Monthly Income 65k For Retirement Visa?

[Jockey]

Hopefully this is a straight forward question, but somehow I feel some of you will have different opinions because I can't seem to get a straight forward answer when I speak to my friends about it and my local Thai immigration folks don't seem to understand the question I'm asking them! I will try to keep this as simple as possible. 2,000 UK pounds, is currently worth just over 75,000 Thai baht. If I send 2k UK pounds every month from my UK bank into my Thai bank, and can show immigration my bank book having made these transfers on the same day each month for 12 straight months, will that be sufficient to satisfy the rules to qualify for a non immigration O retirement visa without having to have 800k baht or 400k baht in my account? I suppose the question relates to the rule that the foreigner must have evidence of having income of no less than THB 65,000 or 800k baht or 400k baht in his Thai bank account. What constitutes "evidence"? Will the Bank Book showing the regular money transfers be enough evidence?

 

The Guidelines for this matter are as follows:

(1) Must have been granted a non-immigrant visa (Non-Im)

(2) Must be 50 years of age or over

(3)  Must have evidence of having income of no less than THB 65,000 or;

(4) At least 2 months prior to filing date, and at least 3 months after being granted permission, the alien must have fund deposited in a bank in Thailand of no less than THB 800,000. The alien can withdraw the fund 3 months after being granted permission and the remaining balance must be no less than THB 400,00 or;

(5) Must have and annual earning and fund deposited with a commercial bank in Thailand totaling of no less than THB 800,000 until the filing date. The said fund must remain in the account prior to and after the permission is granted and the alien can make a withdrawal under the same conditions as stated in (4).

[Mike Teavee]

Straight forward answer is YES, as long as it

1. Comes over as an FTT (Foreign Transfer - How are you Transfering the money across as it doesn't always show as FTT with Transferwise)
2. Is transferred every month (Not 6k every quarter etc...)
3. Happens more or less around the same date every month

 

In addition to copies of your passbook, you will need a letter from the Bank showing the 12 payments & (depending on your Immigration Office) you might need proof of where the funds came from (Phuket is the only office that I've read are asking for proof of a Pension), which IO do you use?

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Mike Teavee

[jacko45k]

It is often helpful to state which Immigration Office you will be using, as requirements do vary.

As to your circumstances.

The deposits in your Thai account must clearly show they are international transfers.

No seasoned deposit would be necessary with excess of 65,000 p.c.m for 12 months.

Some offices want to see supporting evidence of where the money originated from and/or a further bank letter confirming the deposits ( along with the regular letter confirming the account).

 

 

[Jockey]

Thank you so much for your replies. I use Transferwise and this is what it looks like on my bank statement: 

11 Sep 2019 14:00

Interbank Transfer via SMART

75,145.91

1,040,450.32

AUTO

So you don't think this will be accepted because it doesn't state "International Transfer"? How about I also show them my UK Bank account statement which looks like this:

10 Sep 19

TRANSFERWISE

FPO

2,000.00

8,182.93

I can also take along the receipt of each transfer from Transferwise. So for each transaction I would have proof of the money going out of my UK bank account, receipt from Transferwise of the transfer from UK into the Bangkok Bank, and my Bangkok Bank bankbook statement, together with a letter from my bank.

 

My Immigration office is Hua Hin and I can show proof of a pension, but my pension only covers about 80% of the payment. If I can do this it will save me a load of money!

[BertM]

1 hour ago, Jockey said:

Thank you so much for your replies. I use Transferwise and this is what it looks like on my bank statement: 

11 Sep 2019 14:00

Interbank Transfer via SMART

75,145.91

1,040,450.32

AUTO

So you don't think this will be accepted because it doesn't state "International Transfer"? How about I also show them my UK Bank account statement which looks like this:

10 Sep 19

TRANSFERWISE

FPO

2,000.00

8,182.93

I can also take along the receipt of each transfer from Transferwise. So for each transaction I would have proof of the money going out of my UK bank account, receipt from Transferwise of the transfer from UK into the Bangkok Bank, and my Bangkok Bank bankbook statement, together with a letter from my bank.

 

My Immigration office is Hua Hin and I can show proof of a pension, but my pension only covers about 80% of the payment. If I can do this it will save me a load of money!

I would be very surprised if IM accepts the docs you mentioned. You can wait until it's time to renew to find out, but then if you get denied, what will you do. Or, you can start doing international Swift wire xfers so they get coded correctly or use the 800k method.

Good luck...

Edited September 12, 2019 by BertM

[Mike Teavee]

48 minutes ago, Jockey said:

Thank you so much for your replies. I use Transferwise and this is what it looks like on my bank statement: 

11 Sep 2019 14:00

Interbank Transfer via SMART

75,145.91

1,040,450.32

AUTO

So you don't think this will be accepted because it doesn't state "International Transfer"? How about I also show them my UK Bank account statement which looks like this:

10 Sep 19

TRANSFERWISE

FPO

2,000.00

8,182.93

I can also take along the receipt of each transfer from Transferwise. So for each transaction I would have proof of the money going out of my UK bank account, receipt from Transferwise of the transfer from UK into the Bangkok Bank, and my Bangkok Bank bankbook statement, together with a letter from my bank.

 

My Immigration office is Hua Hin and I can show proof of a pension, but my pension only covers about 80% of the payment. If I can do this it will save me a load of money!

All of my overseas transfers show up as "Intrabank Transfer via Smart" whereas in-country ones just show up as "Transfer" so I think you're ok, just make sure you check it every month and if anything looks strange be ready to send another payment via Swift or something.

 

The reason I say this is Transferwise will sometimes send you money from one of their other Bank accounts in Thailand so it will look like an internal (Thailand) transfer rather than an overseas one.

 

 

[emptypockets]

From what I understand Transferwise doesn't actually physically do any overseas transfers at all. They do internal national transfers from their own accounts only even though it appears to the end user that an international transfer has occurred. That's what my Aussie bank told me anyway.

No doubt they do some international transfers in their own accounts from time to time but for the end user it is a virtual transfer.

Happy to be proven wrong.

 

Edit to add cut and paste from TW which helps explain why immigration may have a problem.

 

If you want to convert your pounds to euros, you send the money in pounds to TransferWise’s UK-based account. The equivalent amount is then sent from TransferWise’s euro account to the recipient.

This smart system means that the money never actually moves across borders, and the currency conversion is done using the real mid-market exchange rate (as you would find in a newspaper or at xe.com). Doing things this way means that customers can avoid traditional banking fees altogether and they don’t lose money by transferring at an unfair rate (visit TransferWise).

 

Pretty well the same system the Knights Templar used over a thousand years ago.

Edited September 12, 2019 by emptypockets

[Mike Teavee]

30 minutes ago, emptypockets said:

From what I understand Transferwise doesn't actually physically do any overseas transfers at all. They do internal national transfers from their own accounts only even though it appears to the end user that an international transfer has occurred. That's what my Aussie bank told me anyway.

No doubt they do some international transfers in their own accounts from time to time but for the end user it is a virtual transfer.

Happy to be proven wrong.

 

Edit to add cut and paste from TW which helps explain why immigration may have a problem.

 

If you want to convert your pounds to euros, you send the money in pounds to TransferWise’s UK-based account. The equivalent amount is then sent from TransferWise’s euro account to the recipient.

This smart system means that the money never actually moves across borders, and the currency conversion is done using the real mid-market exchange rate (as you would find in a newspaper or at xe.com). Doing things this way means that customers can avoid traditional banking fees altogether and they don’t lose money by transferring at an unfair rate (visit TransferWise).

 

Pretty well the same system the Knights Templar used over a thousand years ago.

 

Yes, but sometimes (seems to happen more often than not with Bangkok bank) it does show up in your Passbook as an FTT (think it stands for Foreign Telext Transfer)

 

Seems to be a little hit or miss, hence my warning to the OP to be careful with the Xfe.rs, there have been people who have had no problem & others that have had the odd payment that didn't have the correct code in their Passbook.  

 

OP: There have been a couple of threads on here about this very point, I tried searching for them but couldn't find any might be worth you starting a new thread asking this specific point (at worse somebody will point you to the existing thread(s)).