Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we're asking the question, is it impossible to convert into a Thai Retirement Visa? The first thing I would say, I have hanging on my wall here in the studio, we have the Thai version of the movie poster for one of the "007" movies which there's some internal discussion if you will among James Bond nerds as to whether Never Say Never Again is actually a James Bond movie or whether it's 007; there's all kinds of copyright stuff, whatever. I look at it as a James Bond movie, but yeah, we are talking about the phrase "never say never". That's something to say when you are talking about anything having to do with Immigration generally and Thai Immigration specifically.

So there's been a lot of talk about "oh it's just absolutely impossible to convert to a Retirement Visa once you're in-country". So what we are talking about is somebody coming in on a Visa Exemption or Tourist Visa and then converting their status once in-country. Yes, it is a great deal more difficult but people that are talking about this from the perspective that it's completely impossible, really take anything that somebody like that says, if they're saying that, take anything else they are saying with regard to Thai Immigration with a big grain of salt. And why am I saying that? Because there's always, I shouldn't say always, but there's oftentimes, in cases where we have, and we have done this in the past few months, gotten a conversion done in-country. It involved fact patterns with extenuating circumstances where basically it was a situation that the Immigration Officer exercised their discretion to go ahead and issue the Visa, because for example in one case, there were health issues involved, in another case the person was just elderly, and frankly having to travel out and do a Border Run and all kinds of things was just not feasible, and frankly, immigration is not unreasonable. If there are extenuating circumstances, if there are genuine reasons why they should exercise their discretion in an applicant's favour, if those reasons are compelling, they will do it oftentimes. 

So the point I am trying to make with this video is, yes, as a rule of thumb it’s not something that one should presume, i.e. converting to status in-country, it's not something one should presume under current operating parameters, or I should say under current sort of protocols at immigration. That said, it's not out of hand impossible, again depending on the underlying facts in a given case. And for this reason, those who feel like they may have a situation which may require a conversion, and it may be warranted in their circumstances, it may not be a bad idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.