Richard007

TIT but if they flip the script on us, then many of us who signed up for the LTR visa based on the promise of a tax exemption will say goodbye to Thailand or spend <180 days here, negatively impacting their stated objective of attracting high-spending foreigners to stay in Thailand. It’s not just RD at play here. BOI has some political power here and it’s why this special visa is administered by them and not immigration. If this does change, then they will not be able to collect back taxes from people who were misled about their tax exemption.

Having worked on legal issues for most of my career, my opinion is the slides provide the legal support we need. Slides 4 and 7 provide a broad “Exemption of Personal Income Tax on foreign-sourced income” for 3 categories of LTR visa holders. If there were any exceptions to this broad exemption, for example foreign-sourced income remitted to Thailand in the same year it was earned, then those exceptions must be included in the slides for them to be valid legally. Also, trying to tax our foreign income in any way contradicts the objective of the visa as noted on slide 2. If anyone is still uncertain about this issue, it looks like you can schedule an appointment with RD to discuss the matter.

When I applied in 2024, I had to show two years of 1099s + two years of Form 1040 tax returns. Reviewing the most recent "Required Documents for Qualification Endorsement for LTR Visa Wealthy Pensioners" on the LTR website, it looks like now only one year is required. I would suggest you email BOI to confirm it before spending a lot of time on your application.

If you file a Thai tax return when you have no legal requirement to do so, all you are doing is putting yourself on TRD's radar and opening yourself up for questions, thus creating more work for yourself. Also, if you do decide to file when you have no legal requirement to do so, this is not a one-time thing; you need to file for every year you are a Thai tax resident. So, it’s more work and/or more expense every year with no benefit. With no Thai-sourced income and an LTR visa, there is 0% chance I will file a Thai tax return.

Also, on the home page for the LTR visa (ltr dot boi dot go dot th), under the “INFO SERVICES” tab, “Law & Regulations”, Document 15. Notification of Income Tax No.427 says “Clause 2 A foreigner categorised as High-Skilled Professional, Wealthy Global Citizen, Wealthy Pensioner, or Work-from-Thailand Professional who is eligible for income tax reduction or exemption under Section 3, Section 4, or Section 5 of the Royal Decree issued under the Revenue Code governing reduction of tax rates and exemption of taxes (No. 743) B.E. 2565 (2022), as the case may be, must meet the following qualifications: (1) Be granted a Long-Term Resident Visa under immigration law, as the case may be; (2) Meets qualifications for and complies with rules and conditions on Long-Term Resident Visa as prescribed by the Office of the Board of Investment.”

On the home page for the LTR visa (ltr dot boi dot go dot th), under "TYPES OF LTR VISA", it says in red text "NOTE FOR ALL VISA TYPES: Every condition and requirement must be maintained during the length of the visa, including investment amounts, employment status, bank account balances, and insurance coverage." I read this to mean all requirements at the time of issuance of the visa must be maintained every year of the visa. So, they may only ask for one year or two years at the 5-year mark, but legally you are in violation of the terms of the visa if you don't meet all requirements in year 2 or year 3, for example. I would not be surprised if they change their mind at some point and want to see proof you met the requirements for every year of the preceding 5 years.

Thank you for the follow-up post Marty. This clarity on the tax issue is great news.

Thank you for the detailed summary wordchild. This is very helpful for those of us who did not attend the meeting.

Thank you for posting this Marty. It’s interesting that there will be a presentation from the Revenue Department. Hopefully this will clarify the foreign income tax exemption.

Many of us LTR visa holders did not receive the invitation. A summary of the meeting would be helpful and much appreciated.

Good post John207. On page 82 of this thread, Thailand J posted “Reply from BOI to my question about tax exemption for LTR visa holders:” which includes a screenshot of that BOI reply and it confirms “…you will receive personal income tax exemption on your overseas income under such Royal Decree even if you have brought overseas income into Thailand in the same tax year.” Many LTR holders and applicants on this thread received the same feedback from BOI on this issue and relied on those statements in their decision to proceed with their application for the visa. Also, all of the marketing material about the LTR program, including the LTR brochure and the LTR website, mention “Tax exemption for overseas income” without any qualifiers. The lack of any mention of the year income was earned in relation to the tax exemption implies a broad tax exemption for remitted income regardless of the year in which the income was earned.

Great, thanks for confirming it JimGant.

Thanks for your comment JohnnyBD. I was previously approved based on other types of passive income (not capital gains or IRA distributions). I am now planning to make some changes to my finances/investments that could drop my income below $80,000 for those other types of passive income. If anyone reading here was successfully approved for the LTR Wealthy Pensioner visa using IRS Form 1040 line 7 when it is a loss due to capital loss carry-forwards (but capital gain distributions were positive) or using line 4a when the IRA distributions were converted to a Roth IRA, I would appreciate if they can share their experience here.

For Americans who file IRS Form 1040, regarding the $80,000 income requirement for the LTR Wealthy Pensioner visa, can a portion of this amount come from Capital gains (line 7 on IRS Form 1040) if this amount is positive? If line 7 on Form 1040 is a loss (-$3,000) due to capital loss carry-forwards, but line 2a of 1099-DIV shows Total capital gain distributions, do these Total capital gain distributions count towards the $80,000? Can a portion of the $80,000 come from IRA distributions (line 4a on Form 1040)? If the IRA distributions were converted to a Roth IRA (i.e. a Rollover) during the year, do the IRA distributions still count towards the $80,000?

Thanks everyone for these ideas. I decided to postpone this move to get the lower moving rates during the off‑peak international moving season in late fall and winter. In a few months, I will get detailed quotes from a number of different movers that handle full-service (i.e. door to door) “less than container load” (LCL) shipments.

Thanks for your ideas GinBoy2 and Equatorial.

I want to ship 12 boxes of household goods, currently in storage, from Las Vegas, Nevada to Bangkok. I have started to research companies that can handle this and there are many options including shipping companies, freight forwarders (air or sea), and moving companies, so it is a bit overwhelming to pick a company. Does anyone have experience shipping or moving boxes from the U.S. to Thailand and can recommend a reputable and reliable company that can handle the entire process from door to door including customs clearance in Thailand? Please do not suggest that I get rid of this stuff. I already thought carefully about what I wanted to keep and not keep. I spent many months selling, donating, recycling, and tossing 95% of my belongings before I put the remaining “keeper” items in storage and started traveling full time. Now that I am done with the nomadic lifestyle and signed a lease on a condo in Bangkok, it’s time to move these boxes. I have a healthy budget for this move and I just need a reliable company that can handle this in a way that is stress-free for me.

I have 12 boxes of household goods, currently in storage, that I want to ship from Las Vegas, Nevada to Bangkok. The total weight of all boxes is ~400 pounds (180 kg) and total volume ~100 cubic feet (2.8 cubic meters). I have started to research companies that can handle this and there are lots of options including shipping companies, freight forwarders (air and sea), and moving companies, so it is a bit overwhelming to sift through it all. Does anyone have experience moving/shipping boxes from USA to Thailand and can recommend a reputable and reliable company that can handle the entire process from door to door including customs clearance in Thailand? Please do not suggest that I get rid of this stuff. I already thought carefully about what I wanted to keep and not keep. I spent many months selling, donating, recycling, and tossing 95% of my belongings before I put the remaining “keeper” items in storage and started traveling full time. Now that I am done with the nomadic lifestyle and signed a lease on a condo in Bangkok, it’s time to move these boxes. I have a healthy budget for this move and I just need a reliable company that can handle this in a way that is stress-free for me.

I’m happy to report that I received my Notification Letter for Qualifications Endorsement, exactly two weeks after I filed the application online. Since I am currently in the U.S., the next step for me is to apply for an e-visa at the Royal Thai consulate here in the U.S. I created a draft e-visa application and am not sure how to answer a few questions. The application asks for my arrival and departure dates. Right now, I do not know the exact dates as I have some other traveling to do before I can get to Thailand. Can I put estimated dates on the e-visa application? Is this something that airport immigration in Thailand cares about, i.e. do they look at your plane tickets to confirm the dates match what’s on your e-visa application? As of now, I have not booked a flight or accommodation for my arrival into Thailand but these appear to be required entries in the e-visa application. Any suggestions on how to address this? Again, does airport immigration compare this information against the e-visa application? Regarding the required document indicating current location, is a current bank statement which shows my address in the U.S. acceptable? FYI – I did send these questions to the Royal Thai consulate but have not heard back yet, so I’m curious to hear what others here did for their e-visa.

Thanks for your comments Thailand J and Pib. I will post how it goes for me including timeline and document requests as I think this will be useful information for future applicants.

Hello everyone, I have read all 100 pages of this very interesting thread, so thanks to all of the contributors! I just applied this week for the LTR WP visa. I assume that all of my documents look good to BOI, since my status changed from “Pending” to “Consideration by Government Agencies” less than two days after submitting my application and I did not receive any requests for more documents / information. To those of you who have received LTR WP approval recently (within the last 6 months), how long did it take you to go from “Consideration by Government Agencies” (Step 4) to visa approval (Step 8)? Also, please note if your process was delayed at any point by requests for additional documents that you then had to gather and submit. This information will be very helpful to us "newbies". Thank you!

Hi 818Pilot, 3.5m baht is not nearly enough for me to feel comfortable. What if you are in a serious accident, let’s say a hit and run where you can’t collect from the other driver, and then you are then put in the ICU for a month or two or three? I can imagine the costs could end up much higher than 3.5m. Also, I would bet some cancer cases could run up a bill much higher than that, depending on which medications/treatments are involved. In addition to lower age-based inflation on premiums and a better legal/regulatory environment, I like that the US and EU issued policies have much higher upper limits on coverage than the Thai policies. This is important to me since I also plan to travel to other countries where medical expenses run higher than Thailand. I am looking at a minimum of USD $1 million coverage to feel comfortable, and going from $500K to $1 million coverage does not increase the premium that much because few people rack up medical expenses above $500K in one year. I am willing to spend a little more for the peace of mind.

VisitorsCoverage and IMG have been recommended for visits to the USA. I have not used either so cannot vouch for them. Links below. https://www.visitorscoverage.com https://www.imglobal.com/visitor-insurance

Sheryl, that’s super helpful information. Thanks so much for taking the time to type all this up.

scuba, that is a good idea to seek out someone competent in the insurance/billing dept. to see if they can shed some light. According to April’s written policies, “In case of hospitalisation, you benefit from direct billing service, subject to prior agreement.” but I’m not sure how that works in practice.