Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Retirement Visas issued at Embassies and Consulates outside of the Kingdom of Thailand. I have had some people that have gotten kind of confused on this topic because there is a lot going on here.

For those who are unaware, and I have done a number of videos on this, there is O Retirement Visa extensions, sometimes called O Retirement Visas and then there are O-A Retirement Visas. Thai Embassies abroad issue O - A Visas; those are Retirement Visas. Now they can be extended within Thailand but they can only be originated abroad. Now depending on what you read, you will hear some people say O Retirement Visas are also issued abroad. I prefer to look at it as O Visas are issue abroad and then that Visa can be extended in O status based on Retirement once one is in Thailand. The facts of one's situation will drive whether or not how that occurs but something I see out there a lot is "Oh, Embassies also issue O Retirement Visas." Well not all the time. In fact it has been my experience that most of the Consulates we deal with only want to issue an O-A Visa in the context of retirement, they don't want to grant an O Visa because they want to deal with the more extensive criteria associated with an O-A Retirement Visa. 

The thing to take away from this video, you can always get an O-A Retirement Visa abroad. You cannot get one issued in Thailand although you can extend one in Thailand. You may be able to get just a standard O Visa abroad although I hesitate to call it a Retirement Visa but you can always extend an O Visa as a retiree in Thailand within the country at Thai Immigration.

I know that is about as clear as the most opaque mud you can find out there, but yeah, there is this sort of differentiation between O and O-A and different places are going to process those cases in different ways.