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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Retirement Visas here in Thailand, specifically banking requirements associated with Retirement Visas. I thought of making this video after reading a recent email from a viewer and tip of the hat to you sir; I will leave you nameless but thank you. Quoting directly: "Just thought I would highlight this. I completed my Non-O-Immigrant Visa" - so I think he means Non-immigrant O Visa, so that's a Retirement Visa Extension presumptively - quoting again: "I completed my non-O-Immigrant Visa extension this morning at Korat Immigration. On completion, the Officer explained that next year they will require proof of one year's Bank transaction and monies as opposed to the three months currently." Okay, one thing I would say, that's a good salient data point, and that's the reason I'm making the video. I think at this point this channel is very useful to my mind, insofar as it provides salient data points sort of as we go along regard to Immigration generally.

Now with that in mind, take some of this with a grain of salt, strictly for the reason a year is a lot of time in Immigration time. What I mean to say is if you go back six months ago here in Thailand, we were in a totally different paradigm when it came to things like conversion into Retirement Visa or extension of Retirement Visa, whereas now it's a totally different animal. So understand, these things can change, a lot can change in the year, so when a warning like this is given a year out, again I'm not saying it's wrong, but just kind of have it in the back of your mind that a lot can happen in a year when it comes to Immigration Policy. 

Now that being said, again everything seems to be tightening up more and more with regard to Visas generally, but the Retirement Visa category specifically seems to be the target of let's just say Government activity with regard to policy and we are starting to see this play out in different ways. Also understand, different provinces do things differently. They have administrative discretion to sort of make their own local rules to a certain extent, so understand that what may be going on up in Nakorn Ratchasima - aka Korat - it may not be the same thing that's happening at Hua Hin Immigration or the same thing that's happening to Phuket Immigration or down in Koh Phangan or down here in Bangkok or in Pattaya; things are different in different provinces.

That being said, as we are seeing this sort of tighten up more and more, I think it's safe to say at least with this specific issue of using money transfers, proof of one year Bank transaction, I think that's what this person is talking about that they are using what we would call the 65,000 baht a month minimum inbound funds to a bank account to prove up requisite finances in order to support a Retirement Visa, it looks like possibly next year we may see a policy coming online where they say, look, we want to see proof of a year that you've been bringing that money in in order to further extend a Retirement Visa here in the Kingdom of Thailand.