MPoll

They just want the most recent. They are making sure you are currently up-to-date with your immigration requirements. Ah! I just remembered, this is the 1 year anniversary of my pensioner LTR.

If you can qualify for a pensioner LTR then there is no banking requirement.

I did five OA extensions at CW myself. The IO’s were always professional. I always brought my condo lease and copies of the landlord’s ID but I don’t recall them ever asking to see them. There was never any hint of wanting a bribe. The IO’s were not friendly or unfriendly. They were serious about working through mountains of paperwork. For my first extension I didn’t have the bank letter so she wrote me a note to take to Kasikorn downstairs and I sorted it out. She was being helpful. The IO’s rarely said anything but when they did they weren’t rude. I can only conclude that the OP was unlucky and is in a tough situation regarding his housing. With my multiple interactions at CW and those of everyone I knew in Bangkok for 6 years I don’t think this is a common occurrence. This is just about my 1 year anniversary of my LTR so CW in in my rear view mirror.

Read the title of the TM47 form. It is written in English. You report to immigration if you stay inside Thailand for 90 days. It may, at first, be 90 days from your extension but if you ever leave and re-enter Thailand then you will break that coincidental connection. In general, your extension date and 90-day report date have nothing to do with each other.

I am cautiously optimistic about this but I am still going to keep a close eye on this topic next year as interpretations of the tax law become clearer.

At the end of your 2nd year you can also leave and return on a visa exempt entry and then apply for the O visa inside Thailand. 90 days later you can then extend that for 1 year with no insurance requirement and with the 800,000k in the bank. Also, during that 2nd year you can leave at any time without an re-entry permit and that will finished your extra 1 yr permission to stay stamp. I only suggest this because you might want to time your future yearly extension date to a convenient time of the year. Have you looked at the requirements for the 10-yr pensioner LTR (Long Term Residency) visa? It does not have banking requirements. You do need health insurance but the insurance I had for my previous OA qualified. You also need to have an $80,000/yr passive income. What qualifies as passive income is described on the LTR website. There is also a $40.000/yr + investment option. You can read about the LTR visa on the website for the Thailand Board of Investment.

Yes, dress decently like you supposedly do at any immigration office. You will be incredibly pleased at how well the BOI staff will help you. You will eventually be escorted across the hall to the Immigration office which is typically pretty crowded so how long you wait will vary.

I have a pension that is more than $80,000 and Pacifist Cross insurance. I applied for the pensioner LTR in Oct 2022 and got it with no problems at all. I submitted my US tax return to verify my income and never got additional questions about it. I submitted my Pacific Cross insurance certificate and they accepted that as well. You should have no problems. If they ask for more information just give them what they ask. Your situation, and mine, are as simple as it can get and exactly what they ask for on the BOI website.

I got a new passport from the US embassy in Bangkok last June. I am in Sisaket province and completed the application online. I got stuck a few times until I realized that the payment of the fee was actually on a different State Department website. So that was confusing to me at the time. Since June I heard that they charged the method of paying for the return envelope to an online vendor and that that website is not simple. Aside from that I got my new passport in 36 days. Sorry to hear you are in some endless loop. I think you are going to have to be very specific about where you are stuck to get any real help.

Luckily I bank with Kasikorn and can get a 12 month statement on the spot. Otherwise so what if you have to wait? Just plan ahead.

At Bangkok Immigration they allow the bank letter and year bank statement to be up to 7 days old. On the day of the application I would go downstairs and make a small withdrawal and the update my bank book.

I think those of us that have gone through the wedding experience in Thailand will know what is what. When you register your marriage at the district office you will walk out with the official marriage certificate. We did this first before the village ceremony. We also did the registration with the assistance of a law firm. The village ceremony was about a week later. There were no documents signed or issued at the village ceremony. As for sin sod - that is a very important element of the village ceremony. What I don’t know is whether anyone has paid a sin sod while only having the district official registration. At our registration sin sod was never mentioned. Maybe some people have a side agreement separate from the registration.

In the US you can get married in a civil ceremony just like the marriage registration we did in the Bang Rak district office. The lavish ceremonies are optional in Thailand and the US. It is just one of the many things to be negotiated when planning a marriage anywhere.

Sin sod is a part of Thai marriage tradition. Archaic? Sure. A tradition observed in many ways from show to serious. Other countries observe a bride price or dowry too. Western countries have all sorts of archaic traditions. In the US the bride’s family is supposed to pay for the wedding which could be a very expensive obligation. The brides father “gives” her away as if she is property. What actually happens is all a negotiation about traditions and who can afford what and what it all means for all involved. Is it all about money? If you are going to marry into a Thai family and live in Thailand then get used to money being a part of the vast complications that go along with the concept of “Face”. In any case, when have western marriages not been about money? You won’t even get a date with her if you make less money than her much less get married. Money figures into the high divorce rate in the US and the divorce settlement. I paid a sin sod of 100k and 100k for the Thai wedding. The village wedding was fascinating, moving, and beautiful and well worth 200k. I don’t care what the sin sod is for or what it means and I can’t imagine what a similar wedding in the US would cost. My first wedding in the US in 1980 probably cost more. For that wedding my fiancé and I paid for it ourselves so our parents wouldn’t be involved with the wedding plans. My parents paid for my sister’s wedding but my sister and mother nearly came to blows during the planning. In some ways wedding joy and conflicts are similar worldwide. My wife’s cousin got married two years later in the same house with a similar ceremony. . He paid a sin sod of 50k. They were young Thai factory workers so that 50k was probably a much bigger deal. No, the family did not return his or my sin sod. The family is a poor farming family. Nobody is getting rich with sin sods in this family. I am simultaneously sad and amused to read westerner write comments as if their traditions and moral standing are superior. Get married or not . . . up to you. Just don’t be so high and mighty about. It is no better or worse in your home country if you bothered to look at it.

There is a copy center downstairs if necessary

Another version of the announcement https://www.expatden.com/thailand/thailand-privilege-card-review/

Did you go through the fast track line or the regular line? I had no problems or confusion in the fast track line.

My thoughts were that they were recording my first visa entry into Thailand plus my first LTR permission to stay on my old passport. I think they are just historical notes. Who knows? I just wanted people to get a glimpse of what I got when switching to a new passport. My last entry into Thailand on my OA was September 2019. I got my LTR stamped into my passport in Bangkok in January 2023. I made a trip to the US May/June this year on the LTR. Then I applied for my new passport and had the visa transferred.

My Thai wife and I were sitting at Five Star Bar on Beach road, Pattaya, and ordered some food which was prepared in the hotel next door. We both got sick that night. Which just goes to show that a hotel restaurant kitchen can serve up contaminated food and that Thais are not immune to it either.

Because I just don't see the food borne illnesses in myself, my family, my friends, and in general around Thailand. The US takes a 0.1% problem and reduces it to a 0.01% problem. The whole egg refrigeration thing is absurd. The examples you cite may make you squeamish but, for me, they just don't constitute enough of a problem to reorder society around the US type of standard. I look at a lot what is done in Thailand and chalk it up to US "picnic standards". Americans do the same at outdoor events when it suits their purpose. Use your own judgement for your own consumption but I pretty quickly learned that I could ingest a lot of delicious foods here without any significant problem.

I bought this Tefal at HomePro a couple of months ago and have been very happy with it.

I get food poisoning more often here than in the US but still not very often. Almost every time I've gotten sick in Thailand it was from a brick & mortar restaurant often in a tourist zone. Never from street food. Once here at home when my wife's uncle prepared a duck dinner. And it is not just about westerners not being accustom to Thai bacteria. My wife gets it too on occasion. And I would say American food standards are way overblown. On another note - I keep plenty of frozen dishes in my freezer. My wife doesn't understand this practice and turns her nose up at it. When I make a pot of Mexican chili there is always 7-8 servings and it has to go into the freezer.

Peppers makes their own Italian sausage which they use in several menu items. As an American it is spot on perfect. I've also bought the sausages to bring home to make a pasta sauce.

I sent my old passport to the BKK embassy from Sisaket province on June 21st and got it back 4 weeks and 3 days later. Got my LTR visa transferred to the new passport last Monday, Aug 7th.