Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question, "Are Thailand's Retirement Visa Financial requirements too onerous?" I thought of making this video after reading recent comments on our channel. Quoting directly: "The bank deposit of 800,000 Baht is too much. A married couple only has to have 400,000 Baht. This requirement needs to be lowered but it won't happen. Retiring to Thailand is not an attractive option." Well I have got to tell you, as far as Retirement Visa schemes go worldwide, Thailand’s is about as good as I have seen in terms of financials. I did another video contemporaneously with this one where we discussed the fact that Indonesia is now retooling their Retirement Visa program and the new requirement, at least according to the South China Morning Post, appears to be 128,000 dollars equivalent, US dollar equivalent, held in Indonesia. Well that is five times more than the 800,000 Baht, roughly the equivalent of about $23-25,000. That is probably less than a fifth of what they are requiring for folks to retire in Indonesia. So I mean all the Golden Visa programs have higher financial requirements that I have seen or they have some sort of requirement that you buy a major property, Thailand doesn't have any of that. Now again I am not an all-day, every day sort of apologist for everything about the Thai Immigration apparatus. No, by no stretch the imagination do I operate from that paradigm. I am critical of Immigration when I think it is warranted. For the most part though, I mean they do tend to do a pretty good job. 

On the Retirement Visa front though, man I am sorry I just don't see where this is too onerous, comparatively. Now I do understand yes, $23,000 is real money; 800,000 Baht is not chump change, there is no doubt about that, I'm not saying that but compared to other countries that I have seen, I have not seen a Retirement Visa scheme that is as straightforward, I won't say easy, it's never a good idea to say easy in the context of anything Immigration related, but I don't see one that's more straightforward and quite honestly has more reasonable requirements in terms of financial requirements. I don't know any that are nearly quite honestly provide the benefits that a Retirement Visa in Thailand provides while having quite honestly this low of an amount, this low a threshold regarding financial requirements. I just haven't seen a program out there that beats it and where you are living. There may be one in some country that people don't really want to go to, but Thailand is a place people do really want to go to and there is a Retirement Visa here that is very reasonably priced and much more so than in my opinion, any of its so-called competitors.