Long Term Resident Visas

[BritTim]

4 hours ago, mudcat said:

Does the USD 80,000 need to move to Thailand  and if so how much of it?

I cannot see how (at least for nationalities that cannot get income letters from their embassies) any other solution than transferring $80,000 a year to Thailand could provide the necessary evidence. They are not just going to take your word for it.

[BritTim]

5 hours ago, Tofer said:

Property goes up, if you buy knowledgably, i.e. right time and right place.

Almost everything goes up if you buy and sell at the right time. There are plenty of people who end up forced into bankruptcy by misjudged real estate decisions.

[Mike Teavee]

On 6/18/2022 at 11:15 PM, Sparktrader said:

Elite visa 500k. No other hassles

Cambodia $us300 no other hassles fly into thailand. In and out. 

 

250k us in bonds is a lot of dead money.

Elite Visa is now 600K for 5 years but worth it for guys who are <50, not married to a Thai & want a (visa) hassle free life. 

 

One thing I hadn't realised is that during the lifespan of your 5 year visa, you can pay the extra 400K & upgrade to the 20 year Elite Visa...  

[Mike Teavee]

On 6/18/2022 at 11:55 PM, bojo said:

I would imagine it's in Thailand's interests to get a 10 year committment from 'wealthy individuals' and that all previous investments would count towards one's required investment........just a matter of changing visas hopefully........................................ Financially, with an upfront fee, the treasury's coffer will benefit too as some expats unfortunately won't out-live or stay the whole the 10 years........................................................

 

I agree with your reasoning, but this is Thailand (TiT) so I'm > 90% confident that it will require "Fresh" investment (hope I'm wrong). 

 

But if you do have the financial means to be able to meet the requirements, why wouldn't you just pay 1Million THB & get an Elite Visa (I keep asking myself the same question as I have 800K deadweight in the bank & think why not just add 200K to it & be done with any visa hassles for the next 20 years).

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Mike Teavee

[Misty]

2 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

I agree with your reasoning, but this is Thailand (TiT) so I'm > 90% confident that it will require "Fresh" investment (hope I'm wrong). 

 

But if you do have the financial means to be able to meet the requirements, why wouldn't you just pay 1Million THB & get an Elite Visa (I keep asking myself the same question as I have 800K deadweight in the bank & think why not just add 200K to it & be done with any visa hassles for the next 20 years).

 

 

 

Thai elite seems to work well if you're really retired.  But if not, you can't legally work in Thailand using Thai elite. 

[Tofer]

17 hours ago, Tofer said:

No, but it's completely wiped out as a fee, gone, finished, never to be returned.

 

23 hours ago, Sparktrader said:

Ok my mistake. Still a lot cheaper than 250k usd which is 8.5m baht.

 

 

If you live another 30 years, that's B3.6M @ B600k per 5 year Elite visa, down the pan, and probably more as they increase the fees again.

[mudcat]

Quote

Does the USD 80,000 need to move to Thailand  and if so how much of it?

I cannot see how (at least for nationalities that cannot get income letters from their embassies) any other solution than transferring $80,000 a year to Thailand could provide the necessary evidence. They are not just going to take your word for it.

I understand your point about Immigration taking an Embassy letter at face value particularly one from the U.S. Embassy which was simply a notarized statement.  My hope here is that with this visa being processed centrally there would be someone capable of evaluating the the evidence one provides - in my case it would be a government pension verification letter and my Social Security benefit statement.  As the article referenced set the threshold in U.S. Dollars the reviewer would not even need to get out their calculator to convert the currencies.   I note that both of my retirement income streams are lifetime - so they may qualify unlike those with a fluctuating income dependent upon the housing or stock market.

 

The next bullet point in the linked article below income option includes a lower income threshold together with an investment.   We will see what evidence they will accept from pensioners, but I can't imagine too many pensioners smart/lucky enough to qualify  a  >$80,000 annual pre-tax pension would be willing to bring in >=$2.5 million baht per year or 200,000 baht per month - I know I wouldn't.

[Tofer]

12 hours ago, BritTim said:

Almost everything goes up if you buy and sell at the right time. There are plenty of people who end up forced into bankruptcy by misjudged real estate decisions.

Absolutely. I recall a programme on property investors in the UK BTL market, wherein a guy was boasting he owned 5m pounds of property, in actual fact he owned nothing because he bought developer units through a devious loan mechanism with 125% mortgages.

 

Seriously misguided....! Or more correctly, greedy and inept.

[Tofer]

2 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

One thing I hadn't realised is that during the lifespan of your 5 year visa, you can pay the extra 400K & upgrade to the 20 year Elite Visa...  

Neither had I, hence my previous post.... ????

[BritTim]

40 minutes ago, Misty said:

Thai elite seems to work well if you're really retired.  But if not, you can't legally work in Thailand using Thai elite. 

It depends. If you are a digital nomad, with only foreign clients, there is no issue working on an Elite visa.

[BritTim]

16 minutes ago, Tofer said:

 

If you live another 30 years, that's B3.6M @ B600k per 5 year Elite visa, down the pan, and probably more as they increase the fees again.

That can be a good argument for getting the 20-year Elite membership. It protects you against the almost certain changes to the requirements over time for retirement extensions.

[howerde]

17 hours ago, mudcat said:

I await the details.

Does this free up the "car in the carport" 400,000/800,000 baht bank deposit?

Moving visa to a new passport same as moving an extension?

Does the USD 80,000 need to move to Thailand  and if so how much of it?

My limited understanding is that these LTR visas can only be applied for outside the country, via embassy and consulates, details seem rather sketchy and not much info on the health insurance requirement( i wonder if the wording required will mean you end up having to purchase the insurance via a Thai insurance company) i very much doubt the money can sit in your home country, but lets see. and you have to visit immigration every year "lets see what immigration want to see"

[Misty]

6 minutes ago, BritTim said:

It depends. If you are a digital nomad, with only foreign clients, there is no issue working on an Elite visa.

When you say "no issue" do you mean that it's legal to work in Thailand, or that you're unlikely to encounter a problem or get caught?

[GroveHillWanderer]

On 6/19/2022 at 10:13 AM, Tofer said:

Our investment is property, and we have no intention of selling unless we're made a ridiculous offer. But even then, we still own the remainder of our land in our chosen location, and would build ourselves another home, and will continue to qualify.

Just to be clear, when you say "our investment is in property" and "we still own the remainder of our land", are you saying that you as a foreigner, own land in Thailand?

[Tofer]

29 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

Just to be clear, when you say "our investment is in property" and "we still own the remainder of our land", are you saying that you as a foreigner, own land in Thailand?

Let's not start that little nugget. Of course I don't own the land, it's we as in my Thai wife and I.

 

Although, we could easily form a company in which I could own 49%, which would justify the declaration of "we".

Edited June 20, 2022 by Tofer

[Tofer]

42 minutes ago, BritTim said:

That can be a good argument for getting the 20-year Elite membership. It protects you against the almost certain changes to the requirements over time for retirement extensions.

I've just checked the Elite visa scheme, and you still have to get annual extensions, and make 90 day reports. Plus the concierge facilities are limited to specific areas of the country.

 

I would therefore say that the LTR scheme is preferable at only B50K for 10 years , for those that can prove the required income / investment, subject to sight of the full details of the scheme.

[Tofer]

On 6/18/2022 at 6:00 PM, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

I doubt it would be as simple as filing the 90 day report of address.

I would suggest it wouldn't then be called a 90 day report then, perhaps an annual extension, as with the Elite visa.

 

However, let's wait and see what transpires in terms of detailed conditions, when they eventually launch it in September.

 

On the surface, it appears a desirable option, for those that can qualify.

[howerde]

On 6/19/2022 at 10:13 AM, Tofer said:

Fair point, no mention of that as yet. But, I assume it can't be any worse than the current marriage visa extension requirements in terms of bureaucracy , and if all your documents are in order, it's just a copy and repeat exercise, hopefully.

 

I would agree, there would possibly be some mechanism to ensure that you are still invested in Thailand in the sums required.

 

Our investment is property, and we have no intention of selling unless we're made a ridiculous offer. But even then, we still own the remainder of our land in our chosen location, and would build ourselves another home, and will continue to qualify.

If you investments/savings are in joint names/company etc, how do you know you will qualify. everything might need to be in your name only, as per other visas, not having a go just curios, i don't qualify for this, but i have an 0-X visa that gives me 10 years and dont need anything like the proposed visa requirements, and as a bonus i was told i do not have to attend immigration every year to show my documents.(of course you need to be from 1 of the 10 countries that can apply) 

[BritTim]

3 hours ago, Misty said:

When you say "no issue" do you mean that it's legal to work in Thailand, or that you're unlikely to encounter a problem or get caught?

I mean that the authorities knows it goes on and, whatever the letter of the law might dictate, have decided to tolerate it. If you are not competing with Thais for jobs or customers, there is no good reason to spend resources trying to enforce a law that is anyway rather problematic. If the authorities did want to prevent people working for overseas companies, would that mean that people checking business email while on holiday would be violating Thai labour laws? Where would you draw the line? It is much better just to have a simple test: are you doing some task that would often be done by a Thai if not done by you? If not, take no action.

[BritTim]

3 hours ago, Tofer said:

I've just checked the Elite visa scheme, and you still have to get annual extensions, and make 90 day reports. Plus the concierge facilities are limited to specific areas of the country.

 

I would therefore say that the LTR scheme is preferable at only B50K for 10 years , for those that can prove the required income / investment, subject to sight of the full details of the scheme.

It is true that, if you never travel, you need to get an extension each time you have been 12 months in Thailand without leaving. No extensions are required if you (as most people who are comfortably off do) make occasional trips outside the country. If you do need to extend, the only requirement is your Thailand Elite membership, and there will be no additional requirements for the duration of your current Thailand Elite membership.

 

What most people fail to factor into their decision making on Thailand Elite is the advantage of locking in the ability to travel in and out of Thailand, and stay as long as you want with the conditions for doing so being known. In particular, those planning on staying decades in Thailand on retirement extensions are making a real leap of faith in assuming they will be able to meet whatever the requirements for this will be years ahead.

 

If the LTR scheme had no other requirements other than 50k baht application fee for a 10-year stay, that would obviously be better than Thailand Elite. I am quite sure, however, that there will be other requirements, probably for the retirement option including unobtainable health insurance (as the O-X visa does).

[Tofer]

2 hours ago, howerde said:

If you investments/savings are in joint names/company etc, how do you know you will qualify. everything might need to be in your name only, as per other visas, not having a go just curios, i don't qualify for this, but i have an 0-X visa that gives me 10 years and dont need anything like the proposed visa requirements, and as a bonus i was told i do not have to attend immigration every year to show my documents.(of course you need to be from 1 of the 10 countries that can apply) 

All the foreign transfers for land purchase & development funds came through my personal bank account, with the requisite Foreign Exchange Transfer Forms / receipts of deposits, which the bank designated purpose 318069 (condo purchase). So, assuming, historic investments can be applied retrospectively, there's no issue.

 

Having said that, I believe if you can show an income in excess of $80k, on the wealthy pensioner basis, you don't need to show the investment, so it may be a mute point, mitigating the objections some have regarding the large investment.

 

I don't see any real benefits from an O-X visa, especially considering;

1. The amount of money you need to retain in a Thai bank account.
2. 90 day reporting still required.
3. Expensive health insurance, especially as you're required to provide outpatients as well as inpatient cover.

I currently have a Marriage visa annual extension with no insurance requirement, and no requirement to leave any funds in my account after the 2 month seed period. I have no real issue with this status, but saw the LTR visa as a positive improvement for those with the means to qualify, for a nominal additional annual fee, and the benefits noted in my original post.

[Tofer]

20 minutes ago, BritTim said:

If the LTR scheme had no other requirements other than 50k baht application fee for a 10-year stay, that would obviously be better than Thailand Elite. I am quite sure, however, that there will be other requirements, probably for the retirement option including unobtainable health insurance (as the O-X visa does).

From what is currently reported, there are no other requirements, so as long as you qualify with the requisite financial evidence, it would appear less onerous than the O-X, and far cheaper than the Elite, and gives more benefits to working applicants.

 

Fingers crossed there are no health insurance conditions, and since the Elite does not require health insurance, why would the LTR necessarily be any different.

 

Obviously I'm playing devils advocate here, since nobody yet knows the full detailed conditions, we will all have to wait and see in September. It has, however, been very interesting to see the alternative options presented in this post, and has made me look closely at the alternatives.

 

Hopefully a healthy and informative debate for all interested parties.

[spidermike007]

On 6/18/2022 at 12:13 PM, GroveHillWanderer said:

Your post seems to imply the only financial requirement is to pay them 50,000 Baht for the visa.

 

However you don't mention the other financial requirements, which I reckon would be the major stumbling block for a lot of people (especially retirees).

 

You basically have to have a yearly income of $80,000 or more - either from a pension if you're retired or from work if you're not.

 

Alternatively if you're retired and don't meet the income level, you have to invest at least $250,000 in "Thai government bonds, foreign direct investment or Thai property."

 

Full details are on the link below - it's a lot more complicated than you make it sound.

 

Guide to Thailand's new long-term resident visa from 1 Sep 2022

That sounds more like it. Many of us would pay the 50,000 baht, to be in a position to not have to deal with immigration each year, to renew our visas. That would be a bargain. And when it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

[BritTim]

2 hours ago, Tofer said:

From what is currently reported, there are no other requirements, so as long as you qualify with the requisite financial evidence, it would appear less onerous than the O-X, and far cheaper than the Elite, and gives more benefits to working applicants.

 

Fingers crossed there are no health insurance conditions, and since the Elite does not require health insurance, why would the LTR necessarily be any different.

 

Obviously I'm playing devils advocate here, since nobody yet knows the full detailed conditions, we will all have to wait and see in September. It has, however, been very interesting to see the alternative options presented in this post, and has made me look closely at the alternatives.

 

Hopefully a healthy and informative debate for all interested parties.

While looking at alternatives, have you looked at the Thai Investment Visa? To many, this looks good until you examine the details. The financials seem reasonably OK until you look at the limitations on the allowable investments, and discover that past investments in Thailand are not accepted.

[GroveHillWanderer]

3 hours ago, Tofer said:

Fingers crossed there are no health insurance conditions, and since the Elite does not require health insurance, why would the LTR necessarily be any different.

The link to the requirements has been posted several times in the different discussions on this.

 

As it states, the LTR visa requires:

 

Quote

Health insurance of at least US$50,000 coverage or social security benefits insuring treatment in Thailand, or at least US$100,000 deposit.

 

[Chevol]

How do you even apply for the LTR visa? I can't find any agencies that deal with it nor a site where you can apply. Do I need to reach out to the BOI directly?

[Caldera]

10 hours ago, Chevol said:

How do you even apply for the LTR visa? I can't find any agencies that deal with it nor a site where you can apply. Do I need to reach out to the BOI directly?

It isn't available yet, so as of now, you can't apply.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Caldera

[Dart12]

On 6/18/2022 at 11:15 PM, Sparktrader said:

Elite visa 500k. No other hassles

Cambodia $us300 no other hassles fly into thailand. In and out. 

 

250k us in bonds is a lot of dead money.

What is the Cambodia reference about?

[Tofer]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:16 PM, BritTim said:

While looking at alternatives, have you looked at the Thai Investment Visa? To many, this looks good until you examine the details. The financials seem reasonably OK until you look at the limitations on the allowable investments, and discover that past investments in Thailand are not accepted.

No, I haven't, and since you point out the criteria about not allowing historic investments, I won't bother.

[Tofer]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:33 PM, GroveHillWanderer said:

As it states, the LTR visa requires:

 

Quote

Health insurance of at least US$50,000 coverage or social security benefits insuring treatment in Thailand, or at least US$100,000 deposit.

That could be a deal breaker, depending on the details of the coverage required.