RoninTech

To any Canadians that read this, Canada did not stop issuing affidavits of income like the US, UK and Australia did a few years ago. After making an appointment, simply show up to your local embassy/consulate with your Revenue Canada proof of income statement downloaded from their website for free. It can be any income, not just "from a pension". This info is based on experiences at the Canadian consulate in Chiang Mai and the Chiang Mai immigration office where my Canadian wife and I both apply for annual Non-O extensions based on retirement (me) and trailing spouse (missus). Since my wife is a trailing spouse, only I have to show statement of income while she shows marriage license, also confirmed by consulate/embassy. Easy peasy and no need to transfer large sums of money into Thailand that you don't want to. I'm pretty sure other countries also allow this, but definitely not US, UK and Australia.

No luck with either my Canadian VOIP number or my current Australian SIM. Trying to make a visa appointment for when I arrive there in 10 days . Even though it lets you enter numbers from all over the world, maybe it requires a Malaysian number to work?

Awesome, thanks Joe.

We got lucky and they accepted our on line check in, even though I have no idea about the village number and so didn't provide it. Took a screen shot and will always use the same values for future 90 day check ins. Thanks all! For the record, here is what I entered for the non-pull down fields based on my address above: Building Name/Owner Name: The S Condo Unit 519 Address No.: 5 Soi/Road: Siri Mangkalajarn Rd Lane 1

How did you determine that my village number was 5? Apologies for the questions. I'm trying to get enough info to where I can figure out the correct address myself no matter what building I live in. Might help future searchers as well. ????

Ok, so in my case where does the second 5 come from? Did you just duplicate the road number?

Thanks Joe, The field doesn't accept the '#' character so I used: The S Condo Unit 519. For the Address no. did you mean "5" and not "5 5"? I'm guessing the second 5 was a typo?

Hi, Looking for some input from someone who lives in a condo and has successfully filled out an online 90 day report. Trying to fill out my first 90 day online report. I live in a condo building and some of the address fields aren't obvious to me. My address is: #519 The S Condo 5 Siri Mangkalajarn Rd Lane 1 Tambon Su Thep, Mueang Chiang Mai District 50200, Thailand The available fields are: Building Name/Owner Name: Address No.: Soi/Road: State/Province: City/Amphur: District/Tambon: So, Building Name: The S Condo Address No.: ??? Soi/Road: ??? State/Province: Chiang Mai City/Amphur: Mueang Chiang Mai District/Tambon: Suthep Any idea what I need to use for "Address No." and "Soi/Road" based on my condo address above? I'm assuming they do want to know my room # in the building but no idea where it should go. Thanks!

Brilliant, thanks @mtls2005! I've done all this except for WiFi calling which AIS doesn't support on my phone (Pixel 1). That's really cool that OTP SMS's come through for free.

I am with Bangkok Bank and have an AIS pay as you go SIM (300THB for unlimited data for 30 days at 20Mbps). After doing a few 20THB top-ups the SIM is good until December and the BB app and internet banking is setup and working great in Thailand. I need to go back to Canada for the summer and may need to access my Bangkok bank account. Both internet banking and mobile app banking end up sending an SMS to my Thai number for information and in some OTP cases, verification. How are people getting SMS's sent to their Thai SIM while in another country? Are you paying for expensive roaming packages or does it just work if you have the Thai SIM in your phone? Thanks for any info.

We just finished our first extensions. Made online appointments yesterday for the Canadian consulate in Chiang Mai and the immigration office. At the consulate I showed my Canadian Tax return with total income being above 65K THB x 12. Also showed our original marriage certificate. 1250 THB and 20 mins later we had 2 stamped affidavits of income/marriage. When we first sat down at the consulate I showed our bank and investment statements. The lady would not accept these as they don't show 64K THB/month "income" no matter how big the balance is. Fortunately I had my annual tax return showing total annual income which she did accept. We took these affidavits to the immigration office along with TM7 stating "retirement" for me and "spouse" for wife, TM30 plus a copy, passport pages, 1 passport photo each, TM47, copy of TM6, copy of marriage license and 2 x 1900THB. Arrived at 1pm and left at 2pm including 20 mins getting our TM30s. No under consideration, and other than 90 day reports we are good until 45 days before January 7, 2023 when we will repeat the process. As we were basking in the glow of successful extensions we forgot to ask about getting a single re-entry permit for 1000 THB so will go back for that to avoid extra hassle on departure from Bangkok. Very happy to avoid having to move 800K x 2 here so if your embassy/consulate still gives out these affidavits I'd highly recommend looking into it.

I just opened a Bangkok Bank account yesterday and I am receiving SMS messages for all transactions. For example a 10 baht tip on Grab. Had to pay 30THB per month for the feature though and they told me no option to receive emails instead. Maybe if you don't pay you only get notifications on larger amounts?

Found it.

Cheers Bruno. Don't suppose you have an image of the new deal that I could show when I go the store?

Are packages like this still available from AIS? Just about get out of ASQ and there's an AIS store around the corner.

Thought I'd post an update for future searchers of this topic. We both applied for Non-Immigrant O (over 50) visas from Canada via the thaievisa.go.th website. We simply uploaded our last 3 months of bank and investment statements. No guarantee letter and/or signed/stamped statements were required by the Thai consulate in Vancouver. We called to confirm this before we applied. We now have our Non-Immigrant O visas. We also spoke with the Canadian consulate in Chiang Mai who confirmed that they will supply an affidavit letter of income for my 1 year extension and we will have our original Marriage Certificate so wife can get an extension based on being my dependent. So no 800K transfers to Thai bank required. Thanks again for all the advice!

That makes sense. Any thoughts on the consulate person saying there is no "trailing spouse" reason for a Non Immigrant O visa and that we should both just specify the reason as "retirement"?

Trying to come into Thailand on a Non-Immigrant O retirement visa for me with my Canadian wife on a Non-Immigrant O trailing spouse. Thanks to the info in another thread, we definitely prefer O vs OA as we would not need criminal and medical checks and the insurance requirements are lower. Other advantage of O vs OA is only I would need proof of income with her as a trailing spouse. We are getting conflicting info from our embassy in Ottawa and consulate in Vancouver. Embassy says no Non-Immigrant O for us, only Non-Immigrant O-A. Consulate says we can both apply for Non-Immigrant O via the new thaievisa.go.th website but there is no "trailing spouse" and we should both give "retirement" as the reason. Would love to hear if anyone has gone through something similar and managed to get wife in on an Non-immigrant O trailing spouse visa. Thanks!

Just to be clear, doing it by the book will save us a couple of grand Canadian a year over WhiteBuffalo's suggestion in exchange for some of our time, which we have lots of. ????

It doesn't actually seem that big of a deal to us, especially if we can use the Canadian embassy for an income affidavit. To each their own.

Awesome info again skatewash. Here is what I *think* we should do. ???? Please point out any issues or improvements if you see a weakness with the strategy: From Canada, I apply for a Non-O based on retirement and my wife applies for a Non-O based on being a trailing spouse. We would not need to open up a Thai bank account for this. Just prove that we have access to Canadian equivalent of 800K or 65K THB/month. This will give each of us 90 days in Thailand. Once we arrive in Chiang Mai after getting out of ASQ in BKK, we start the process of opening a Thai Bank account. Worst case scenario: After we open the Thai bank account, use Wise to move 800K plus living expense $ into it. After the 800K THB has been in the account for 2 months, I apply for a 1 year extension based on retirement providing the bank account info to immigration. At the same time my wife applies for a 1 year extension based on being my trailing spouse using our Canadian marriage certificate. Do they need the original marriage certificate? Best case scenario: After we open the Thai bank account, use Wise to move living expense $ into it. Using my T4 (Canadian tax statement) contact the Canadian Embassy in BKK (assume have to physically go there?) or maybe the Canadian Consulate in Chiang Mai to get an affidavit of income for myself. I use the affidavit of income letter to apply for a 1 year extension based on retirement and my wife applies for a 1 year extension based on being my trailing spouse with our Canadian marriage certificate. Every year we either get a new affidavit of income letter from Canadian embassy or make sure 800K is on our Thai bank account and then I re-apply for 1 year extension based on retirement and wife re-applies for 1 year extension based on being my trailing spouse (again with our Canadian marriage certificate). If we were both to come in on either visa exempt or a tourist visa, wife would not be able to use the trailing spouse technique and we would both have to show 800K in a Thai bank account or get 2 affidavits of income from the Canadian embassy. How does that sound? ????

OK, I think we are slowly getting there. ???? Show up on a visa exempt which is currently 45 days but *may* drop to 30 days on Oct. 1st. Either way, it can be extended for 30 days if necessary. As soon as we are out of ASQ and in Chiang Mai, open up a bank account. Use an agent to do this if pounding the pavement and knocking on doors doesn't work. Good to know about the the rule requiring 15 days left on your current visa to apply for a Non-O. Is that just because they don't issue them same day and they need that time to prepare the new Visa? Definitely need to make sure Wise would have finished the transfer into our new Thai account before showing up at immigration to apply for the Non-O. This approach would require each of us to show 800K right? We have a joint bank account in Canada, is it acceptable for us to have a joint Thai account containing 1600K or would we each need our own Thai account with 800K in it? So apply for an extension based on retirement as soon as the money has been in the Thai account for 60 days. Is the extension still considered a Non-O? I really need to wrap my head around the timeline of all this so it lines up with when we would like to be entering and leaving Thailand. Worth the effort to get us to this point! Are you saying that Mrs RoninTech should get the Non-O and extension and I should slide in as her spouse because women statistically live longer than men? I'll have to make sure I don't <deleted> her off then. ???? I just read that they will not issue an in country 90 day Non-O visa for the reason of being a spouse of someone on a retirement visa. Which jives with: To avoid both of us having to independently show the 800K in a Thai bank account, would it make more sense to apply for the Non-O based on retirement from Canada? It's $50 more expensive for the Non-o from Canada but if it means we can keep 800K working for us in Canada vs. stuck making nothing in a Thai account then that would be preferable. Very interesting. Haven't read that anywhere but awesome if true. Is this documented online anywhere? Would a current statement from our investment account be sufficient to give the Canadian embassy to get this affidavit? Also, does the Canadian consulate in Chiang Mai also provide these affidavits? Thanks skatewash, will definitely put some thought into the timeline of all of this so that it matches up with what we need to do. Thanks to everyone who has chipped in on this! When we started yesterday it was overwhelming but with all of your help, a way forward seems to be coalescing out of that chaos. ????

Thank you so much for steering us in the "wisest" direction Salerno and others. Until now we have always used this Vancouver consulate. When we browsed there today they now have this on the front page, pointing Canadians to the new thaievisa.go.th page that I have been quoting above in this thread. So we just used that link to the Thai gov page instead of using the links below this image. I completely agree that the Non O looks easier to setup for the 90 days based on the PDF you linked to. We will likely be in Chiang Mai after we get out of ASQ and have no issue going to the Airport Immigration office there. It has been good to us in the past for sure. Is a Non immigration O visa extension a no brainer? If so that would give us 30 + 30 on an exempt then 90 days on the O and another 90 on the O extension which would work great for hopefully minimal effort. How much is a Non O and it's extension when you are in Thailand?

Well that sucks. We asked Tangerine "Do you provide guarantee letters for account holders and how do we get one?". They replied: "Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately this is not a letter that Tangerine is able to provide clients". May I ask what Canadian bank you were able to get one through?

It is so hard to find the applicable info on the official website. There is no mention of "retirement" on their Non immigrant O visa page. Under requirements it also states: "4. Proof of relationship to a family in Thailand." which is what I meant above when I said that I thought the Non Immigrant O visa required a Thai persons involvement (spouse, child, parent). I absolutely believe you guys who have obviously been through this. It just brings in a bit of the fear factor when the Thai government website requirements conflicts with actual people's experiences. ????