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Thai Visas for Dependent Spouses of Expat Retirees

Transcript of the above video:

A topic that has come up a lot recently, I have gotten a lot of emails on this topic; it is the topic of Dependent Spouses of Retirement Visa holders. 

We have talked about this in a couple of videos in the past. We have specifically talked about retirees who retire jointly with respect to things like their proof of assets, proof of income, proof of insurance etc., and we are talking about foreign retirees who are both over the age of 50 and who are looking to retire in Thailand. 

That is kind of a different thing than what we are talking about here. This is a dependent spouse of a Retirement Visa holder in Thailand. This has always been kind of a, I hesitate to call it an ad hoc category, but it is not all that frequent but when it does happen, it is something of an anomaly. The Thai Immigration system does have a mechanism for dealing with dependent spouses of retirees. There is an O Dependent Spouse Visa for a Retirement O-A or O Retirement Visa holder that can be obtained. There is various financial documentation and proof associated with that but yes technically if you are married to a retiree, an expat retiree in Thailand, you can get a Dependent Spouse Visa that is a derivative visa if you will on that Retirement Visa. 

The question that has arisen here recently, especially with respect to all the travel restrictions associated with Thailand, is "What about my dependent spouse? I may be able to get for example an O-A visa to come to Thailand but the Embassy is telling me my spouse cannot come". This is proving to be something of a nettlesome issue and under certain circumstances, we have found that we have been able to assist folks and liaise and facilitate in getting dependent spouses into Thailand. Under other circumstances though it hasn't been possible so it is varying a little bit. We are hoping as the situation evolves they are going to be more positive outcomes in the future. 

The thing to understand is as of now, they are taking a very stringent or I should say strict scrutiny when they look at the list of categories of Visa holders that will be allowed a Certificate of Entry and subsequent admission to Thailand and unfortunately O Dependent Visa holders are not strictly speaking on this list. I have made videos on this at length. We have talked about the O-X Visa; we have talked about the O-A Visa; we have talked about the O for those married to Thai citizens or with Thai children but an O Dependent of a foreign retiree that is not strictly speaking currently covered by the categories.

Now again there is Consular jurisdiction with respect to making discretionary decisions on Visa issuance but for now we have found less luck than more luck when processing these through. That stated, there may be alternatives to the Dependent Spouse Visa that may be available for a dependent spouse of a retiree that folks may not be looking at. For that reason, it might not be a bad idea to contact a legal professional and gain some insight and guidance into how best to bring one's spouse with them to retire in the Kingdom of Thailand.