kinyara

Nice cheery article to get us in the Christmas spirit.

Is there a 1 year retirement visa option in Vietnam yet ? Surely that's the major consideration for a retiree, all the rest is pretty pointless if you can't actually stay there long-term.

If I wasn't already retired in Thailand but dead set at making the move, if I was planning on bring in the money to purchase big ticket items like a condo and a car, that would be the year I managed my time in country to less than 180 days.

I was talking about those on retirement visa status. The Japanese would certainly have been the biggest community of working foreigners back then and are probably still significant in the business community but they would already be taxpayers under income tax regulations. I seriously doubt the Japanese figure significantly in the currently retiree population affected by this tax law change

As you say it is hard to generalise, if they have all the above are they really likely to uproot themselves and potentially family to save what in reality with personal allowances a relatively small amount of tax.

I don't even think there is even a couple of hundred thousand retired expats in the country. I'm sure I read a figure of 60,000 quoted by the head honcho a few years ago. I think we generally overstate our importance.

They are likely attracting a lot of new longer term stayers under the new DTV visa, more flexible/mobile under 50's staying up 180 days as opposed to the over 50 retirees who may alter their personal spend. They may lose on one policy change and gain with another.

I agree with your approach if that works better for you, I'd do it myself if it became too significant a liability or too onerous admin wise. You can shout it from the rooftops for your personal satisfaction, but I doubt your local immigration officer or government official gives a monkey's about your decision. You and maybe even a few thousand expats departing pale into insignificance in the grand scheme of things especially with tourist numbers growing by millions each year again.

I didn't bring in anything this year to see how it pans out enforcement/admin wise for others who did by March 2025. I won't be making any changes to my spending in 2025, I own my condo so my annual spend is relatively modest. Looking at the annual allowances my potential tax liability would be around the 10k mark, I believe some on here pay around that for an agent for their visa renewal to save a bit of hassle and 40 minutes of time over a year, so I'm not going to affect a year of lifestyle for the same amount.

Looks like they will be 50% up on last year but still significantly down compared to the 2019 peak. 6.2 million year to date November compared to 11.0 million in 2019.

I've always used my driving licence without an issue at Jomtien immigration. It's one of the forms of address ID they list as acceptable. A copy of your blue book showing the same address just as back-up.

Exactly that's valuable productive time that can be spent sitting at your computer reading and posting thousands of comments on this forum

Arrive from November/December leave from March/April is the normal pattern I would say.

Economic forecasting is normal in all countries, governments rely on it as part of their overall financial/policy planning. Tourism is obviously one of the larger sectors here so gets more focus and reporting. Thailand does seek and cater to quality tourists, however in my view it has always been a primarily a mass market destination. The government relies on it to absorb a labour force of limited skills and education.

I look positively at it this way, the guys using agents make it easier for those of us that do it ourselves by firstly reducing queuing time and secondly lining the pockets of the immigration staff. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've experienced it getting easier and quicker year by year, Really they are doing us a favour, thanks guys.