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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThailand O Visas: A Deeper Look at the Residual Category

Thailand O Visas: A Deeper Look at the Residual Category

Transcript of the above video:

This video today, as the title suggests, we are discussing O Visas.  

I have discussed O Visas a lot on this channel and I wanted to dig a little deeper into this topic because I find that the O visa is often used, for lack of a better term, incorrectly;  where the term is somewhat used somewhat incorrectly depending on the context.

What am I talking about here? Well oftentimes expats here in the Kingdom use the term Thai O Visa to describe a Thai Marriage Visa.  In fact most of the time you hear people talking about an O Visa they are talking about a Marriage Visa or sometimes they are talking about a Visa for the parent of a Thai child. Yes, that is one use of the Thai O Visa but the thing to keep in mind with respect to the Thai O Visa is that it is a miscellaneous category. For example, a Thai O Visa can be used for the child of a Permanent Resident, it can be used for the parent of a Permanent Resident under certain circumstances although those circumstances are somewhat discretionary in how they will be issued. They can be used for the non-Thai child of a Thai National. Oftentimes these are basically undocumented Thais that have not gotten their documentation squared away and in the interim they utilize an O Visa in order to maintain status in the Kingdom. 

Meanwhile there are other uses for the O Visa.  One subcategory of the O Visa is the OA Retirement Visa; when people are discussing it they use the term Retirement Visa rather than OA Visa but that is its actual technical name.  Meanwhile there are also dependent visas for things like education.  So somebody who is taking classes in Thailand can go ahead and get their spouse or their dependents an O Visa based on the dependency, for example an EB Visa; a Business Visa, the dependent of a B Visa holder who has a work permit can go ahead and get an O Visa as a spouse or dependent child.  On top of that there are certain circumstances where retirement Visa holders can get an O visa for a dependent spouse oftentimes where that dependent spouse is under the age of 50; again those are oftentimes issued in more discretionary context.  

But the reason I wanted to make this video is to provide some nuance with respect to what the O Visa exactly is.  It truly is a miscellaneous category and for that reason there's an extra level of discretion associated with being able to go ahead and obtain an O Visa.