Transcript of the above video: 

I have been getting a lot of inquiries or discussing with a lot of folks lately, Retirement Visa options. There are various options depending on your circumstances. It's not just the O and O-A Retirement Visa, but for those over 50 who meet the criteria as we have discussed in other videos, either 800,000 Baht in a Thai bank account or be able to show a pension of 65,000 Baht per month or more on an ongoing basis, then one can get what is called a standard O or O-A Retirement Visa. 

There are other options. One could retire here on what is called an LTR Visa, they could retire here on an Elite Visa. In my opinion though, the standard O Retirement Visa - not to be confused with the O-A - is still the most reasonably priced, most hassle-free visa for retirees in Thailand; I think it's important to get that out at the outset. Standard O Retirement Visa in my opinion remains the best thing to get into, especially for the long term, especially as I think if there were to be major changes applied to that category, the folks that are already in it would be grandfathered in effectively, and I have discussed that in other videos.

That said, in kind of reviewing, what is the major difference between the O-A and the O Retirement Visa. Two major differences: one, the O-A is generally issued abroad whereas the O Retirement Visa, what we are talking about is the standard O, you may be able to get something abroad in the O category, but we are talking about extensions in O status here in Thailand on an ongoing basis. Neither the O nor the O extension require insurance. O-A visas do. You do have to have insurance as we have discussed in other videos. But the O is not so easy to apply for abroad compared to the O-A. That's the big difference: the insurance difference and the ease of getting the O abroad.  

I've discussed this in many other videos. Folks that get overwhelmed by all of this, especially those looking into retiring to Thailand for the first time, it is probably not a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed with getting either an O or an O-A Retirement Visa and which one is better under your circumstances and whether or not it's even possible to get into the O Retirement Visa will again depend on the underlying facts in a given case.