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Where Do Things Stand with Thai Retirement Visas?

Transcript of the above video:

I have had a lot of correspondence about Retirement Visas lately. People just basically kind of asked me to make this video, I have actually talked to some people in person who asked for this.

There has been so much information out there about the Long Stay Retirement Visa, the so-called LTR Visas or Long-Term Residence Visas which as discussed many, many times does not actually confer residence in Thailand, it confers sort of a Long-Term Non-Immigrant status. The other thing to keep in mind with respect to Retirement Visas is yeah, there have been changes with respect to the O-A, that is O-A insurance requirements associated with the O-A Retirement Visa. Again, it does not impact the O Retirement Visa so the O Retirement Visa just kind of is what it has always been. It's just still sitting there as a category sort of untouched. Yes, we have seen new retirement categories come online which could grant status for as long as 10 years although again a bit of a misnomer there because it looks like at best it is kind of a 5 times two kind of deal because you sort of get the first 5 years, then they review you after that interval and then you get the second five years so depending on your situation you may or may not want to deal with that. But the O-A Retirement Visa, the big news in that vein is the fact that the O-A Retirement Visa now requires a higher level of insurance associated with it than it did in the past; so 3 million Baht of coverage as opposed to I think it was what, 400,000 Baht inpatient, 40,000 Baht outpatient coverage. With the O-A Retirement Visa, that has now gone up to 3 million in coverage so one either has to have insurance coverage to prove that amount of coverage to get an O-A Retirement Visa or they need to have 3 million Baht in a Thai bank account which can be used especially with respect to extension. 3 million in an overseas bank account may work for the first application but again, circumstances are going to vary on that and that is going to dictate the analysis there, so hard to say there. 

But yeah, with respect to the O-A, big news on that. The insurance requirement has gone up. These new Retirement Visas remain rather opaque, we are still trying to suss out exactly where that stands. Again, the O Retirement Visa remains as it was.