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Types of Thai Visa: The O Visa

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai O Visa

I am making this video along with a series of others and for those who watch this channel rather frequently, this stuff may be old hat for you but I have gotten a lot of commentary in recent weeks and frankly I haven't had time to do these videos because there have been a lot of major developments. Things are kind of slowing down on this front so I had a chance to go ahead and make these more fundamental videos providing clarification on the basics of Thai Immigration. 

In this video specifically we are discussing the Thai O Visa. For those who are unaware, many people in Thailand will remain in Thailand in O status oftentimes and most frequently for marriage to a Thai National and oftentimes also for retirement here in Thailand.

The thing that should be understood about the O Visa some more than anything is that in many ways it is definitely a "catch-all" category. "O" for lack of a better term stands for "other" and it shows in the Thai Immigration Act because it is basically the "catch-all" category when you get to the section in the Immigration Act regarding Visa categories. You have specific mention of Business, Tourism, Education; these types of things, you don't have any mention of the specific things like Retirement, Marriage, Family based, things like that that oftentimes fall under the O category

So the thing to understand about this is this can be good and bad because it is driven entirely from a regulatory standpoint. It is not as rigidly codified in law so Immigration Officers have a little bit more discretion when dealing with these things. That can be good or bad depending on if you have a really stringent officer adjudicating a case as opposed to someone who is a little more lax.  

That being stated, oftentimes obviously, across the board, the regulations with respect to the O category are uniform albeit there is some difference, there some nuance with respect to application but the O Visa generally you will see used when no other category is really appropriate. The most often times we see it used is in relationship to a Thai Retirement Visa or a Thai Marriage Visa.