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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Retirement Visa and whether or not it is a "bureaucratic maze". Now the reason I pose this question or it started thinking about it is because I was reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com. There is a lot in this article by the way, I urge you to go read it. I am just going to quote a little excerpt here. The title of the article is: Retirement no mere snooze. Quoting directly: "Even after completing the bureaucratic maze that is needed to acquire a Retirement Visa, retirees have to maintain their status by regularly reporting to officials. That means keeping up with changing rules and regulations."

Well yeah that is certainly the case we assist a lot of retirees in Thailand and in a lot of ways we really streamline the process of keeping up with regulatory structure. We also like to think that we streamline the process of dealing with Retirement Visas in general. As to the notion of whether or not it is a bureaucratic maze, I myself have described it as Byzantine at times. For those who have never dealt with it, it can be really overwhelming and very frustrating and trying. I mean my viewpoint, I mean I am almost sort of blandly cynical about it in the sense that we have dealt with it for so long and assisted folks with Thai Immigration matters for so long that we are just used to it and anytime something happens, it is almost a gallows kind of humour I have about it. But overall, if you are really used to dealing with it, it is not going to bug you very much. It is sort of like if you are an American you probably understand, folks that deal with like US taxes, to the outsider I mean it just makes you want to pull your hair out but somebody who deals with it all the time, they just are kind of I hesitate to say laid back, but they are kind of nonchalant about it and I sometimes might seem that way about Thai Retirement Visas.

That said, yeah if you are someone who has never dealt with the process before, it can be a bureaucratic maze especially right now with all these different protocols some of which change almost on a week by week basis, yeah dealing with Retirement Visa status either from abroad or inside of Thailand can be something of a trying experience.