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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas and a recent comment on our channel that I thought was interesting and I thought could be enlightening for some viewers.

Quoting directly: "I know that older retirees just need to follow a formula including opening a bank account and putting money in for a certain period of time etc." Yes, this is kind of a misconception out there and this is a misconception in Immigration generally. I deal with US Immigration, Thai Immigration, that there is just a formula to this stuff. To one degree or another yes, there is to some extent guidelines if you will but everybody's case is different. I am not going to say that everything is like a snowflake where it is just completely unique but there are different fact patterns associated with different cases. What may work in one individual's case, may not work in another individual's case. And, since the requirement for insurance, there can be some really different models for getting a Thai Retirement Visa because there are real differences between the O - A Visa compared to the O Retirement Visa for those who are wishing to be retired in Thailand. The requirements required regarding Insurance alone are very different. Then on top of that, depending on the office which you use, there may be requirements with respect to the specifics on how they want the bank balance to be etc., and there is the difference between using a bank balance and using evidence of income; for example pension income. Then on top of that, those who decide to renew their Retirement Visas when they return to presumably their home country on a regular basis, there is an entirely different set of criteria associated with dealing with Retirement Visa reissuance at Thai Embassies and Consulates abroad.

So the notion that there is just one set formula, a one size fits all for Retirement Visas is not exactly true. Now there are a lot of similarities between cases, but again the facts of a given case are going to dictate the exact details of how a case will process and some of the requirements associated therewith.