The Latest Info on Retirement Visas from Immigrations

[billsmart]

4 minutes ago, Thaidream said:

The Embassy could have easily  changed it's [procedure by  asking the applicant to bring in their proof of income statements (Pension letter; military retirement letter etc) and indicate that the applicant presented documentation showing  xxx amount of  income per month.  Have the applicant swear under Oath it is true and sign the form.  Of course- the disclaimer still there.  this would have easily  been accepted by Thai immigration and indicate the Embassy wasn't responsible for the content and the onus was on the applicant should there be a discrepancy.

IMO the Embassy has failed in this regard for an unknown reason=

I understand what you are saying, but unless the embassy would do more than that, would actually check to see if the information on the documents were true, what difference would that have made? It's still all comes down to the fact that it's the responsibility of the person to be truthful, not the responsibility of the notary to double-check them.

Now, if the embassy had, for example, and easy way to go online into the Social Security system, enter our name and SSN or passport, and verify the amount we are sent each month, that would have helped. But, they either can't do that or don't want to.

It is what it is.

[billsmart]

4 minutes ago, overherebc said:

This is an O-A visa.

Yes, and as I said all the images I posted are STAY EXTENSIONS. 

 

The "odd" part is that they (the ones I posted) are extensions to first, an O visa based on marriage (Thai Wife), and then seamlessly transition to extensions to an O-A (Retirement).

 

I have a nice, clean O-A visa stamp too. It was issued in 2010 and is in another, now expired, passport. In my present passport, I just have a very messy stamp showing the transfer of the O-A visa to the new passport.

[jacko45k]

1 hour ago, billsmart said:

No, that's not what I said. I did not use the word "lapse." I used the word "extension."

In my case, I had a valid O-A, but when its year was almost up, I went in and took all the paperwork to get an O visa based on marriage. They processed it, sent it away for approval, and gave me a 30-day extension to wait on the O visa. I went back in 30 days and got my O visa with a one-year stay based on marriage. 

A couple of years later, I did the same thing in reverse and now have an O-A visa.

 

There was no lapse involved. I suspect if there was, this couldn't have been done.

That doesn't make sense. Firstly you got an Extension on the Non-Imm-O based on marriage. Not a visa. Then it was a couple of years later, what did you do in-between, as presumably the extension expired? To get an O-A visa, you would need to return to your home country.

[overherebc]

14 minutes ago, billsmart said:

Yes, and as I said all the images I posted are STAY EXTENSIONS. 

 

The "odd" part is that they (the ones I posted) are extensions to first, an O visa based on marriage (Thai Wife), and then seamlessly transition to extensions to an O-A (Retirement).

 

I have a nice, clean O-A visa stamp too. It was issued in 2010 and is in another, now expired, passport. In my present passport, I just have a very messy stamp showing the transfer of the O-A visa to the new passport.

Nope.

What you have is an extension of stay because the O-A has fallen off the perch. It only serves as a basis for the extension.

The big difference is if you leave without a re-entry permit your extension will also fall of the perch.

If you still had a visa, which you don't, you wouldn't need a re-entry permit.

You cannot get an O-A VISA in Thailand. It is issued only in your own country or a country where you have residence and from an Embassy/Consulate of Thailand in that country.

Edited February 11, 2019 by overherebc

[Sheryl]

18 hours ago, ChouDoufu said:

 

 

...in their minds, either you have a big pot of money back home, or you're collecting a pension.  so they give you two options....deposit a chunk of money in a thai bank or prove you have a minimum monthly pension income that (rounded) is the equivalent sum over one year.

 

The problem with this is that it is ill-informed as to retirement income sources.  Americans in particular do not usually have pensions. And in pretty much all countries, where there are pensions, they rarely equal 65K a month. People with that level of income are often getting it through more than one source. Investment income such as dividends, rental income, annuities  etc. etc.

 

I personally have 3 guaranteed lifetime income streams. Only one is a "pension" and its value is negligible. But the 3 together total  over 65k and all 3 are absolutely guaranteed for life. in addition I have income from capital e.g. interest, dividends etc.

 

By the rules this should not matter, but some offices are reported to be wanting a letter form a "pension provider".

[marcusarelus]

8 minutes ago, overherebc said:

Nope.

What you have is an extension of stay because the O-A has fallen off the perch. It only serves as a basis for the extension.

The big difference is if you leave without a re-entry permit your extension will also fall of the perch.

If you still had a visa, which you don't, you wouldn't need a re-entry permit.

billsmart wrote, " And, by the way, I have switched from an O-A to an O based on marriage, and then back to an O-A without leaving Thailand."  

 

You are saying he did not, switch from an O-A to an O based on marriage, and then back to an O-A without leaving Thailand. 

[billsmart]

9 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

That doesn't make sense. Firstly you got an Extension on the Non-Imm-O based on marriage. Not a visa. Then it was a couple of years later, what did you do in-between, as presumably the extension expired? To get an O-A visa, you would need to return to your home country.

No. Let me go through it again...
 

• I first got an Type O-A (2010). (Singapore)
• I got yearly stay extensions through 2014.
• In 2015, I just went into my local Immigrations Office and "changed" it to an Type O - Marriage. I had to file a new application. (Phitsanoluk)
• At that time I was given a 30-day stay to wait on approval of the Type O.
• 30 days later I was given a one-year stay extension (see the photos of my passport I've posted, but no big stamp with a new visa.
• I stayed with the Type O marriage (Thai Wife) for a few years.
• Then in 2017, I again went in with a new application for a Type O-A (Retirement) and immediately "got" that. I never got a new visa stamp, but did then start getting stay extensions marked "Retirement." (Phitsanoluk)
• To this day I get my stay extensions based on the Type O-A requirements. (Phetchabun)

The only thing I can think of to explain this is that since I first had a Type O-A, I was allowed to go to a Type O, and then back to an O-A because they are both Type Os. Of course, I have no idea of what or how Immigrations navigated their way through all this. I only know what I have in my passport.

[Pattaya46]

Please stop that. 

Using wrong vocabulary make you impossible to understand

 

As several people told you already, you don't have an O-A visa,

you just have successive one-year EXTENSIONs OF STAY,

the first one for Marriage, the 2 last ones for Retirement.

 

Edit: You seem to think that because there is the word "Retirement" on the stamp, then you have a O-A... You are wrong. 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Pattaya46

[billsmart]

18 minutes ago, overherebc said:

Nope.

What you have is an extension of stay because the O-A has fallen off the perch. It only serves as a basis for the extension.

The big difference is if you leave without a re-entry permit your extension will also fall of the perch.

If you still had a visa, which you don't, you wouldn't need a re-entry permit.

 

My O-A never "fell off the perch" because I still have it. I just got my stay extended one-year last Friday. But about four or five years ago, I was able to get the one-year extensions on the basis of an O (Marriage) visa. Look at the photos I posted. Then, a couple of years ago, I started getting one-year extensions based on an O-A (Retirement) visa. I have no explanations for this, but this is what happened.

 

This has nothing to do with re-entry permits. I haven't left Thailand now in about six or seven years.

[jacko45k]

It might be simpler to refer to them as Extensions based on marriage, or retirement, They are not a visa of any type nor referred to as O or O-A. I suggest you are from Oz where they seem to refer to the O-A Visa as a retirement Visa.... 

Have you also renewed your passport? The transfer stamp will refer back to the type of visa you had. Your habit of calling Extensions based on marriage type O, and those based on retirement type O-A is confusing and I don't know where you get it from.

Edited February 11, 2019 by jacko45k

[elviajero]

8 hours ago, Spidey said:

And how do all the other embassies do it who haven't ceased the income letters?

They don’t.

[overherebc]

4 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

billsmart wrote, " And, by the way, I have switched from an O-A to an O based on marriage, and then back to an O-A without leaving Thailand."  

 

You are saying he did not, switch from an O-A to an O based on marriage, and then back to an O-A without leaving Thailand. 

He did not get an O-A visa in Thailand.

He got an extension of stay.

Many posters call a retirement extension an O-A visa for some obscure reason.

The main reason correct naming is required is because of the different conditions for issue and use especially leaving and re-entering with or without a re-entry permit.

O-A visa within it's validity

( 1 year ) you can leave and return weekly and it stays valid.

Leave and enter on it's use by/expiry date you get 1 more year. At that time the visa becomes invalid and you are on a 1 year permission to stay and you require re-entry permits to keep that one year valid, you have NOT extended the visa, you have converted it.

It's only uses are to look pretty in your passport and show you have a reason for a 1 year permit to stay ( sometimes called an extension ???? )

[billsmart]

5 minutes ago, Pattaya46 said:

Please stop that. 

As several people told you already, you don't have an O-A visa,

you just have successive one-year EXTENSIONs OF STAY,

the first one for Marriage, the 2 last ones for Retirement.

That doesn't make sense to me (like a lot of things in Thailand).

 

Are you saying that if you were issued a Type O, you could extend your stay by either qualifying using the requirements for a Type O or the requirements for a Type O-A? 

And, I assume it wouldn't work in reverse: holding a Type O-A, but trying to extend by using the requirements of a Type O.

Is this what you're saying?

[jacko45k]

2 minutes ago, billsmart said:

That doesn't make sense to me (like a lot of things in Thailand).

 

Are you saying that if you were issued a Type O, you could extend your stay by either qualifying using the requirements for a Type O or the requirements for a Type O-A? 

And, I assume it wouldn't work in reverse: holding a Type O-A, but trying to extend by using the requirements of a Type O.

Is this what you're saying?

My friend, you sound as confused as those IOs in Phetchabun.

The requirements for a Non-Imm O-A Visa do not match those of a retirement extension. No medical or police report.  You need to simply remember a Visa can only be obtained OUTSIDE of the country.

[Andrew Dwyer]

My O-A never "fell off the perch" because I still have it. I just got my stay extended one-year last Friday. But about four or five years ago, I was able to get the one-year extensions on the basis of an O (Marriage) visa. Look at the photos I posted. Then, a couple of years ago, I started getting one-year extensions based on an O-A (Retirement) visa. I have no explanations for this, but this is what happened.
 
This has nothing to do with re-entry permits. I haven't left Thailand now in about six or seven years.

Maybe it went like this ?

You had an OA , it expired,you stayed on extensions for a few years.
You converted to an O, it expired, you got extensions based on marriage.
Then you changed to extensions based on retirement ?

[Thaidream]

2 minutes ago, billsmart said:

My O-A never "fell off the perch" because I still have it. I just got my stay extended one-year last Friday. But about four or five years ago, I was able to get the one-year extensions on the basis of an O (Marriage) visa. Look at the photos I posted. Then, a couple of years ago, I started getting one-year extensions based on an O-A (Retirement) visa. I have no explanations for this, but this is what happened.

The fact is that you have an active Extension of stay based off an original O Visa or O-A. and just got a new extension of stay.

The purpose of the thread is to ascertain if Phetchabun Immigration has provided the correct interpretation of the new change not how you got your Original O Visa.

They appear to  believe that in 2020 the only way to get an income based retirement extension is via an Embassy Letter and if you cannot get one then you have to use 800K in the bank.  No transfer of 65K per month allowed.

 

If I am correct- the OP was informed of this as the change for 2020 and given some documentation.

 

I, and others believe Phetchabun Immigration is incorrect and confused.  The new changes do not read that way on the Immigration website and in fact other Immigration offices who have granted extensions based upon Embassy Letters  for the 4  Nationalities that can no longer get them have indicated that 65K in the Thai account each month is the  only way . Those other Nationalities can still use their Embassy Letter.

 

There is plenty of confusion out there and we can only rely on what is reported by members,  Thanks to the OP for reporting what happened. Let's see what others are reporting from other offices as well as monitor the Immigration Website for any updates.

[skatewash]

4 minutes ago, billsmart said:

No. Let me go through it again...
 

• I first got an Type O-A (2010). (Singapore)
• I got yearly stay extensions through 2014.
• In 2015, I just went into my local Immigrations Office and "changed" it to an Type O - Marriage. I had to file a new application. (Phitsanoluk)
• At that time I was given a 30-day stay to wait on approval of the Type O.
• 30 days later I was given a one-year stay extension (see the photos of my passport I've posted, but no big stamp with a new visa.
• I stayed with the Type O marriage (Thai Wife) for a few years.
• Then in 2017, I again went in with a new application for a Type O-A (Retirement) and immediately "got" that. I never got a new visa stamp, but did then start getting stay extensions marked "Retirement." (Phitsanoluk)
• To this day I get my stay extensions based on the Type O-A requirements. (Phetchabun)

The only thing I can think of to explain this is that since I first had a Type O-A, I was allowed to go to a Type O, and then back to an O-A because they are both Type Os. Of course, I have no idea of what or how Immigrations navigated their way through all this. I only know what I have in my passport.

I think I can see where the misunderstanding is arising.

 

 

You're using the term Type O-A to describe an extension of stay issued for the purpose of retirement.  This is what I and perhaps others would simply call a type O-Retirement extension.  At some point, you switched the reason for your extension from Retirement to Marriage, what I think most would call a type O-Marriage extension.  Finally, you switched the reason for your extension to a type O-Retirement extension.

 

I think the confusion is that when I hear Type O-A (longstay) visa I think of what you can only obtain outside of Thailand at a Thai embassy or consulate where you are a legal resident.  When you get to the end of your last permission to stay on that Type O-A visa, you can extend that as a Type O (not Type O-A) for either retirement (Type O-Retirement) or marriage (Type O-Marriage).  You can switch between those if you want to changing the reason for your stay from marriage to retirement.

 

In other words, Type O-A (longstay) is always used to refer to a visa, any extension you get to that visa is a Type O due to either Retirement or Marriage.  When you say you got a Type O-A extension from within Thailand it sounds strange because to me a Type O-A is only a visa, never an extension, and cannot be obtained from within Thailand.

 

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

My friend, you sound as confused as those IOs in Phetchabun.

The requirements for a Non-Imm O-A Visa do not match those of a retirement extension. No medical or police report.  You need to simply remember a Visa can only be obtained OUTSIDE of the country.

I was always led to believe it had ot be in your country of origin or country of residence. The OP claims to have obtained it in Singapore.

[jacko45k]

3 minutes ago, Spidey said:

I was always led to believe it had ot be in your country of origin or country of residence. The OP claims to have obtained it in Singapore.

Correct for O-A, O-X and maybe METV. But some can be obtained in nearby ones, like a Non Imm O based on Thai wife or dependents.

Edited February 11, 2019 by jacko45k

[billsmart]

15 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

It might be simpler to refer to them as Extensions based on marriage, or retirement, They are not a visa of any type nor referred to as O or O-A. I suggest you are from Oz where they seem to refer to the O-A Visa as a retirement Visa.... 

Have you also renewed your passport? The transfer stamp will refer back to the type of visa you had. Your habit of calling Extensions based on marriage type O, and those based on retirement type O-A is confusing and I don't know where you get it from.

I'm from the US.

The Type O-A visa is regularly referred to as a "Retirement visa" even Thai Immigration officers. I know it's not exclusively for retirees, but even in my passport, my extensions are marked in red with the word "Retirement."

 

A Type O visa, to my knowledge, can be issued based on qualifications of marriage or guardian. There might be more. But, it too is commonly referred to (and by Thai Immigration officers) as a "Marriage visa," and even in my passport, my extension are marked in red with the words "Thai Wife" when I used those criteria to qualify for a stay extension.

I'm not claiming to know more about the Thai immigration system that everyone else. I'm just telling you what I was told - by them - what I am required to do, and what I can see in my passport.

[billsmart]

16 minutes ago, Spidey said:

I was always led to believe it had ot be in your country of origin or country of residence. The OP claims to have obtained it in Singapore.

Yes, I obtained my O-A in Singapore in 2010 at the US Embassy there.

 

NO! I just looked at my old passport, and the visa I was issued in Singapore at the THAI embassy in 2004 and was an O. It doesn't say what kind of O.

Edited February 11, 2019 by billsmart
Correcting Document

[skatewash]

1 minute ago, Spidey said:

I was always led to believe it had ot be in your country of origin or country of residence. The OP claims to have obtained it in Singapore.

He could have been living (resident with permission to stay) in Singapore.  I think the thing that's causing confusion is that most people I think would say that he has been extending an O visa (Type O-A being a special type of O visa) for purposes of retirement or marriage.  It sounds odd to say that his last switch was from an extension for purpose of marriage (O-Marriage) to purpose of retirement which he is calling an O-A and I think most would just call that an O-Retirement.  The A in O-A implies to me that the visa was obtained outside of Thailand and I don't recall hearing anyone saying that they extended an O-A visa but rather an O visa.

[Spidey]

18 minutes ago, elviajero said:

They don’t.

They ask for proof of income and then declare in your income letter what proof you have given. It's semantics around the word verification. Are they verifying your income or verifying the documents? It would appear, as other embassies continue to have their letters accepted by TI, that TI are only requiring embassies to verify income. i.e. peruse the documents you provide and verify that your income is as shown on the documents. I doubt that they have ever been asked to verify the documents.

[jacko45k]

6 minutes ago, billsmart said:

But even in my passport, my extensions are marked in red with the word "Retirement."

But they are certainly not labelled as Visas nor as O-A, but as Extension of Stay.

Edited February 11, 2019 by jacko45k

[jacko45k]

1 minute ago, billsmart said:

Yes, I obtained my O-A in Singapore in 2010 at the US Embassy there.

Aha, didn't know you could do that. My apologies.

So the USA Embassy was issuing Thailand Non Imm OA Visas?

I would expect maybe passports.

Edited February 11, 2019 by jacko45k

[Spidey]

Just now, jacko45k said:

Aha, didn't know you could do that. My apologies.

Unless you are resident there, neither did I.

[Spidey]

3 minutes ago, billsmart said:

Yes, I obtained my O-A in Singapore in 2010 at the US Embassy there.

Do you mean the Thai embassy in Singapore?

[doctormann]

Perhaps the OP could post an image of his original O-A Visa - which he has in an expired passport.

O-A Visas are clearly marked with the Embassy or Consulate that issues them.  Mine, from 2004, is marked RTE London.

[billsmart]

Yes, I just dug out my old passport and it was in 2004 at the Thai embassy in Singapore, and it was an O visa, not an O-A. 

[pmarlin]

After spending a couple of hours reading all this and the OP post and replies I understand how the OP got confused.  Maybe he should take copies of the two new police orders to his IO and get a clarification from them.