wpcoe

If the Immigrations officer wants you to have B800,000 when you reach 50 and apply for your own retirement visa, shuffle the B800,000 from your husband's bank account to your own bank account. Just don't apply for your retirement visa near the time when your husband's annual renewal is due. Shuffle the money back to his account when it's time for his renewal. Repeat annually.

That said, the dependent visa might be easier.

Could I have your license number for my next lottery ticket........

And, my commission (for winnings only, of course), would be.....?

Brilliant and informative post, thanks wpcoe. As a sideline, did you find it easy to both get a bank account and rent a permanent place to live with just a 30 day stamp? Both obviously necessary to go through the procedure you describe. Thanks again

In order to get the Tor Tor 3 when I bought my Jomtien condo in December 2004, I needed a bank account, and both Bangkok Bank and Siam Commercial Bank advised me over the telephone that I could, and explained where to apply. I chose SCB only because I seemed to recall seeing more SCB ATMs and branches in Pattaya/Jomtien. I gave them my passport (with 30-day arrival stamp) and they made copies of whatever page(s) they needed. I was living in BKK at the time and SCB required that I go to their main office to open the account. IIRC, I could have gone to a Bangkok Bank branch to do the same.

A few months ago, I went into an SCB branch in Jomtien and the branch manager convinced me to open a local account here. (Seems the usage of an ATM card is based on the province in which issued. If you use the ATM card outside the province, there is an ATM usage fee.) She opened a new savings account at her branch, with only a copy of my passport, and she also opened a separate interest-bearing bond fund account for me. That fund is "SCB Savings Fixed Income Open End Fund (SCBSFF)" and so far has been paying just above 4% interest. Again, all she needed was a copy of my passport with a 30-day stamp. The SCBSFF requires a minimum balance of B50,000. After I got the retirement visa, I immediately went to SCB and transferred the bulk of my money into the SCBSFF account. :-)

Before moving to Jomtien, I lived in Bangkok for five years, and rented two apartments and a townhouse, again with only my passport and 30-day entry stamp.

So, if my experience is any indication, a farang should have no trouble renting an apartment, getting a regular (low, low interest) savings account or even a bond fund account, with just a 30-day stamp in their passport.

wp, out of curiosity, how'd you get alerted to this? (And I think your website is super -- I'm sure it will be bookmarked by many.)

My original intent was to take a quick trip to Hong Kong and get a Non-Immigrant O (or Tourist, if not) Visa and then apply for Retirement Visa after I re-entered Thailand.

I decided to stop by Pattaya Immigrations to run through the Retirement Visa process to make sure I had it straight. Just in the course of conversation, the officer told me I didn't need a visa of any sort, I could "convert" my existing 30-day passport stamp. My jaw dropped, I got a big smile, and thanked him profusely.

The folks at the Pattaya Immigrations office are very professional and efficient, their English is VERY good, and a few of them seem to have a very dry sense of humor. The facility itself is brand new, bright and comfortable.

But then he goes on to say that "you can [now] apply for a non immigration type B and O at the Immigration Bureau" [in Bangkok]. Hey great! but true or not?

Then here's the confusing part:

"...you have to have at least 3 weeks, I mean visa. It means when you come in right, you have 4 weeks. In the first week you have to contact immigration, in Bangkok in Suan Phlu and submit the papers that you want to change your visa. You have to have a visa. Before we could change the category of visa from tourist to non-immigrant, but this time we can issue the visa as well."

This is slightly different than what Police Major Suppachai said, since he was referring to people "who don't have a visa, but visa extension". But FWIW, on Thursday (Sept 21) I converted a 30-day passport stamp (NOT a visa) which I received on Sept 3 to a Non-Immigrant O visa at Pattaya Immigrations. (I guess technically speaking I did not "convert" ... I "applied for" a Non-Immigrant O visa and was issued one.) I did not do it with 21 days remaining.

You can convert to a B or O visa within Thailand, but of course you must qualify for, and prove via documentation, that category of visa. The reason for issuance of my Non-Immigrant O visa was for retirement.

Actually you do not need to exchange your money.

I put my "800k" in a pounds sterling account here. The foreign currency accounts pay very well considering we're in Thailand. The rates for various access times including instant access are available in a table in the last page but one of the BKK Post. See BKK bank and Kasikorn bank tables not central bank. When my baht acct gets low I top it up from the GBP acct, getting the Telex

Fascinating alternative that I hadn't heard of. I'll keep it in mind for my annual renewals. Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification, lopburi3.

Upon further consideration, I added the links to the .doc files to the web page.

Thanks, maestro! I just now swapped the fees for the TM.87 and TM.7, so it should be correct now. They charged me a lump sum of B3900, and I got it backward.

I used scanned copies of the forms because several of my "audience" don't have Word. FWIW, when I imported the .doc files into WordPerfect, they got a bit scrambled, and I wasn't sure the Immigrations folks would accept them.

If one *did* use the .doc files, is it acceptable to just type in the information requested, or does Immigration prefer written by hand, do you know? (or care? hahaha!)

Yesterday I went to the Pattaya Immigrations office with my USA passport containing a 30-day stamp dated 03Sept'06. They accept my passport, documentation, and forms, and this afternoon I picked up my passport, complete with a new 90-day Non Immigrant O visa which was extended to one-year for "Retirement". Woo hoo! So, yes, it can be done.

Several friends and ex-colleagues of mine are in the same boat as I had been: "living" in Thailand (for years) on 30-day passport stamps. They are all US citizens and over 50 yrs old. I created a web page for them to follow the process I went through. The intended audience for that web page is these folks, but I'm going to ask for feedback from the many knowledgable folks here on thaivisa.com. Please be kind <g>, but see if the information I have there sounds correct and logical, if I might have forgotten something, etc. "For your eyes only," if you are interested in helping me: my webpage

Many thanks for all the information I got here preparing me to go to the Immigrations office.

It's a bit disconcerting and potentially confusing for a Thai Immigrations official to be talking about "visa on arrival" when in fact what (I hope!) he is talking about is visa-exempt stamps. A true Visa On Arrival is an actual visa, and doesn't even fall under the 90-days-in-six-months scheme.

just gets less and less clear don't it.

a VoA is only available to citizens of some south asian countries?

is that right?

its saying "go home Indians/Bangladeshis" i guess.

I'm not so sure about that.

http://www.thaiembdc.org/consular/visa/visa.htm shows India on the list of countries that gets a 15 day VISA on arrival. Folks with VISAs are not involved in this new madness.

This "new madness" as I termed it applies to "Foreigners That Are Exempted From The Visa, Order No. 608 / 2549" i.e., the ones on the "LIST OF COUNTRIES NOT REQUIRING VISA".

There is a free use of the term VOA (Visa On Arrival) but it's a misnomer to apply it to the countries on the "LIST OF COUNTRIES NOT REQUIRING VISA," like the UK, USA, Australia, Germany, Japan, etc.

It has been repeatedly been said that if you have a VISA, you are not restricted to the 90-days-in-six-months enforcement. Folks from India, China, Russia, etc DO get a visa ... a true V.O.A.

Now, that said, since the "empowering" of individual Immigrations Officers as explained in the new brochure (see http://www.immigration.go.th/nov2004/2notice/newpro.html, panel four), who knows how any of the procedures will be implemented at any given checkpoint podium?

just gets less and less clear don't it.

Indeed

3. Do I need the bank mentioning that my money was wired from outside the country?

I wouldn't DREAM of stepping on Sunbelt's toes, but just to make sure: Is your income sufficient to cover the B800,000 annual requirement, or is your income less than B800,000 and you need to show money in a Thai bank to make up the shortfall?

If the latter, i.e. that you need to show a Thai bank balance to bring your funds up to B800,000 annually, then YES, you need to show that the funds were wired from outside the country.

Thanks, Sunbelt. He will be relieved, I'm sure.

Upon exiting Thailand you MAY NOT be permitted to reenter

Here we go with ambiguous semantics again:

Does "may not" mean "might not", or does "may not" mean "will not"? Let's face it, the meaning could be either, so what is the intent of that red stamp?

Immigration wants the copy of your sworn statement to your Embassy. You will still have to provide a local bank account passbook and letter of account balance but the amount will probably not even be checked if your income is over the 65k requirement.

I am coaching several friends of mine (all over 50 with US passports) on getting a Retirement Visa in Thailand. Our jobs (performed and paid outside of Thailand) require us to travel each month, so we have simply been using the 30-day passport stamp each month to stay in Thailand.

One fellow wrote to me:

"I'll get the income statement on Monday. Question; if I get it dated, say, Sep 18, and I submit the papers in Jomtien on Oct 15, will the income statement then be out of date? Same for the medical form. I wanted to use this week to get my papers organized at a leisurely pace. And then visit Pattaya when I [return to Thailand] after October 10"

It sticks in my mind that I read one of the forms is only good for seven days, but cannot find any such reference now. Will he be okay getting the documentation so far in advance? The income he will have declared on the notarized letter from the US Embassy will be sufficient to cover the B800,000 requirement. Will he still need to show a Thai bank account?

BTW, his bank book will show considerable money movement into Thailand over the past ten years or so. He's been "living" in Thailand since 1994. Would it be a bad thing to show that bank book?

[edited to correct a date: 1994, not 1984...]

I live in the Pattaya area, but would be willing to go to Bangkok if someone could recommend a foot doctor. I'm quite amazed that Bangkok-Pattaya, BNH nor Bumrungrad have such a specialist.

My experience at BNH and Bangkok-Pattaya Hospital with general surgeons are that they are clueless about feet!

BANGKOK, Sept 7 (TNA) - Suvarnabhumi Airport, which opens September 28, will always have a sufficient supply of electricity, according to Wanchai Sinaroj, acting general manger of District Cooling System and Power Plants Co., Ltd. (DCAP).

Hey, Khun Wanchai, how about this:

"Caretaker Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal ordered an investigation into three electricity blackouts at Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday morning..."

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/16Sep2006_news01.php

However, in the last few days I have met 3 single/divorced people who don't have the required 800,000 available at call for a retirement visa, and whose o/s funds fall shy of the monthly income requirement. These are decent men and women who live frugally and work as volunteers in orphanages, and give free English lessons. Respectful and giving people, who would like the chance to stay but cannot. I feel sorry that these people are discriminated against by a government that equates "quality" with the size of a foreigner's bank balance.

Even if these decent men & women could obtain a Retirement Visa, they would be violating immigration law by doing volunteer work: even volunteer work requires a work permit and appropriate visa. Sad, but true.

One option they might have is if they know any folks (probably back in the home country) who could give them a short-term loan to beef up the Thai bank account until such time as their Retirement Visa is approved, they could export the money back to pay off the loan once they have the visa. I agree that it's a kludgy workaround, but maybe it could work for them? And, of course, it would be an annual event for visa renewal/extension.

Any hospital or clinic can issue the medical certificate (like used for employment) and cost runs from 50 baht to 300 or so. Cost of bank letter is 200 baht. Add a few baht to make copy(s) of everything and the yearly cost is about 2,500 baht.

Aha. Another bit of trivia I had missed: the bank letter isn't free! :-)

I went to the Pattaya Immigrations office two days ago to pick up the forms I need, and to run through the procedure with an Immigrations officer. One thing he said was that I need two ORIGINALS of the bank letter. I've never heard mention of that. I assumed the original and a photocopy would suffice. Anybody else have experience with that?

just one queery I have with the rule of having 800000 baht in the bank for retirement visa do they take into consideration any payments that are made from foreign countrys eg disability or aged pensions

The short answer: yes.

If you don't have B800,000 in a Thai bank, the "shortfall" can be in the form of verified income for the difference.

e.g. If you have only B600,000 in the Thai bank, and can verify income of B200,000/year (roughly B16,700/month) you will satisfy the B800,000 requirement.

To support your claim of income: If you are doing the visa application in Thailand you will need a letter of income-verification from you home country's embassy in Bangkok. If you are doing the visa application (O-A) in your home country, check what the income-verification procedure will be at the Thai embassy/consulate where you will be applying.

I understand that TAT monitors and posts statistics on the number of foreign tourists arriving into Thailand. I believe they also set goals for each years' statistics?

Have the visa-runners who are getting new entry stamps when they do a same-day border crossing been counted in these arrivals statistics as a new arrival each time they re-enter Thailand?

If so, I wonder how those statistics will be affected if people either (a) abandon Thailand, or (b ) (more likely?) get longer-term Tourist Visas with an extension, or Retirement Visas, etc?

Conceivably, each person getting a 60-day tourist visa, with an extension, would now count as one tourist arrival vs three if they do visa runs. Somebody who gets a Retirement Visa, will count as one, versus 12, etc.

Or, am I all wet? (Yet again!?!)

Oh. I hadn't realize one needed the medical certificate for visa renewals.

Is it ok to keep the original from the first visa application and continue to submit copies of it, like supposedly one can with the embassy's income verification letter? Or, do you need a fresh medical cert each time?

Won't he need to get a re-entry permit before he departs Thailand for Poipet? Or, would he simply be a Visa On Arrival when he returned?

Last time I looked a foreigner cannot own land in Thailand.

True, but not technically what he was saying, if you give him the benefit of the doubt: One can OWN the STRUCTURE (house) and have a long-term lease on the land. Perfectly legal, and if that's what he did, I wish him luck.

You know, I'm starting to get a BETTER feeling about the officials at the Immigrations bureau. It does seem that they try to do The Right Thing.

They seem to have been caught with their pants down when the Bangkok Post and Phuket Gazette ran public articles about what, apparently, were works-in-progress about application of new interpretations of existing laws.

e.g. It was reported that Investment Visas were being terminated and that previous holders would not be grandfathered in for annual renewals. After continued discussions, it was reported that previous holders WOULD be grandfathered in.

e.g. It was reported that the "crackdown" on use of 30-day visa stamps would start on October 1, with all previous stamps being considered. After continued discussions, it was reported that October 1 will now be a "clean slate day" -- i.e. that visa stamps prior to October 1 will not be considered.

e.g. Obviously, Firefan's being grandfathered in to receive continued annual renewals of his visa.

Also, I see occasional anti-farang references to the recent suspension of approvals to build more "megastores" in Thailand. It was not purely anti-farang, it also affects Thai business interests. Central department stores also falls in that category and cannot build any more of their large stores until/unless the ban on megastores is lifted.

There are a lot of hot buttons being pushed, mine amongst them. I don't take it as a personal vendetta from the Immigrations folks in particular, or the Thai government or people in general. Often times, what is good for the large picture (in this case the large picture being the Thai country as a whole) sometimes causes very regrettable collateral damage. Using the megastore example: The Thai government lent a sympathetic ear to the mom-and-pop stores by putting in place the "temporary" ban on megastore construction. As a result lots of people (Thai and farang) may lose the the opportunity to shop in clean well-lit stores with non-negotiable fixed prices and a large selection of non-out-of-date goods. Was it the right decision? We can argue that until the cows come home. Conspiracists will say it was definitely a direct attack at farang interests, for sure. My hunch is that some sort of compromise will be worked out where megastores can still be built, though probably not with a carte blanche to be built anyplace they desire. My hunch is that this 30-day visa situation will also come to some sort of workable situation.

I think many (most?) of the 30-day visa runners have known in the back of their mind that they were treading on eggshells doing the 30-day routine. I'm one them. I don't like the change in implementation of the immigration laws, but the fact is, I knew it could happen one day. Now it has, and I need to adapt.

Thanks for listening. I am not unsympathetic to the folks who appear to be the "collateral damage" in the 30-day visa changes. However I am not so sympathetic to those who take nasty swipes at them when they air their concerns and fears. In some of the threads there appears to be animosity between specific forum members. That should be taken care of in private. Many confused and anxious people flocking to thaivisa.com for information have to filter through all that sh*t to get their questions answered.

My continued gratitued to Sunbelt, lopburi3, Maestro and others who continue to patiently provide level-headed information and advice to those seeking it. Bravo!

Let the flames begin...