Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not the LTR Visa and the Elite Visa are outside of most would be or current expats' budget. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Does Thailand really want humble expats anymore? Quoting directly: "How many expats are outside of these initiatives as they cannot afford the fee? For example the Long Term Residence” (visa I think they meant) “requires retiree foreigners to have an income of US$80,000 a year, or even heavier financial investment, and the five year Elite registration is now US$25,000. As a result, most expats, retirees and/or married to Thais for the most part, live here on annually renewable extensions of stay based on an original Non-immigrant visa." 

Yeah, those are the standard Thai Visas if you will. Those are the ones that we are well aware of that stem from the Immigration Act of 1979. In the last roughly three or four years, we have seen various organizations basically creating visas out of whole cloth, to limited usage and in my mind to limited purpose. As we have discussed in other videos, especially with the fees associated with the Elite Visa being hyped up rather significantly at the I think it was in quarter 3 of 2023 that began, and then coupling that with the rather high financial threshold associated with the LTR Visa, we are looking at a situation where yeah for a number of expats or would be expats here in Thailand, the costs are going to be rather substantial and they may be outside of the reach of most people's budgets. 

So again, the thing to bear in mind with regard to this is just because this is the case, does not mean there are no options. I have advised a number of people in a number of scenarios in the past few months that honestly, the good old standard one-year renewable visas really are better than some of these new visas, again depending on your circumstances, and again budget can be part of the analysis. It can be one of the components, one of the factors if you will, that plays into the analysis when you are trying to understand what type of Visa is the best fit for you when coming to live and/or possibly work here in the Kingdom Thailand.