Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the monthly income requirement associated with Thai Retirement Visas. We are talking about this because I have gotten a lot of correspondence, I have made other videos contemporaneously with this one where we discuss this in even more detail but we are specifically discussing this topic in the context of income requirements associated with the Thai Retirement Visa. I am making this primarily, I came upon this information some time back and I held off on talking about it because I wanted to kind of wrap my head around what was going on so I could discuss it cogently and get a full bird's-eye view of where we are at practically right now. The purpose of this channel, I am not trying to instill fear or concern in people unnecessarily. I just want to get the information out but I got this from three or four different independent folks that that contacted me, sent correspondence, followers of the channel etc. were concerned about this overall situation. 

This all came about due to information posted to the Royal Thai Consulate website in Los Angeles and that web address is thaiconsulatela.org and we are going to go ahead and put this on screen. This is Non-immigration category O-A, Royal Thai Consulate General, Los Angeles. If you go down under number 4 under Required Documents and then subsection 2 under part 4 you will see:

- an income certificate (an original copy) with a monthly income of not less than 65,000 Baht. 

Now as we have seen, as you know, as my followers on this channel, folks who have watched this channel that is nothing new. We have seen that before that and I am going to call this page the “old page” for purposes specifically of this video. I am not saying anything is changing. I want to be even clearer. We have not seen any change to the regulatory or policy structure regarding Thai Retirement Visas. Now I would put a caveat on that. Based on the information I have seen through this website we haven't seen it yet. I am not saying it is coming. In fact I don't know that it is coming. I don't know why this information is being posted but it is notable. So okay this is the “old page” if you want this and we all know 65,000 Baht; that is the monthly income required.

Now multiple folks have sent me this link. This again is a thaiconsulatela.org/en/non-o/ and the title is: Non-O, Royal Thai Consulate General, Los Angeles as opposed to the other page: Non-immigration category O-A Royal Thai Consulate General, Los Angeles. So, as you can see we are putting this all on screen so you can see exactly what we have been seeing from this website. Again, thaiconsulatela.org. and as you can see: Non-Thai nationals who wish to obtain a Retirement Visa or a long stay Visa, so O, O-A, O-X, reentry permits and then when we get back here under Non-Immigrant Visa Category "O-A" (long stay) specifically the requirements associated therewith and you go to number 7 here, you will see:

7. Applicant must have a bank deposit of and they say no less than 1.2 million Baht, I made another video on that already, but under Section 7.2 - an income certificate (an original copy) with a monthly income (pension) of not less than 100,000 Baht. As you can see it is right there. Now I want to go ahead and be clear here. I have been trying to suss this out as best I can before making this video. So we tried looking into the site; I was trying to get an eye on what was going on internally within the website by looking around. I went ahead and went to Google, we are going to go throw this up on screen. This is the cache version of this page that shows, more than anything I just want to verify it was on their website; we weren't being redirected somewhere or something. I don't know how that would happen but I just wanted to be clear. 

So again, thaiconsulatela.org/en/non-o/ and this is what we are seeing: income certificate (an original copy) with a monthly income pension of not less than 100,000 Baht, as opposed to current rules which dictate 65,000 Baht. A couple of things here, I have talked with the Thai Attorneys here in our office that deal with Thai Retirement Visas daily. They have not seen any practical changes including through the Thai Mission to the United States, the Consulates associated with Thai Embassy in the US, they have not seen any fundamental changes with respect to these requirements so let's be clear it does not as of the time of this video look like as a practical matter these requirements are being enforced this way. We have not seen anything to indicate in the regulatory or policy structure that things are going to change. Now that stated, this is a website of the Royal Thai Consulate in the United States specifically LA. It is not something that I would dismiss just out of hand so what does this mean? I will be candid with you; I do not precisely know. It simply looks to me like I kind of think these might be perhaps proposed changes that have not been implemented, that have just been bandied about; not bandied about but have been discussed and maybe this has been drawn up and it was perhaps not intended to go public I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know why this exists. Like I said, we tried to go as deep as we can and figure out, yeah we have ascertained it is on the website so it is something to look at. Again practically we are not seeing any changes with respect to this. We are definitely not seeing anything with respect to the Thai Immigration apparatus here in the Kingdom. 

Now I have some thoughts about what I think this might imply longer term. In short, I think we could see changes in the future and this may be a good sneak peek if you will whether intentional or otherwise as to what might be happening in the months and years ahead but I can't say for certain what that is. I am definitely making another video at the same time as this one where I am going to go into a little bit more of what I have been in some for a, I have been accused of speculation on things, maybe too much speculation, I don't intentionally want to do that. What I am hoping is my analysis provides some insight to folks.

Long story short, for purposes of this video, as of the time of this video we have not seen practical fundamental changes to the pension and income requirements associated with any Retirement Visa sought anywhere either in Thailand or abroad. Now that being said, the information that I have just put up here suggests that that may not always be the case or suggests that there may be discussions out there about changing these requirements but as of now they have not changed so we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.