Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai O Retirement Visas. The O Retirement Visa is a different thing from the O-A Retirement Visa. There is a lot of information spinning around out there including from this channel about possible changes to financial requirements, insurance requirements associated with the O-A.  The O Retirement Visa is kind of a placid island almost in the eye of the storm if you will insofar as these visas do not seem to be seeing their documentation and evidentiary requirements changing as a result of policy changes here in the Immigration apparatus. 

What is the point to this? Well the point is O Retirement Visas, O Retirees who just want to stay in Thailand appear to be unaffected by recent policy changes which sort of leads to the question posed in this video: “Are we going to see more people seeking O Retirement Visas”? I have noticed in correspondence that has come up since we have been making videos on possible changes to financial requirements, other folks noticed something I also noticed and didn't really have time to make a video on up till now is that certain Embassies most notably the Thai Consulate in LA, are posting information specific to O Retirement Visas and in some cases 90-day O Retirement Visas. Now the circumstances under which those are issued is still a little bit unclear. Most situations we saw in the past year where we saw an O Retirement Visa issued abroad, it was often times in the case where somebody got stuck abroad, had an O Retirement Visa with a reentry permit and they just couldn't return to Thailand due to COVID restrictions. Now could that in the end result in possible 90-day O Retirement Visas being issued abroad and then that person can travel in and extend in that status? Possibly, it appears so, but it remains to be seen and as with everything the devil is in the details and the practicalities are probably going to vary from case to case and the circumstances in a given case. 

Long story short and the thing to take away from this video, yeah I do think the O Retirement Visa is going to be in much wider usage moving forward. Now is it people that are converting into that status remains to be seen but as far as abroad, it seems like it is a possibility moving forward to get an O Retirement Visa as opposed to an O-A but again it is going to be situationally dependent.