Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retirees in Thailand and the sort of news swirling around the expat space right now of all these changes to some of the visa rules. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: The 60 days Visa Exempt and Destination Thailand Visa empower Immigration Officers. Quoting directly: "Expats with one year extensions of stay based on marriage or retirement or the Elite Visa are virtually ignored in the latest set of changes. It will probably be many months before the Visa Exempt and DTV," (that's Destination Thailand Visa) "ambiguities begin to clear up, so expats are probably safer to stick with what they have." 

Yeah, look long story short, I know there has been a lot of hyperbolic talk about these new Destination Thailand Visas and they are the end all be all, and also this new exemption rule and everything; we are all going to sing Kumbaya in the Immigration space because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said so. Well at the end of the day, it's kind of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' job to be the "good cop" if you will with regard to Immigration. Meanwhile the Immigration Bureau, which is under the Ministry of Interior kind of operate as the "bad cop". So when you see stuff from Ministry of Foreign Affairs talking about these visas and things in a very rosy way, they are sort of putting the best possible light on it as they can and I get why. Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a mandate to sort of “sell” Thailand, sell “Brand Thailand” if you will and these Visa schemes may help. But long story short, practically, you're going to have to deal with Immigration, not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, once you are dealing with Immigration matters inside of Thailand. So that's something to think about. 

Meanwhile though, the point of this video is for now, things like the Marriage Visa, things like the Retirement Visa that the vast majority of retirees here in Thailand are utilizing to maintain their retirement here, nothing has fundamentally changed with respect to that and it does not look like any of these reforms if you will coming from Thai Immigration pertain to retirees either. So the thing to take away from this video for retirees is breathe easy; nothing to worry about for the moment. I'll keep you updated on this channel as that situation evolves.