K2938

The application rejection rate for LTR visas appears to be very high. So if you really wanted to go down this route, it would make a lot of sense ONLY to buy anything if you have confirmation from the BOI that your application is fully approved in all aspects, subject to you buying whatever you want to buy. Otherwise you run the huge risk of having bought something with all the expenses entailed and still getting rejected.

For many people who would need to invest 250k USD in Thai government bonds to get the LTR, it would probably make more sense from a financial point of view to look at other visas, the Non-O if over 50 or married to a Thai and Thai Elite if not. The sweet spot for the LTR is people who have sufficient income so that no investment is required or those who have sufficient real estate investments in Thailand anyway

1) If it is really true that mutual fund investments are an allowed alternative, then the great benefit of this would be that you can sell the mutual fund whenever you want. 10 years is a very long time and it is just very difficult to plan ahead for 10 years even though you right now might have no doubt at all that you still will be in Thailand in 10 years. You might not and you might then want to be able to exit with as little sunk costs as possible. 2) Assuming it is true that mutual fund investments are an allowed alternative, it would be very useful to know if there are any restrictions on the type of mutual fund (e.g. debt, equity etc.). 3) As Misty is pointing out, there are some potential tax problems for U.S. citizens from foreign mutual funds. However, the higher earnings from an equity mutual fund (if allowed) might well more than compensate for the higher taxes. 4) If true that the BOI now allows mutual funds, this would really be a great sign that things are not cast in stone, but that changes are possible in view of the so far extremely low level of interest in this visa. Equally, it appears that Indonesia has now also decided to make foreign income tax free for its LTR equivalent (https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2453557/indonesia-eyes-property-economic-boost-with-residency-visa-plan-for-foreign-investors), so competition seems to be working for the benefit of all of us.

If you go through this thread, you will find that cash is now accepted, credit cards not, at least as of the time the respective posts were made. And QR code is also accepted

LTR application rate slowed down further. Since Sept 1 about 1,600 applications have now been submitted Americans made the most applications so far, followed by Chinese, British, and Germans https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/visa/thailands-10-year-ltr-visa-most-popular-among-americans-and-chinese

While each case varies you should probably expect to hear something from the BOI approximately in mid to late December

Not everybody has the privilege of coming from English speaking countries. Documents not in Thai or English need to be officially translated and various documents also need to be notarized in certain situations.

1) As tends to be the case with anecdotal evidence, one can always find positive and negative stories. But as JJJJJJJJ correctly points out, the huge rejection rate which consolidates all these different data points seems to indicate the possibility of quite fundamental flaws in this visa approval process. I would have expected a rejection rate of maybe 10-20% for a program like this. A rejection rate in the 70-85% range depending on the LTR category is just so many times higher than this figure that this is really rather worrying. Once the huge rejection rate becomes widely known this will probably also lead to a further decline in applications for the LTR program because some people who would in principle have been interested and who would probably meet the criteria will decide just not to bother applying because the huge rejection rate does not justify for them disclosing their confidential financial data, spending money on translation and notarization of documents and wasting their time applying for most likely being rejected. So this is actually a rather important issue. 2) For those already approved there would appear to be little reason to be concerned about this process being moved from the BOI to immigration and to fear "harassment" from the latter. A program like this just needs to be centrally managed and the Smart visa program, which is also far from a stellar success, continues to be managed by the BOI as well.

It means that your LTR visa has been approved subject to you providing the health insurance information as stated. So if you still want to get the LTR, your next step should be to provide this information.

This “gambling” approach to the LTR application is primarily among the digital nomad group which apply as Working-from-Thailand professionals. This is also why the rejection rate for Working-from-Thailand professionals is 86% versus the overall rejection rate of “only” approximately 75%. However according to the statistics published at the end of October Working-from-Thailand professionals only account for about a third of all applications, so the other two thirds – with Wealthy Pensioners being the biggest sub-group thereof and largest of all application categories - still need to have an average rejection rate of approximately 70% so that the overall rejection average comes out at 75%. Now we of course do not know the details, but the fact that thus about 70% of Wealthy Pensioner applications appear to get rejected seems extremely high as I would not expect to be so many “gamblers” in this group. Also, while the application does not cost any money, most people – and especially among this group – will be reluctant to disclose their financial details in the application process unless they really believe they will get approved. So the very high rejection rate even in this group would rather appear to be an indicator of the possibility of excessive pickiness on the side of the BOI, but we of course do not know the details.

I would assume that Internations does the poll among their members because that is the easiest people to contact for them. And Internations members are typically young, university educated professionals in managerial office jobs, so already age-wise a million miles away from the typical member of this forum

Somebody receiving his LTR on Nov 23 was told his LTR was the 376th issued, so the overall success rate is higher than the 14% of the working-from-Thailand category, but not vastly so. Given the application numbers published earlier, success rate overall is probably only around 25%. We of course do not know the reasons for this very low success rate, but since it is probably unlikely that the vast majority of people applying for the LTR visa were just crazy, missing the criteria by miles and really should never have applied if they would have had any sense, this would appear to indicate excessive pickiness and rigidity on the side of the BOI

Does not have to be Thai

The reaction of the BOI to phone calls seems to have changed. Previously, a phone call after the end of the 20 working day period led to some acceleration as far as people have reported here, but your phone call, as far as I understood you, basically did not lead to anything in spite of the 20 working day period having expired

The problem with not pushing now is that things might carry over into the new year and the BOI might then ask for updated stuff for everything, even if they had been sitting on things and caused the delay, saying 2021 is already so far away

Most digital nomads do not stay in a place for five or ten years, but travel around. To stay a year somewhere is already long for them. Really what Thailand would also need is a digital nomad visa as many countries have recently introduced, but that is different from the LONG-TERM residents the LTR visa is after. Regarding the LTR visa itself to start with the BOI should just be more flexible in the interpretation of the criteria which currently exist which would also be the most face-saving solution. So for example be more flexible in what types of income are taken into account, be more flexible in what funds are counted towards the 100k USD health self-insurance option, do not require audited financial statements to prove the revenue of a company etc.

And since there are only a limited number of visa holders of existing visas which can be re-categorised, this means that once this re-categorisation wave is over, the applicant rate will even further slow down. Really kind of by half given that currently 56% of applications are in this re-categorisation category. And any advertising campaign is hardly likely to be able to rectify this in any meaningful way as advertising does not address the fundamental problem of too restrictive conditions of the program for many. So without any changes much more likely that over five years there will be 10 000 visas issued instead of the aimed for 1 million which would only be about 1% of the target

While just a guess, I would speculate that the success rate in the other categories is a little higher with the key problem for the highly skilled professionals appearing to be the requirement of "Public company on a stock exchange or; Private company in operation for at least three years with combined revenue at least USD 150 million in the last three years". This is for example some user feedback from youtube (user comment to the "this new Thai visa could change your life" video on youtube): And some more user feedback from fb: Seems to imply that if the LTR visa is to become more successful, the BOI would really need to significantly increase its flexibility in terms of its interpretation of the criteria set and the documents required.

"[T]he [LTR] programme has had a faltering start. According to unpublished data from the BOI, by 10 October 2022, only 1,003 foreigners had applied for the LTR visa, of which 56 per cent were filed by domestic applicants – meaning foreigners who already resided in Thailand in some other visa status, while just 44 per cent came from new overseas applicants." "All things considered, the LTR could turn out to be unremarkable like the 2003-2021 Thailand Elite project, which attracted only about 15,000 visa holders in its 18-year run. This suggests deeper issues are at work and may not have been completely thought through: Thailand’s BOI might want to consider what makes other regional or global long-term visa programmes succeed and improve the LTR scheme, while there is still time to aim high and fix things. " ( https://fulcrum.sg/thailands-long-term-resident-visa-for-global-talent-and-wealthy-residents-aiming-too-high/ )

A long-term visa is certainly better than an annual visa, but one should not rely on it too much. Not far away Indonesia thus just changed its visa policy for retirees and told its existing visa holders regardless of their remaining visa length either to pay up in line with the new visa demands or leave the country within 180 days https://michaelwest.com.au/digital-nomads-preferred-australian-retirees-in-bali-being-told-to-pay-up-or-move-out/ And the Thailand Elite visa even in its terms and conditions mentions that there is no guarantee that the program will not be terminated prematurely with visas losing their validity (though you then receiving a pro-rata refund of the visa fee paid). So yes, long-term is much better than annual, but do not rely on it too much.

Do you know if Savannakhet is also issuing one-year multi-entry Non-O not based on marriage, but on retirement? And if so, are there the normal 800k THB financial requirements for this?

So you (Pib) submitted your application at approximately the same time or even earlier as anotherexpat4444, your application has not been touched yet as confirmed to you by phone again today and anotherexpat4444 already got a lot of questions a long time ago. Based on this it appears that the BOI does not seem to have one big pile of applications which are consecutively processed, though maybe they have different piles for the different visa categories as you I think applied for Wealthy Pensioners while anotherexpat444 is in the Work-from-Thailand-Professionals group.

No, I think this is incorrect. If you get approved, you are good for 5 years. If you then want to continue, your updated financials need to be re-evaluated. And the same again, if this second 5 year period expires as well. So to come back to your previous question, if I remember it correctly, if you now do not use your issued visa for 6 years, then by the time you want to use it after these six years, it is only valid following a successful re-evaluation of your financials. And if you did not supply these documents after 5 years when they were originally due, then it could also be that you need to start all over again from point zero.

But you got approved eventually if I remember correctly? So persistence seems to pay off?

Unlikely, as several people who got approved have Screen 7 or 8 and many of those who are not there yet have Screen 3. So there seems to be some sort of progression Anybody here who now has something different than Screen 3 (if not yet approved) or Screen 7 or 8 (if approved)?