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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Marriage Visas. I have had some correspondence here lately on this topic. Some people have been kind of frustrated with my responses on this and I understand.

Thai O Marriage Visas can be, depending on the circumstances, one of those things that kind of falls into the gap, it falls into the breach and can be kind of a difficult thing to deal with. Let me explain what I am talking about. l will have a lot of folks that will be in Retirement status and they will ask me about moving over to Marriage Visa status because they see for example to have a Retirement Visa let's just look at it from the lump sum standpoint, you have got to have 800,000 Baht in a Thai bank account in order to maintain status and that gets looked at on a yearly basis by those adjudicating the Retirement Visa. Some folks look at it say "hey it is only 400,000 for a Marriage Visa. I want to switch over to that." My response in virtually all cases and there are circumstances that vary and depend, but my response first of all in a lot of cases is, "look if you have the resources to keep the 800 and you are already in retirement status, just stay there." Because often times it is a lot of expense of time and resources to get a conversion done and on top of it, it has been my experience the Thai Immigration scrutinizes Thai O Marriage Visas far more heavily than they do Retirement Visas especially for those who are essentially using a Marriage Visa effectively as a Retiree. 

Let me differentiate this analysis from those who use a Marriage Visa and have a Work Permit. It has been my experience that Marriage Visas with a Work Permit, I won't say easier but they are relatively more straightforward or to deal with because the Work Permit in essence fulfills all the financial requirements and in a very real sense it makes sense to the Immigration Officer and so they just go ahead and deal with it without a lot of further scrutiny. They go ahead and move it down the line. Again retirees, it is the same deal. Okay you are in a Retirement Visa; you are not working, that makes sense. The problem is in the breach. It is the folks that are on a Marriage Visa but aren't working and in those circumstances, and I have seen this happen. I remember a few years ago I saw two different people in two different provinces be actively denied their Marriage Visa extension and the officer that did it just said "look no we are not doing it." In fact in one case they said "we think you are working illegally because we can't figure out how you are living here and what you are doing." In other cases there is very heavy scrutiny of the family. They will send Immigration Officers to the house; they want to see everybody is living together; they may even want to take photos; they may have you show up multiple times at the Immigration Office with photos to prove up that you are together and everything. So long story short, and I am not saying this is in every case, but in a lot of the cases I deal with, if there is an option to have a Work Permit or an option to have a Retirement Visa, often times that is a much, I hesitate to say easier, but it is a less cumbersome thing to deal with than to be in a Marriage Visa. For whatever reason, and I actually think, I kind of have some insight into this where I just think the Immigration Office kind of says "well if you are retirement age just be in a Retirement Visa." or "if you are working age, work." They kind of view the Marriage Visa as, "What are you doing here? Yeah we know you are married to a Thai but if you are under the retirement age, you could be working." I think maybe they kind of think you should be working. I am not going to delve too deep into what I think their thought process is. 

The long story short, yeah unfortunately Marriage Visas especially with the scrutiny and the family and things, they can be difficult to deal with. For this reason, if you have other options sometimes it might be better than trying to deal with a Marriage Visa on its own.