Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Long Stay Visas here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent, actually email sent to us from a viewer. Quoting directly: "Hi there, this video has been doing the rounds on social media, and I think confusing a lot of people; would love to hear you guys dig into it and give us a definitive answer. It says "Long Stay Visa" but isn't that just referring to the LTR Visa! It also goes on to say you can even be eligible if you only rent a house here for a minimum term of one year. LOL, surely that's not as simple as that. Anyway here's the video." 

Okay, I checked that out and look I'm not going to sit here and say I have a definitive answer in terms of exactly what type of fact pattern can be fitted together in order to end up with the outcome of one of these "Long Stay Visas" and how that pertains to property. Here's what I can say. The Long Stay so-called Visa, that was actually created, they actually called that it was the STV Visa, if you go back into COVID, and if I recall that correctly, that was like, it fell under this new Long Stay category that they created under COVID, so it was sort of a COVID creation. 

The notion of a "Long Stay Visa" was sort of a COVID creation and it was created at the time when we were under the Emergency Decree, and we basically were under this like totally different body of Immigration Law. So my first question is whether or not any of this analysis is even valid after we got rid of the Thailand Pass and we saw the Emergency Decree end in 2022 thereby reverting Thai Immigration Law back to the Immigration Act of '79 and all the standard stuff we were used to dealing with prior to March of 2020 when the Emergency Decree was executed. And then it was rescinded in roughly, I think it was about April or May of '22 when that was finally gone and then we had the system that brought us through '22 into '23. Again, the Long Stay Visa was sort of born, or the thing that they were calling at that time the Long Stay Visa, which apparently, they are now applying that term to this notion of having a Visa that is associated with property ownership or some sort of property in Thailand. They are talking about minimum rentals or something; the whole minimum rental thing sounds spurious to me. Again there are a million ways to skin a cat in Thailand so I'm not going to definitively say one way or another whether that's impossible, but what the whole thing reminds me of is the old regime if you will regarding O Visa issuance associated with condo ownership. I've actually got videos on this channel. Now they go back a ways, probably a minimum of six, maybe eight years ago, where we were talking about the O Visa associated with condo ownership. That was phased out and if you take nothing else away from this video, one of the big ones would be, do not buy property in Thailand in my opinion, based solely on visa considerations.

We saw this same kind of scenario play out when the Elite Visa was reintroduced when they sort of repackaged the Elite Visa if you will and brought it back out and they basically said, "oh if you buy this condo, you get a 20-year Elite Visa". I think I did either a video, or that might have been when I was still doing written blogs, where basically I brought up the fact, yeah, no, all they are doing is throwing in payment for Elite Visa membership fee - I think back then it was like the 1 million Baht for the 20 years - you just got a free one of those if you bought a condo in certain complexes. They basically just rolled the cost into the cost of the condo effectively. It wasn't that there was an inherent legal connection between the two things, it was that they were buying your way into the Elite Visa program at that time as part of the package of buying one of their condos. That was how they did it; I remember when they did that. 

O Visas used to be able to be issued purely on the basis of owning a condo in Thailand as well, until it wasn't. It was effectively phased out and I made the videos at the time when that happened. So the thing to take away from this video is one, at different points in time and it tends to come up toward the end of a high season, it seems like that's when these things kind of percolate up, where they come up with these sort of Visa gimmicks if you will, that are attached to property purchase. It's kind of a new twist that they're now sort of claiming it can happen based on property rental; that's kind of a new one. But again, this isn't unheard of. We've seen these kind of visa gimmicks in the past associated with property ownership. Again nothing inherently, I would not look at this like a legal connection between property ownership and definitive Visa issuance. No it's a gimmick insofar as you buy this kind of property and we will help you get this Visa; that's basically how I see this. 

The other thing to understand is the notion of a Long Stay Visa is different from the LTR, the Long Term "Resident" Visa. Again, as I have discussed in other videos, I don't mean to be a broken record, but it's not a Resident Visa, it's a long if you will sort of Tourist Visa to be able to live in Thailand, that's what it is. Lawful Permanent Residence in Thailand is a different thing from the LTR and there was this thing created during COVID called the Long Stay Visa. They kind of moth balled it for a while. It seems like that term has kind of come back to the foreground but understand and distinguish that from an LTR; there is a difference there.

That being said I would not look at this as anything different from the times where we saw Elite Visa gimmicks associated with purchase of property in the past, here in the Kingdom of Thailand.