Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called long-term Retirement Visas. These have been in the news a lot lately and I am kind of bringing up, we have only talked about this in a couple of videos, the so called O-X Retirement Visa. 

I got to thinking about this in a recent article from The Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Retiring to Thailand just got more confusing. I urge folks who are watching this video to go check out that article. There is lot of insight in there. They go ahead and first of all they note these recently proposed and let's be clear, we don't know exactly what these look like yet. This hasn't really been set in stone but the way it is firming up, quoting directly: "10-year Visa (actually 5 X 2) and the privilege of avoiding queues at Immigration for the 90-days report," (we have done a video on that, I am not certain that 90-day reporting is going to be exempted under these new visas. I don't know how legally that is going to be the case without amending the actual Immigration Act of '79). Quoting further: "Applicants must show an annual income of at least US$40,000 plus US $250,000 in Government Bonds or yet to be defined real estate purchases." So that is kind of what you are looking at with regard to the criteria on this newly proposed 10-year Visa. Let's compare that to the old O-X and I will just explain now.

The O-X Visa was designed 7 years ago, 6-7 years ago and it basically is a 10-year Retirement Visa, basically what it was designed to be; it didn't really get off the ground. Let me quote directly again from the same article: "A 10-year Retiree Visa in fact dates back to 2016 when the O-X Visa was introduced. This required an ongoing investment of 3 million baht (US$100,000) and was designed to accommodate Expat families as well as individuals. A few applications appear to have been made as the bureaucracy was cumbersome, (yeah, when we even inquired about it, it was like an uphill battle) Quoting further: "A police clearance Certificate in the Home country, ongoing hospitalization insurance and regular bank account checks were examples." Yeah, the big issue we saw with that was there was like these requirements that funds had to stay in a bank account untouched for a prolonged period of time. Quoting further: "While it was unclear who exactly were the target groups, it still exists on paper." Yes, the O-X Retirement Visa is still out there on paper but as a practical matter it has not been in wide use.

Now these new 10-Year Visas I don't exactly know how the rubber is going to hit the road with these but I have said it before and I will say it again, I don't think it is going to be a really broadly utilized travel document for Thailand and the sort of legacy, I don't even like calling it that, the 'bread and butter' retirees in Thailand, I just don't think they are going to use either one of these; either the O-X or the Long Term Retirement Visa here in Thailand.