wml22

I'll try this as well, thanks, when I go to the bank branch. It seems that I will have to go there since the online portal set-up isn't working.

I live in Bangkok.

Thanks, this was a good suggestion. I get an error message: "Sorry, your profile information is not complete. Please contact a Bangkok Bank branch for Bualuang iBanking registration. For further assistance, please call Bualuang Phone at 1333 or +66 (0) 2645 5555. (-197)" I am going to try calling them to see if the process can be completed after calling. But I expect they'll tell me I have to go in to a bank branch because whoever set up my account didn't do it fully or properly to enable this process.

@Kenny202 To clarify, are you saying that you found a Bangkok Bank branch that let you have mobile and online banking without a work permit? Would you mind sharing which branch it was?

I should clarify something, Bangkok Bank said that I can't use mobile or online banking unless I have a work permit. I don't have a work permit because I'm going to be here on a marriage visa and don't work for a Thai company. Is there anything in Thailand similar to Venmo or Paypal that will just allow me to connect my Thai bank account to an app which can send other people direct money transfers? Maybe Grab Wallet but that doesn't allow foreigners, so anything else?

I have to go to the ATM and pull out cash every time I need to pay a Thai person for anything. PITA because Bangkok Bank apparently won't allow foreigners to use online or mobile banking, and even at the ATM machine, I am unable to process direct account transfers. Is there a solution or workaround? As a foreigner I'm also not able to use Grab Wallet. I use TransferWise/Wise to bring money into Thailand but unfortunately, it cannot be used as far as I can tell to make domestic transfers within Thailand (from my Thai bank account to another Thai bank account). For those of you with Bangkok Bank, how do you transfer money domestically to another person here without having to pull out physical cash and hand over the physical cash?

Can anyone confirm this? Has the non-o based on marriage been now saddled with an insurance requirement?

Hi ubonjoe, since this topic of stay based on marriage is being discussed, I was hoping you'd know some answers: I currently have a visa-exempt entry which was extended via Covid extension until January 15th. I am marrying my fiancee and already got the affadavit of freedom to marry from the U.S. consulate, as well as the required balance in a Thai bank. She wants to register the marriage in Chonburi (so her family there can serve as witness). (1) I assume that it makes no difference where we register the marriage, and we still will be able to get the initial 90 day non-o visa from the Chaeng Wattana immigration building in Bangkok, regardless of the marriage being registered in Chonburi. Furthermore, (2) I am assuming that the fact that my current entry is valid until almost three months from now won't prevent us from getting the non-o any time we want (i.e. they won't tell us that we have to wait until within 15 days or 30 days of January 15th), and (3) I am assuming that if I hypothetically got the 90 day non-o based on marriage earlier than necessary on November 1st, my new expiration for stay in Thailand would not be January 30th, but instead would be April 15th (i.e. the 90 day extension would start after the current expiry date of January 15th, not the date of applying on November 1st). Do you know if all three of my assumptions are correct?

Very helpful, thanks for clarifying all of this. In this case I'd definitely try to get citizenship after three years of marriage. I guess it's possible, by asking a tax lawyer, to definitively clarify if stock trading income under a Thai tax ID is taxed into the social security system here - if so maybe it can qualify but it's probably not. Regarding the PR and/or citizenship requirements based on marriage, I'd thought that the time being married had to be longer (5 years) if the marriage was childless. Maybe this is not the case or is an older regulation that was phased out. Regarding the employment requirement, I read before that I could register and capitalize a business for 1 million baht and with the requirement of only two Thai employees (my wife and one relative of hers) in order to give myself a work permit in the family business jointly owned with my wife. But she's a graphic designer and I have digital marketing background -- I could certainly perform real work with her to manage a small design firm and liaison with foreign clients as the customer facing communicator with fluent English *provided that Thai labor law doesn't prohibit me from this vocation* (that's not clear to me, actually, since I've only heard of foreigners officially working in education, food service, and tourism). But what I've read seemed to suggest that the panel of judges for my application and interview might not look on this as a real enough business, if despite generating subsistence income and 40,000 salary for me, the company nonetheless seems to have been formed for the sake of the application process (otherwise perhaps she'd just work as a sole proprietorship and I'd help her communicate and market internationally on an unpaid basis). Furthermore, it seems that the PR and/or citizenship application rules RE business capitalization and personal income requirements may be different for self employment than regular employment with a company, and so if I'm a co-owner of the family business that provided 1 million baht capitalization, I'd additionally be subject to the citizenship eligibility criteria that apply for self-employment. Do you have any thoughts about this or do you think I should try to contact Larkin (is he a legal counselor for citizenship applications or just a blogger?)?

Really excellent, informative response. Thank you for replying to my questions. In my case, I believe the U.S. government does not allow dual Thai citizenship without theoretically making me liable to lose my U.S. citizenship. So that's not worth considering for me. But I do want permanent residence. I read the guide on PR in that website you linked. The main part that deters me is the requirement of earning 30,000 baht per month while married to a Thai through "employment." It raises an interesting question that I think you won't know the answer to, but maybe an immigration lawyer here does, or maybe someone knows of the right lawyer to ask: I earn more than 30,000 baht per month from investments in the U.S. stock market. I had previously researched the possibility of using TD Ameritrade in Thailand because I like their ThinkOrSwim platform, and had learned that the U.S. TD Ameritrade company has Thailand on their "restricted countries list" (very annoying as no other SEA country seems to be on the list, e.g. Vietnam and Cambodia are allowed but not Thailand, and I assume it must be due to AML related concerns with the coup government). One solution to using ThinkOrSwim in Thailand would have been using a VPN connection routed through a U.S. residence. Another solution, however, is that TD Ameritrade Singapore allows anyone who is a Thai resident with a Thai tax ID to open a trading account. I've been told that I don't need a work permit to get a Thai tax ID. So if it was possible as a path to eligibility for PR, this would be absolutely ideal for me: 1) Get a Thai tax ID and open a TD Ameritrade Singapore account. 2) Earn over 30,000 baht per month from investment income in the TD Ameritrade Singapore account -- income on which I'm paying taxes to the Thai government. 3) After two years, apply for Permanent Residence. In principle, why wouldn't this work? Well, I can imagine two reasons: (A) maybe some stupid, archaic legalism prevents the taxed investment income from counting as employment income which is the type of income required under Thai law for PR applications, or (B) maybe living in Thailand with a non-O visa and annual extensions based on marriage, but no work permit, would make stock trading or investing income on the TD Ameritrade Singapore platform count as illegally earned income (since I wouldn't have a work permit for stock trading or stock investing). Of course this would be insanely stupid, since obviously my trading activity on TD Ameritrade Singapore would actually be bringing money into Thailand and would in no way whatsoever be taking employment opportunities or employment income away from local Thais. But I know that although this should be an ideal solution for having PR eligibility after two years while married here, things in Thailand don't have to make any sense. Maybe I'd be slapped with fines for working without a work permit and they'd just seize the pretext of fines for stealing all the investment income, either later after I applied for the PR or at some point when reporting the income to them, even if earlier I'd been told it was a legitimate method of meeting the income requirement and not illegal (i.e. if I'd been told that no work permit was required for stock market activity that participates in the foreign U.S. exchanges, which are the exchanges available on TD Ameritrade Singapore's platform). Does anyone have thoughts about this as a potential solution, in terms of likely risk or likely success?

Thanks for your input. Would you mind PMing me the LINE contact of the agent you used in Bangkok? I'd use an agent as well if I had a lead on a trustworthy one.

This is a great point. Very well put. Sounds right to me.

I'm already vaccinated with the j&j vaccine but I had a bad reaction to it and don't want to be forced to get booster shots down the line. If there arose some situation where vaccination was required but not boosters, for tourism category visas such as the elite visa, but boosters were required for non-o visas, then I'd be glad if I had the elite visa. But I realize it's pretty far out speculation to imagine that scenario.

I just got done at Muang Thong immigration branch in Bangkok (first went to Chaeng Wattana which was a waste of time because the extension services were moved "temporarily" and there was no way to know in advance of going to the wrong office). I saw that this same building is where the 90 day reporting is done in Bangkok. What a huge pain to go there if it's required every time. So for Bangkok residents I assume they were there despite what a pain it is to get there because the online reporting website isn't working? And I assume there's no more convenient location near the city center? If that's the case then the 90 day report assistance from the Elite staff is worth a lot more for people living in Bangkok than in other places because (a) these jerks put the offices so far out from the city center, and because (b) the online reporting is often or usually broken. Can anyone confirm points (a) and (b)? Regarding the health insurance requirement, that's only for retirement visa right? So it wouldn't be a relevant point of comparison for choosing between elite and marriage visa, unless the risk of the insurance requirement being added to the marriage visa is higher than the risk of it being added to the elite visa.

I'm worried about the same situation. I have Crohn's disease and don't want to be forced to get annual booster shots if the politicians don't want to stop milking a cash cow of Chinese bribes in exchange for annual Sinovac boosters or something similar forced onto the population. My fiancee thinks if this happens though it wouldn't be too hard to bribe a nurse to fake the administration of the shot (i.e. one could explain the special circumstances and offer a bribe, such that you're paying for the shot and showing up to the appointment, but the nurse throws it away instead of administering it and then gives the certificate to you as if she'd administered it). It scares me to think that if I tried that and got caught, I might get thrown into a Thai jail or kicked out though. In another thread, someone told me that they believe it's possible to get a medical exemption from a doctor even if there's a general vaccine mandate, but I don't know if that's likely to end up being true. As an aside, my Crohn's was fistulizing and nearly killed me in early 2020. So I am not a mild case by any means. I switched from IV infusion treatments to using LDN (low-dose naltrexone) though and LDN has been working very well for me. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, there are no compounding pharmacies that offer LDN in the entire country. So I'm going to be facing a large amount of hassle and/or risk trying to import it from India when my current 1-year supply bottle runs out. If you know of a way to get LDN here then please let me know. If you're at some point needing to try a new treatment, on the other hand, and have opportunity to try LDN, I would recommend giving it a shot if you haven't tried it before.

I was reluctant to consider the 40k baht per month route with the annual marriage extension because I wasn't sure what qualifies as "income" for this purpose. If I can demonstrate that I have simply transferred 40,000 baht from my U.S. bank account to my Thai bank account once per calendar month, over 12 consecutive months, I guess that counts as "income"? Because if the source of funds must be employment and I don't have a work permit, but earned the 40,000 baht from a remote job for example, then would they possibly perceive the monthly income meeting the extension requirement as evidence that I'm breaking the law by working inside Thailand without a work permit? If the 40,000 baht can be sourced from anything and isn't transferred under the assumption that it's employment income then it seems like I can just transfer mostly the same baht back and forth, theoretically, and that doesn't make sense. For example: transfer 40,000 baht into Thai bank account from my U.S. account, then transfer back 30,000 baht to the U.S. account. Next month, transfer 40,000 baht into the Thai bank account again, but 30,000 of that is the same money I recycled. Doing this would enable one to effectively maintain the "income" requirement while making much less salary from a remote job or drawing from much less savings than 40,000x12 per year. So I assumed the definition of "income" could create risks from using this method if they think the source of funds is remote employment and I don't have a work permit. That's why it seemed safer to just use the 400,000 baht deposit route. Does this make sense?

My main issue with Chinese influence over Thailand is that stronger Chinese influence means weaker chances of democratic reform here IMO, and we see how the current economic and human rights situations have been deteriorating since the last coup (which started to have negative effects even before Covid IMO).

I see on the Thailand Elite website that the 5 year visa for 600,000 baht touts the included privilege of the right to upgrade to the 20 year membership for an additional 400,000 baht. So given that, it doesn't make sense to me that anyone would go for the 20 year off the bat unless they're worried that the price of the visa may change or the availability window will close. In my opinion, the Thailand Elite visas may suffer reduced demand if these new SMART visas, including a digital nomad visa with no investment requirement (only a monthly income requirement) actually materialize. In such a case maybe the Elite visas will become discounted again as I believe they were once during the pandemic (I think for a brief time it was possible to get the 20 year version for 500,000 instead of 1 million). I might be able to get a remote job that would qualify me for the nomad visa if it actually materializes but I'm not holding my breath as it seems like these new visa types are covers for attracting criminal money from Russia and China. Only for criminally earned or laundered money would investment in Thailand be safer / more attractive than non-investment IMO. The inability to obtain permanent residence, at least with realistic odds, is probably the worst thing about Thailand for foreigners and I expect that to remain the case as long as the government is trying to use visa schemes as methods of extortion to buffer against the growing losses in the economy.

That's kind of hilarious that you find it easier to do yourself. So it's more of a selling point for the marketing angle than a real benefit maybe.

Cool, thanks for sharing your knowledge about the process. For the 90 day reports being done by a staff office in Bangkok, instead of having to do them yourself, do you still have to communicate with the staff office every 90 days to confirm that your residence hasn't changed? (And I assume that legally, you're still supposed to also get TM30 forms filed for "registration of alien resident" every time you stay overnight anywhere, although pragmatically this seems unenforceable?) Or is the arrangement with the staff office more hands-off, like you don't have to communicate with them or be involved in the 90 day reporting process at all unless you're notifying them that you've changed residences (e.g. you're now on vacation in Phuket, or you're now out of the country, or you sold your condo and moved to a new condo - otherwise, you never have to communicate with them and the reporting process just happens automatically from your perspective)?

I think that honestly, I hate going to immigration so much and don't want to be hassled with the 90 day reports, that I'm trying to find a way to justify splurging on the Elite Visa, even though it may be more reckless than a marriage visa due to the risk of the government changing the terms or reneging on the guarantees.

I've lived in Thailand twice before, in the early 2010s and also about three years ago, so I know pretty well what I'm getting myself into in terms of the culture and the environment. But I concede your point on the principle of uncertainty about how Thailand could keep changing, e.g. what if Thailand becomes more of a Chinese vassal state and gets worse than anyone expected it could after only 10 years from now, or what if a new cold war between the U.S. and China endangers my visa status in Thailand five years from now.

Per my above post, if in the future land border crossings into Laos and returns from there are possible again, and if those land border crossings are counted as new entries the same as with airplane travel, then it's not really 1M vs. zero. It's a multi-entry visa that costs 0 per year instead of 3,800 per year, and it's also a benefit of having someone do the 90 day reports for me instead of hassling with it myself, and it's also not having the 400,000 baht frozen but instead available for my use. In that sense, it seems more like I should be comparing the cost of the 600,000 baht difference against the cost of paying 3,800 every year for 20 years. The main argument against IMO is the risk that they'll just cancel the Elite Visa and steal the value of the unused portion, or otherwise change the terms in a way that makes it become worthless or a bad deal. EDIT: I want to add, I realize that using a land border crossing at Vientiane would be more expensive when factoring in gas to drive there etc. but was using that as an example for sake of argument. Realistically, it's more likely I'd be getting the free entry 1 year stamp by going back to the U.S. to visit parents and friends once per year.

Oh, OK, so to confirm, this is the correct description of how this works: 1) I buy 20 Year Elite visa in Jan. 2022. I have until Jan. 2023 to either (a) leave Thailand and come back in (zero cost or fees, and no visit to immigration required), or (b) go to immigration office and pay 1,900 for an extension to Jan. 2024. In the case of (a), before Covid and quarantines were going on, could I hypothetically have gone over the land border to Vientiane, Laos for a day shopping trip, and then come back into Thailand over the land border that same evening, and thereby activated a new entry on the Elite Visa - using this method once per year, every year, I would have been able to never pay another baht and stay here for 20 years after paying the 1 million?

I didn't know a medical exemption certificate could be a possibility here. Thanks for your input!