information in that comment but basically talking about the way certain requirements run. 

Yeah look since 2019 especially, especially specifically August 2019 but we can go back further back into 2018 and 17, I really think the water shed moment with Retirement Visas specifically although I think you can probably look at it as an inflection point as well for Immigration policy here in Thailand was back in 2017 when it was announced that the Income Affidavit was coming to an end. For those who are unaware we did a number videos at the time. These are affidavits for folks who are retired in Thailand where they could go down to for example the UK or US Embassy and just basically get an affidavit that they had made out notarized, confirming their own income or their own assets. This was accepted by Thai Immigration as sufficient evidence for maintaining retirement status. Well that fell by the wayside and apparently there were some who did not actually have the financial resources to maintain retirement status. Thereafter you did see a drop off of folks in retirement status. Then cut to roughly a year after, well we went through sort of the "Big Joke" era where there was a real paradigm shift with respect to Immigration enforcement activities here in Thailand and then it all, in my opinion, culminated with October 2019 where we saw the insurance requirements being brought online for certain Retirement Visas. That was again a real just across the board tightening if you will of all the rules associated with Retirement Visas. Also we have seen tightening of rules with respect to basically all Non-Immigrant visas. I would say it is not as "easy" to get a long-term, especially Non-Immigrant Visa category here in Thailand at present or it is not as easy as it once was. 

Now that said, it is not impossible. There is a straightforward way of dealing with it but it is definitely not as relaxed as it used to be. Is it the "self-destruct button"? I don't think that is necessarily fair. I understand the hyperbole. I understand the sentiment but I think at the end of the day, look Thailand had a relaxed system. Arguably it had a system that may have let in folks that from a policy level they didn't want staying in Thailand long term. They tightened up some rules and we have the system we have at the moment as a result of those policy changes.