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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Golden Visas throughout ASEAN. These Golden Visas, this seems to be a major trend. I mean Malaysia my second home that's been on the go for I don't know probably before I even got out to South East Asia; I want to say that it has been going like 20 odd years. But for the most part, all these different countries they really haven't had these kind of long-term high-end visas and now you are seeing them sort of turn on the tap if you will with respect to these. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Pattaya's retirees unlikely to apply for a Golden Visa. Quoting directly: "In seeking to promote Thailand to the super rich and/or highly paid professionals, authorities have to compete with other Asian countries. Singapore has introduced its Overseas Networks and Expertise Pass which offers a five year visa to top earners. Indonesia is offering remote-workers (digital nomads) a straightforward no-tax deal, whilst Malaysia's long established Second Home program is easier to digest than Bangkok's BOI bureaucracy." Quoting further: "Cambodia is offering 10-year visas, property perks and even the possibility of citizenship to investors, although the details are admittedly still cloudy." Yeah, good point on that. This is me talking. Just as cloudy as in many ways the LTR has proven to be to some extent. Quoting further: "Thailand's LTR Visas are the first serious attempt in many years to encourage high-value foreigners to base here. But there are still too many questions and not enough answers." Well I wouldn't say that is necessarily true. They tried a 10-year Retirement Visa, they also tried the Smart Visa. Quite honestly, I am skeptical of how attractive these are over the long term. I think when people start to really look at them, because I think folks who feel like they fall into the category for LTR think “oh I just kind of press some buttons and boom out comes a 10-year Visa”. Well no it's still adjudicated as I have discussed with folks on the phone and things. We are just seeing the beginning of this. We don't exactly know what it looks like but at the end of the day there is still an adjudication; that is still an immigration presence; there is still a Ministry of Foreign Affairs presence. It is not just a matter of sort of again pushing the right buttons if you will or ticking the right boxes and your Visa just pops out.

As we have also noted, it doesn't look like it is actually just a pure ten year visa as there are all kinds of things associated with checking in with Revenue Department, and it is kind of a five and five, in the sense especially for Digital Nomad visas, you get the first five years and have to meet all the criteria and then they kind of re-adjudicate at the 5-year Mark to give you another 5 years, so it is not just this continuous thing. So again, that said it kind of remains to be seen. We are going to try to keep people updated on this thing as it evolves.