Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Marriage Visas and the financial requirements associated therewith. Specifically the kind of thrust of this video is going to be the income requirement. I got a comment on a video recently. It said: "How do you prove your 40,000 Baht monthly income to Immigration? Just curious." 

First of all, for those who are unaware, on a Marriage Visa, a Thai O Marriage Visa, there are two ways to deal with the financial requirement. One is a lump sum of 400,000 Baht in a Thai bank account, another is 40,000 Baht a month in proven income. This can actually lead to some very precarious circumstances with Thai O Marriage Visas. Some years back we actually saw circumstances where Thai O Marriage Visas were being refused renewal because people were using the income, they were trying to meet the income requirement but they never left Thailand so there would be income into their bank account, they were married and these were generally people under the retirement age, under the 50-year mark. Basically, the reasoning behind this was for Thai Immigration it seemed to be, that look okay retirees, they are on a pension, they can meet 40,000 a month; we'll give them the Marriage Visa extension every year but we are kind of looking at it through the paradigm of a retiree. For younger folks we found, I saw two cases like this, 5 years, 6 years ago. They happened within a couple of months of each other, O Marriage Visas which were denied extension based on an inability to show where they got the income from. Basically, Immigration said "look we think you are working in Thailand illegally, we are not going to give you a further extension," and ultimately we got the situation resolved but in one case it required Work Permit issuance; in cases involving income, Thai Work Permits are one of the most straightforward ways of dealing with that overall issue. But if you are residing in Thailand and you are basically not leaving, and you are under what is deemed to be the retirement age of 50 here in Thailand and you are using income, that can be a really sticky wicket. I have seen immigration officers over the years say, "Yeah, we are just not going to allow that to be renewed."

So, again it depends on circumstances. I am not saying this is an end all be all video about all sort of permutations that can come up with respect to O Marriage Visas, but it is definitely something to keep in mind especially with respect to the income requirement associated with Thai O Marriage Visa renewal.