Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas. We are specifically discussing Thai Retirement Visas in the context of Income Affidavits. So for Americans, British and I think Australians, this will be extremely old news to you but we have done videos on this previously. We are going back I think it was 2017 going into '18 and '19, the Income Affidavit which could be obtained from one's Embassy for example if one was an American and wished to obtain a Thai Retirement Visa, it was possible to go to the US Embassy, basically write out one's own Affidavit which stipulated one’s own financial situation, have that notarized by the Embassy and then use that document at Thai Immigration to go ahead and receive an extension or conversion to Thai Retirement Visa status. That fell by the wayside some years back. They stopped issuing Income Affidavits; I did videos at the time on that topic. Long story short, basically the situation was the US Embassy was not attesting to the veracity of the underlying facts in these documents, they were simply notarizing the signature of these documents and then folks were going and using them in Thai Immigration. When it is my understanding Thai Authorities were conversing with in this case American Authorities but other folks, other Embassies here in Thailand and it is my understanding Thai Officials sort of asked Officials within for example the American Embassy as well as the British, Australian whatever, and said "hey are you attesting to the veracity of these documents?" In the case of the Americans they said no we are just notarizing the signature, so that practice was effectively phased out, okay? So point being of this video, one thing to make very clear, that is still the case with respect to Americans much of the Anglo-sphere cannot obtain an Income Affidavit for use in Retirement Visa Extension processing, as a practical matter this is just a dead letter. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on our channel, quoting directly: "You forgot Letter of Income proof from Embassy, that works just fine for us from Sweden, no need for proof of account." Good point. As we stated at the time we talked about the sort of phase out of the proof of income, there were countries that kept allowing it because some countries have like a state pension scheme, other countries can prove or are willing to prove or attest to the veracity of the underlying information in their citizenry's financial documentation pertaining to Retirement Visas in Thailand and so they are willing to issue that Income Affidavit. I believe according to this poster, Sweden is one example. I believe Germany may be another example, maybe some of the other Scandinavian countries. I have to be honest with you, our focus on this channel is primarily on the Anglo-sphere, clearly because I am a native English speaker and I am originally from the United States which is sort of an Anglo-speaking country primarily, but yeah the long story short is nothing has changed with respect to the countries that got rid of the Income Affidavit or stopped being able to obtain the lncome Affidavit. There are some countries that did retain this as an option so if you are from a country that you don't know exactly whether or not you can use an Income Affidavit you might want to check. You may want to check with your own Embassy or Consulate, ascertain whether or not that is a possibility for use in the application for either a conversion to or extension of Retirement Visa status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.