Thailand’s long-term ‘high potential’ resident visa fee to be halved to ฿50,000

[Misty]

47 minutes ago, FriendlyFarang said:

Actually there are some details already, in the notes of the last cabinet meeting.

https://www.thaigov.go.th/news/contents/details/54442

Here a few "interesting" points:

So to sum it up:

To qualify for this visa (besides health insurance, 100k USD in bank etc.) you have to be employed at a company that's listed at a stock exchange and worth at least one million dollar (and you need to earn at least 80k USD per year), and you also need to show an employment contract with a Thai company.

Running a freelance gig back home won't cut it.

There are 4 different categories of LTR visas, and as you say the qualifications in your quote above apply to at least one of them - but do these qualifications apply to all 4? For example , highly skilled?

[Crisu]

21 hours ago, MadMac said:

Fee for a normal yearly extension is 1900B. Why would anyone pay 50k?

No need money in thai account, no need stress every year with tje extension?

[itsari]

Make a zero fee and have some success in attracting a future for Thailand

[FriendlyFarang]

26 minutes ago, Misty said:

There are 4 different categories of LTR visas, and as you say the qualifications in your quote above apply to at least one of them - but do these qualifications apply to all 4? For example , highly skilled?

At least this requirement " 3) Must show an employment contract or a service contract. with domestic business" should apply to all, because it's under the point "Determine the rules and conditions for [...] Wealthy Global Citizen, Wealthy Pensioner, People who want to work from Thailand (Work-From-Thailand Professional) and people with special skills (High-Skilled Professional) and dependents [...]", which are all four groups.

[gearbox]

2 hours ago, FriendlyFarang said:

Actually there are some details already, in the notes of the last cabinet meeting.

https://www.thaigov.go.th/news/contents/details/54442

Here a few "interesting" points:

So to sum it up:

To qualify for this visa (besides health insurance, 100k USD in bank etc.) you have to be employed at a company that's listed at a stock exchange and worth at least one million dollar (and you need to earn at least 80k USD per year), and you also need to show an employment contract with a Thai company.

Running a freelance gig back home won't cut it.

That sounds like nonsense. If one has an employment contract with a Thai company, then a work permit type of visa would be available, no need for money in bank and insurance, and Thai social security and health cover would be available as well.

[Lancelot01]

On 5/10/2022 at 4:53 PM, Onerak said:

Still waiting for this visa availability. 50K USD insurance checked. 100K USD in a foreign bank checked. 80K USD annual income for the last two years checked. 10 year visa. When is it available?

Renewable every five years. 

[jacko45k]

20 hours ago, gearbox said:

it is the uncertainty of the healthcare coverage as they get older, either too expensive or simply not available.

It certainly is a factor..... 

It may be available but be loaded with exclusions and require pre-pay too. What is the point of insurance if one has to bring the money here anyhow to prepay bills? I fear an insurance obligation attached to my retirement extension one day, yet self insurance, likely the best policy, will it be accepted?

[Andycoops]

Yet another desperate load of mumbo jumbo that will have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the number of people they want to actually come.

A better use of time would be streamlining the current plethora of visa options and making the process simple.

The immigration act is 40 years old and needs to be completely rewritten to reflect the 21st century and how people travel, live and work.

[plus7]

Hi,

 

Where do you think I can find new guidance they are referring to?

I'd like to read it completely.

[spidermike007]

17 hours ago, Onerak said:

How do you define rich? How much income or wealth is rich? Rich is a relative term depending on country or place of location. For example,  they did a survey and asked people across US how much money they need to earn to be called rich. In LA, the respondents said more than 120K but in Indianapolis people responded with 100K USD. Here is one analysis done at some research university. From this table, I see Thailand is only targeting the income of middle class Americans with this visa. Not even upper middle class, rich or ultra rich millionaires or billionaires. 

I would define rich as having over $5 million in easily convertible assets. Earning $120k a year is not rich, that is just the result of a very dumb survey. You can barely live well on $120k a year in LA. That is about $6000 a month after taxes. LA is stunningly expensive these days. I know folks in the US who earn over $200k a year, and barely have any savings. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by spidermike007

[Karma80]

17 hours ago, Wombo1 said:

Same as me, eagerly awaiting this 

Indeed. I'll add that chorus.

An elite visa doesn't cut it since I work remotely. Best you can get is vagueries regarding the legal status of that.

Most remote workers/consultants/freelancers I know are shielded by their own incorporated structure.

The certainty of a 10-year visa with WP that isn't reliant on a third party or Thai employer organisation provides a more stable platform to live here and build a life.

[Adumbration]

20 hours ago, Onerak said:

No where it's reported it will eliminate Non-O option. Introduction of O-X did not eliminate O-A. While live in imaginary fear? 

I do not live in fear.  I am afraid of no man. And only a few women.

[Onerak]

6 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I would define rich as having over $5 million in easily convertible assets. Earning $120k a year is not rich, that is just the result of a very dumb survey. You can barely live well on $120k a year in LA. That is about $6000 a month after taxes. LA is stunningly expensive these days. I know folks in the US who earn over $200k a year, and barely have any savings. 

That is my whole point. It is a relative term. Some people may consider themselves rich at 120K and others at 5 million. 

[BritManToo]

On 5/10/2022 at 10:32 PM, Adumbration said:

I also can't wait for this visa to go live.  Then the cost of living threads here will be a real hoot.  Instead of the usual knobs saying oh...I couldn't dream of getting by on anythingless than 100,000 a month we will have the 10 year visa guys saying oh....I couldn't dream of getting by on anything less than 500,000 per week....These dudes are going to make the guys with the Elite visa look like chimney sweeps...

........ assuming they have any takers ...........

I'm thinking almost nobody would be interested.

The compulsory health insurance is a deal killer for me, no matter what the other requirements.

[BritManToo]

18 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I would define rich as having over $5 million in easily convertible assets. Earning $120k a year is not rich, that is just the result of a very dumb survey. You can barely live well on $120k a year in LA. That is about $6000 a month after taxes. LA is stunningly expensive these days. I know folks in the US who earn over $200k a year, and barely have any savings. 

I've always defined 'rich' as not having to work, and not being wiped out if you lost the ability to work.

[RedCardinal]

On 5/10/2022 at 11:09 PM, Adumbration said:

Most people working in the internet - website space are not pulling down 80K pa.  And if they are they are in a crucial or management role and therefore (mostly) not allowed to work remotely.

I think you're very out of touch with Internet-related jobs and salaries.  If you have a good number of years experience $80K p.a. (even for remote work) is closer to baseline salaries than to extremes.  If you're anywhere near AI/data science the baseline is probably double that figure.

   

On 5/10/2022 at 11:09 PM, Adumbration said:

I could be wrong (I am more often than not) but I don't think there are going to be millions.

There may not be a huge demand for this visa type, but I'm pretty sure there are people currently here meeting these requirements who would gladly swap to this visa type to avoid wasted time and effort of annual renewals/extensions.  Not so sure it will attract many newcomers. 

[Alldar]

10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

........ assuming they have any takers ...........

I'm thinking almost nobody would be interested.

The compulsory health insurance is a deal killer for me, no matter what the other requirements.

What are better alternatives if you are under 50 and cannot use retirement visa?

 

I am seriously interested because I would like to relocate to Thailand and from what I have seen there are not a good options at all. METV is currently suspended in my country and that would only make 9 months with too much hassle with border runs every few months. Other possible option is education visa where you seriously have to learn Thai and you need to pay for school, extensions and pass the testing.

[BritManToo]

31 minutes ago, Alldar said:

What are better alternatives if you are under 50 and cannot use retirement visa?

Philippines,

Just as much fun, cheaper booze, and you can stay 3 years without a VISA.

[jacko45k]

14 hours ago, Alldar said:

What are better alternatives if you are under 50 and cannot use retirement visa?

Get married and a Marriage Extension.

Pay for an Elite Visa.

Enroll for some study, ED Visa, Thai language, Muay Thai.

 

[Alldar]

4 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Get married and a Marriage Extension.

Pay for an Elite Visa.

Enroll for some study, ED Visa, Thai language, Muay Thai.

 

Seems you haven't read the full post from BritManToo and me. BitManToo was complaining about bad conditions for this visa because of health insurance. How is Elite Visa better? It is the worst options of all, just pay <deleted>load of money for nothing. Here you need to pay health insurance just for 1 year and you will get benefits from it if something happen to you.

 

ED visa I am mentioning in my post. You have to seriously learn Thai and you need to pay for school, extensions and pass the testing. That alone will cost a lot of money and effort. Again, how is it better than this visa? And with ED visa for Muay Thai you cannot stay long term. I won't even consider that. Marriage extension? ????

[DjChris28]

So i'm a guy that actually meets the requirements for this at what is mentioned here. And it is still beneficial for me to work in my home country for 6 months, finish the contract work in Australia, end my rental, and then go to Thailand for another 6 months with all the money saved up rather than this visa...

 

Firstly, I pay over 30% tax in my home country. If Thailand are going to add 17% tax, that means I'll be paying 47% tax. Not worth it. Also finding a business structure which allows me to setup my company so i can be overseas is not easy either. So will Thailand honor double taxation agreements with this 17% tax or will I have to pay it on top of my taxes back home?

 

Normally in Thailand, if you stay less than 6 months, you are not a tax resident of Thailand. Will Thailand keep this rule? Meaning if I work on this visa but only spend 5 months in Thailand, I won't need to pay tax in the international (Income from my home country) income? That's a doable scenario. Kind of like how Columbia's digital nomad works.

 

And then there is the problem of residency. I'm Australian. I did some research on this on how this will work on the Australian end. So I can do this through a sole trader business, but a pty ltd (Proprietary limited company) company is a no go because Australia requires one of the directors of the company to be an Australian resident and maintain an Australian address.

What this means in laymans terms is while I could work remotely overseas, i'd still have to maintain an address back home in Australia which means i'm paying rent and flying home every 2 months to maintain the property gathering spider webs, this is along with paying 47% tax - What a bargain steal!). The only way out of this is to appoint a director to my company which costs more money, will need to write up a company constitution and get lawyers.

 

The way i'd setup for a sole trader living overseas would be to pay Australian taxes at the non resident rate. So the total tax look like Australian non resident tax rate + 17% tax Thailand wants.. while running as a sole trader..  ouch... Then I need australian employers to be ok doing business with an australian sole trader with an overseas address. I wonder how they will react to that as they have never seen anything like it!

 

Really Thailand should only tax on this visa if you can setup a company in Thailand instead or at least offer a tax free time period.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by DjChris28

[jacko45k]

17 hours ago, Alldar said:

Seems you haven't read the full post from BritManToo and me. BitManToo was complaining about bad conditions for this visa because of health insurance. How is Elite Visa better? It is the worst options of all, just pay <deleted>load of money for nothing. Here you need to pay health insurance just for 1 year and you will get benefits from it if something happen to you.

Don't shoot the messenger.

You need to look at the benefits of the Elite, they are far from 'nothing'.....that is nonsense.  You just want it all for free!

Health insurance in Thailand could well be described as paying for nothing actually. 

Edited May 14, 2022 by jacko45k

[Alldar]

9 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Don't shoot the messenger.

You need to look at the benefits of the Elite, they are far from 'nothing'.....that is nonsense.  You just want it all for free!

Health insurance in Thailand could well be described as paying for nothing actually. 

Excuse me, I don't want anything for free. This discussion is about the new LTR visa for 10 years which I think looks very good on paper if they make the conditions reasonable. You were saying that Elite is better option? Sorry but that is just nonsense. Elite might be better option only if you cannot get these new LTR visa. And even in that case I would rather go with education visa than Elite visa.

 

What are the benefits of the Elite? I haven't heard anything useful. VIP lane at the airport? Thanks, I'll pass on that.

Health insurance is not for nothing, if you don't have useless insurance company. And mandatory insurance is just for 10 months. You can get that for about $1000. How much is the Elite visa for 10 years?

Edited May 15, 2022 by Alldar

[kevc]

So they thought of a number and doubled it and then decided not to.

[DjChris28]

14 minutes ago, Alldar said:

Excuse me, I don't want anything for free. This discussion is about the new LTR visa for 10 years which I think looks very good on paper if they make the conditions reasonable. You were saying that Elite is better option? Sorry but that is just nonsense. Elite might be better option only if you cannot get these new LTR visa. And even in that case I would rather go with education visa than Elite visa.

 

What are the benefits of the Elite? I haven't heard anything useful. VIP lane at the airport? Thanks, I'll pass on that.

Health insurance is not for nothing, if you don't have useless insurance company. And mandatory insurance is just for 10 months. You can get that for about $1000. How much is the Elite visa for 10 years?

That's what I thought. Health insurance isn't bad. Shouldn't be more than $2000 for 10 months? That's alot better than having to hold 100K USD in a bank account.

 

And then there is earning above 80K USD per year which will stop quite alot of people but if you're a tech professional, should meet that requirement. The only issue I see is how I will be taxed. Will I be taxed on international sourced income from the foreign company? Remember that i'll be paying tax back home as well.

[Alldar]

16 minutes ago, DjChris28 said:

That's what I thought. Health insurance isn't bad. Shouldn't be more than $2000 for 10 months? That's alot better than having to hold 100K USD in a bank account.

 

And then there is earning above 80K USD per year which will stop quite alot of people but if you're a tech professional, should meet that requirement. The only issue I see is how I will be taxed. Will I be taxed on international sourced income from the foreign company? Remember that i'll be paying tax back home as well.

Yes, I think health insurance is very useful actually. It depends on which insurance company you have and how much is the deductible. From what I was checking it is starting at $1000 for one year with about $250 deductible. It depends of course on the insurance company. Some are more expensive.

 

There should be 4 groups of people who could use the new LTR visa. I think the 80K USD per year is condition just for one group (not all of them). Regarding taxes that is completely different subject. If I remember correctly they were saying that the income from abroad won't be taxed in Thailand (0% taxed). But we will need to wait until it is published in the Royal Gazette and all the conditions are clear.

[jacko45k]

14 hours ago, Alldar said:

Sorry but that is just nonsense. Elite might be better option only if you cannot get these new LTR visa. And even in that case I would rather go with education visa than Elite visa.

I was suggesting it is an alternative in the context of a question asked....

Quote

What are better alternatives if you are under 50 and cannot use retirement visa?

I also mentioned ED and Marriage Extension but you ignored that, so you could rant against the Elite option. Then above (quoted) you do say Elite could be a better option.... yeah, that is what I said!

Can't help some folks, better you stay home maybe. 

Edited May 15, 2022 by jacko45k

[Karma80]

On 5/15/2022 at 2:49 AM, DjChris28 said:

So i'm a guy that actually meets the requirements for this at what is mentioned here. And it is still beneficial for me to work in my home country for 6 months, finish the contract work in Australia, end my rental, and then go to Thailand for another 6 months with all the money saved up rather than this visa...

 

Firstly, I pay over 30% tax in my home country. If Thailand are going to add 17% tax, that means I'll be paying 47% tax. Not worth it. Also finding a business structure which allows me to setup my company so i can be overseas is not easy either. So will Thailand honor double taxation agreements with this 17% tax or will I have to pay it on top of my taxes back home?

 

Normally in Thailand, if you stay less than 6 months, you are not a tax resident of Thailand. Will Thailand keep this rule? Meaning if I work on this visa but only spend 5 months in Thailand, I won't need to pay tax in the international (Income from my home country) income? That's a doable scenario. Kind of like how Columbia's digital nomad works.

 

And then there is the problem of residency. I'm Australian. I did some research on this on how this will work on the Australian end. So I can do this through a sole trader business, but a pty ltd (Proprietary limited company) company is a no go because Australia requires one of the directors of the company to be an Australian resident and maintain an Australian address.

What this means in laymans terms is while I could work remotely overseas, i'd still have to maintain an address back home in Australia which means i'm paying rent and flying home every 2 months to maintain the property gathering spider webs, this is along with paying 47% tax - What a bargain steal!). The only way out of this is to appoint a director to my company which costs more money, will need to write up a company constitution and get lawyers.

 

The way i'd setup for a sole trader living overseas would be to pay Australian taxes at the non resident rate. So the total tax look like Australian non resident tax rate + 17% tax Thailand wants.. while running as a sole trader..  ouch... Then I need australian employers to be ok doing business with an australian sole trader with an overseas address. I wonder how they will react to that as they have never seen anything like it!

 

Really Thailand should only tax on this visa if you can setup a company in Thailand instead or at least offer a tax free time period.

In fairness, none of this is Thailand's problem with the visa. It's your particular tax residency and business structure which might mean that this isn't suitable for you as a sole trader/potential sole director.

 

Even then here's something to consider. Spoiler alert - you may not like it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/broken-flag-theory-taxation-digital-nomads-thailand-dr-ulrich-eder/

[DjChris28]

1 hour ago, Karma80 said:

In fairness, none of this is Thailand's problem with the visa. It's your particular tax residency and business structure which might mean that this isn't suitable for you as a sole trader/potential sole director.

 

Even then here's something to consider. Spoiler alert - you may not like it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/broken-flag-theory-taxation-digital-nomads-thailand-dr-ulrich-eder/

That link you sent won't apply on these digital nomad visas I would assume. Hence why they are being created.

As long as they don't tax international income and we can come and go on this visa (in 2 months, out 2 months, then back in 2 months etc), then it can work. If it isn't a multi entry visa for example this LTR visa (Which i doubt), then that would be a problem as it's a bit hard to maintain property back home for more than 3 months etc while being stuck in a foreign country.

[JimTripper]

According to the article it seems to say for the money I only need $100k in a bank in my home country? Is that correct, or do I need the $80k income also + $100k just to cover the medical?

 

"According to the revised guidelines, pensioners and wealthy foreigners, for instance, must have insurance coverage of at least US$50,000, to cover medical fees, which is valid for at least 10 months or a social security certificate covering their medical expenses while in Thailand or a cash deposit of at least US$100,000 in a domestic or a foreign bank account for 12 months before applying for the visa.

 

High-income earners must have an average annual income of US$80,000 for the two years prior to applying for the visa."

Edited May 16, 2022 by JimTripper