LTR Visa is Now available for Long Term Residency

[DrJack54]

Can't help but think of the USA car......Tucker 48

[Misty]

1 hour ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I would say there are enough details to say that's the total fee for 10 years. It's what's been annnounced and there's no hint of any additional fees being required.

 

What the main issue would be for most people, I suspect, are the relatively onerous financial requirements to qualify in the first place.

 

That's basically, whether working or not, having $80,000 a year in income; for "Wealthy Global Citizens," having in addition, a minimum of $1 million in assets and an investment in Thailand of $500,000; for retirees, having in addition to the income requirement, an investment of $250,000 in Thailand. 

 

If I'm being honest, I don't expect to see a whole bunch of people both qualifying and applying for this new LTR visa.

Yup, I'd agree. Yet some will.

[ThailandRyan]

1 hour ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I would say there are enough details to say that's the total fee for 10 years. It's what's been annnounced and there's no hint of any additional fees being required.

 

What the main issue would be for most people, I suspect, are the relatively onerous financial requirements to qualify in the first place.

 

That's basically, whether working or not, having $80,000 a year in income; for "Wealthy Global Citizens," having in addition, a minimum of $1 million in assets and an investment in Thailand of $500,000; for retirees, having in addition to the income requirement, an investment of $250,000 in Thailand. 

 

If I'm being honest, I don't expect to see a whole bunch of people both qualifying and applying for this new LTR visa.

Your combining all 4 categories into 1 sir.  I suggest you look at what I posted as it lays it out for each one.  The Wealthy Pensioner only needs to show 80k USD a year and Insurance to qualify.  If they do not have the 80K USD then there are a few more things they need.

[DrJack54]

5 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

  The Wealthy Pensioner only needs to show 80k USD a year and Insurance to qualify.

I'm not aware of how pensions or super income streams work in the USA.

I do know how they work in Oz.

80k USD is a VERY high income for a retiree income stream.

The "rich" folk I know in Oz wouldn't dream of ongoing living in Thailand.

In any event as the saying goes ..."The proof is in the pudding" 

Don't see this as attractive to many folk that actually qualify for it. 

 

[ThailandRyan]

3 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

I'm not aware of how pensions or super income streams work in the USA.

I do know how they work in Oz.

80k USD is a VERY high income for a retiree income stream.

The "rich" folk I know in Oz wouldn't dream of ongoing living in Thailand.

In any event as the saying goes ..."The proof is in the pudding" 

Don't see this as attractive to many folk that actually qualify for it. 

 

Over the years the superannuation pensions that Australia has for some employees is the same as the Defined Benefit pensions from the US.  However those types of pensions have have slowly disappeared, only about 4% of folks have them now), and so folks are having to create there own by a combination of SS, 401k's, and 457"s stock portfolios, which have taken some pretty big hits lately.   

 

Retiring from State Service, I never paid into the SS program only paid into my pension program, so I can not receive SS.  The Pension I have is a lifetime benefit and grows each year do to the COLA adjustments, it will never decrease.  I can say that even with this amount that living in the US is tight for a family, well in California, New York and a few other states based upon federal, and state taxes, as well as property taxes, and then Mortgages many still have after refinancing the homes to send there kids to University. 

 

Had 2 friends retire and move to Australia as the spouses were originally from Australia, Also had a friend move to New Zealand and start his second life with a job there.  From the Job I retired from if you put in 30 years you retired at the max of 90% of your monthly income.  Of course taking out the medical insurance and so on does reduce the actual amount you end up with as an actual take home amount.  It is why many move to the Midwest of the US to live or overseas too the Phils, Thailand or Cambodia as the cost of living is about 1/3rd of what it is in the US and you can live comfortably.

[Hanaguma]

I wonder at the motivation of the Thai government with the new visas. The cynical part of me says that the requirements were deliberately made impossible for the vast majority of either retirees or digital nomads to meet.  But it gives the Thai immigration people the chance to say, "look, we are trying, but some people just don't measure up..."

 

I mean, the whole point of being a nomad is that you ARENT tied to a company. Yet one of the criteria is to work for a major firm! They want the covid refugees who left Silicon Valley and retreated to Montana, not the man-bun hipster crowd who freelance. 

 

Plus the $80,000 income/pension requirement. How many people sport a pension like that- perhaps 2% of retirees?

 

I suspect it is similar to what happened in Malaysia. The Malaysia My Second Home visa scheme just got retooled and the requirements were quadrupled.  Monthly income requirement is now roughly USD $9,500, plus a fixed deposit of a cool quarter million bucks. Oh, and liquid assets of about $400,000.   The rumor I heard is that, under the previous scheme, waaaaaaaaaaay too many Chinese were applying. So the system changed to prevent it.  Malaysia, like Thailand, wanted to get "quality" retirees- meaning white folks with a few random Asians sprinked in.  Didn't work out that way, so now we have the current mess.

[Northwest87]

15 hours ago, portlandtree said:

A rip off that’s more than $4,000 compared to $1,900 as now the benefits are not even close to being worth it

It's more expensive, obviously, but whether the benefits make it worth it or a ripoff are pretty much a matter of opinion based on personal circumstances. When I look at a normal retirement visa (my main plan until the LTR implementation becomes clearer), I know in advance, because I lived, worked and paid taxes in Thailand before, that I will gladly pay an agent to take care of 90-days and annual renewals. That is well worth it to me based on my personal experience, but it adds at least 100K baht over 5 years, and that's very optimistic. So even at 100K I would sign up for the LTR it it turns out to be a valid option. Now, if we were making a value comparison with the Elite Visa, I would adopt your reasoning: a one-time 600K fee vs 100K agent's fee over 5 years. $17K is not much in the US nowadays, but I know the value of 500K baht in Thailand.

[Northwest87]

14 hours ago, gearbox said:

They don't need to rediscover the wheel, the banks in the west (at least in Australia) have a way to deal with contractors/freelancers in regards to loans and credit cards. Usually copies of filed tax returns are required for the last 1-3 years.

 

In regards to contracts it would be very rare to state periods longer than 12 months explicitly in the terms of the contract.

I don't anticipate any problems proving past income. The iffy rules are those that pertain to proving contractually guaranteed future income/employment with foreign employers. I have worked on contracts longer than 12 months but that was for the government and yes, the usual length is also 12 months in the US. This raises the question of whether or not an annual check-in will be necessary, and this is not clear yet, at least to me.

 

[Northwest87]

13 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I would say there are enough details to say that's the total fee for 10 years. It's what's been annnounced and there's no hint of any additional fees being required.

 

What the main issue would be for most people, I suspect, are the relatively onerous financial requirements to qualify in the first place.

 

That's basically, whether working or not, having $80,000 a year in income; for "Wealthy Global Citizens," having in addition, a minimum of $1 million in assets and an investment in Thailand of $500,000; for retirees, having in addition to the income requirement, an investment of $250,000 in Thailand. 

 

If I'm being honest, I don't expect to see a whole bunch of people both qualifying and applying for this new LTR visa.

If you qualify as a "wealthy global citizen", you presumably qualify without problems under "wealthy pensioner" and don't have to go through the investment rigamarole or proving $1M in assets. That part of the rules is puzzling, as it seems that people making them shot themselves in the foot. Some say that the target group are the wealthy Chinese, so maybe there is more logic there than meet the eye.

[Northwest87]

11 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

I'm not aware of how pensions or super income streams work in the USA.

I do know how they work in Oz.

80k USD is a VERY high income for a retiree income stream.

The "rich" folk I know in Oz wouldn't dream of ongoing living in Thailand.

In any event as the saying goes ..."The proof is in the pudding" 

Don't see this as attractive to many folk that actually qualify for it. 

 

The economics and very rich people's attitude is pretty much the same the US: 80K is a huge pension income, top executive level I would say; the top US social security pension you can get is currently around $3400/month, so you would need to double that with a private or government employee pension.

 

However, for the LTR wealthy pensioners it is not clear from the rules that the 2-previous years 80K income must be derived from pension income, although it would make sense in term of proving continuity of future income levels. This in itself would be illogical because it would bar people who have been retired for less than 2 years, or are about to do so. So, hopefully people who are and have been making income at that level and are about to retire might be able to qualify. That's my hope, otherwise it's the "work-from-thailand professional" thingy, and that comes with its share of fuzziness too.????

 

To sum up, we'll know more in a couple of months when the LTR is implemented and the rules clarified. Until then, I would not discount anything.

[Srikcir]

17 hours ago, gearbox said:

There are very few details to say with certainty that the total fee for 10 years would be 50k baht. I suspect there would be some kind of "check-in" every year which would involve payment.

 

Medical insurance is also required.

The LTR requires a tm47 once a year vs. 90-days for non O-A and O visas. Immigration does not charge for tm47.

[verticalift]

As a Canadian Expat I was issued with a 10yr O-X Retirement Visa in October 2019, by the Thai Embassy in Abu Dhabi where I was working at the time (UAE Residency Permit in my Passport)

 

Having built my home on Phuket starting back in 2003, I’ve also been issued the Tambian Baan Yellow Book and Thai ID Pink Card. Both are great “supporting documents” when it come to dealing with Thai officials. 

When C19 hit in early 2020 and the planet went into meltdown, oupps sorry….lockdown, I was “retired” from the cockpit along with all other crews over 60yrs of age. I was 62 at the time.
 

Fortunately because of my O-X Visa, Tambian Baan and Thai ID, the Thai Embassy contacted me and said that I was able to return back home to Phuket in October 2020. If I hadn’t got the O-X when I did, I wouldn’t have been able to return home to Phuket until late 2021/early 2022.

 

For what it’s worth, I’ve found that the O-X does hold some weight….. 

[Srikcir]

13 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

Over the years the superannuation pensions that Australia has for some employees is the same as the Defined Benefit pensions from the US.  However those types of pensions have have slowly disappeared, only about 4% of folks have them now), and so folks are having to create there own by a combination of SS, 401k's, and 457"s stock portfolios, which have taken some pretty big hits lately.   

 

Retiring from State Service, I never paid into the SS program only paid into my pension program, so I can not receive SS.  The Pension I have is a lifetime benefit and grows each year do to the COLA adjustments, it will never decrease.  I can say that even with this amount that living in the US is tight for a family, well in California, New York and a few other states based upon federal, and state taxes, as well as property taxes, and then Mortgages many still have after refinancing the homes to send there kids to University. 

 

Had 2 friends retire and move to Australia as the spouses were originally from Australia, Also had a friend move to New Zealand and start his second life with a job there.  From the Job I retired from if you put in 30 years you retired at the max of 90% of your monthly income.  Of course taking out the medical insurance and so on does reduce the actual amount you end up with as an actual take home amount.  It is why many move to the Midwest of the US to live or overseas too the Phils, Thailand or Cambodia as the cost of living is about 1/3rd of what it is in the US and you can live comfortably.

Two factors decide the LTR for me.

1. Annual income is gross (I use all legal tax breaks available to significantly reduce my global taxable income). Income letters that use to come from some embassies didn't distinguish gross vs. net income and accepted by IO.

2. Health insurance required can come from a foreign provider vs. Thai provider.

My foreign health insurance is limitless both in duration, age and cost for inpatient services. The group premiums do increase based on cola; but that is offset by cola adjustments to my income.

For outpatient I have a 15% copayment plus annual deductible, but when the annual amount exceeds a certain limit, the provider then covers 100%. 

I last read LTR registration will begin Spetember 1st, the beginning of the government's fiscal year. 

Hopefully, Immigration does not charge to register, only to find requirements are less advantageous than currently presented.

[Wuvu2]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:19 PM, CrossBones said:

It seems if you make $80k a year or have assets worth $1m you can stay here for 5 - 10 years.

 

I am wondering why there isnt much talk about this on this forum.

Uh, you've answered your own question. People with $80k/year income and $1m in assets have a lot better things to do than hang out in social media forums ????

[ThailandRyan]

5 minutes ago, Wuvu2 said:

Uh, you've answered your own question. People with $80k/year income and $1m in assets have a lot better things to do than hang out in social media forums ????

Sometimes, but not all do as you think....lol

[Tropposurfer]

On 7/9/2022 at 4:17 PM, ThailandRyan said:

Why, if they qualify for this LTR

Because the Elite (depending on which one one purchases offers far more benefits/freebies, discounts etc (throughout the life of the visa) than an LTR.

I Have one and posted just the other day about a similar posts to yours. 

I will pay for my Elite, and have quite a chunk of change from accessing the free golf feature by itself throughout Thailand that mine carries. Free golf around Thailand every year year in and year out at some of the best courses in Asia and in some cases the world is worth it in my book ????????

I checked on the LTR as an exercise once it was released as official I.O. doctrine as a comparison and I am not sorry I purchased my Elite, not one bit.

If one doesn't have the money to consider such a visa type, or doesn't see an Elite as worth the money, or is extortion (I'm not saying it isn't lol????) then there are other options to chose from.

 

[ThailandRyan]

17 minutes ago, Tropposurfer said:

Because the Elite (depending on which one one purchases offers far more benefits/freebies, discounts etc (throughout the life of the visa) than an LTR.

I Have one and posted just the other day about a similar posts to yours. 

I will pay for my Elite, and have quite a chunk of change from accessing the free golf feature by itself throughout Thailand that mine carries. Free golf around Thailand every year year in and year out at some of the best courses in Asia and in some cases the world is worth it in my book ????????

I checked on the LTR as an exercise once it was released as official I.O. doctrine as a comparison and I am not sorry I purchased my Elite, not one bit.

If one doesn't have the money to consider such a visa type, or doesn't see an Elite as worth the money, or is extortion (I'm not saying it isn't lol????) then there are other options to chose from.

 

50k Thb vs. 1 Mthb.  Hmm I know which one I would take. Don't golf anymore and other perks not helpful.

[DjChris28]

So I should be eligible for this visa, but there alot of questions that need answering. I bet when this comes out, there will be no way to ask questions without actually flying to thailand and going to an immigration centre.

 

a) The section Highly skilled professional, does this include overseas companies or is it only for Thai companies? It says "Targeted industries" in the employer section. But it doesn't say if this is for thai companies only.

b) Is the 80k USD gross or net income? I can meet the gross requirement, but net is on and off meeting that requirement depending on USD exchange rate.

c) are we required to spend the whole year there or can we come and go and work remotely there while we are there?

d) With the 100k USD deposit, do you just mean just show that you have 100k USD in the bank or do we actually have to pay you 100K USD? Why would anyone offer 100K USD when the health insurance will be much cheaper?

e) Are we taxed on international income? If so, will you honor double taxation agreement and not tax us the difference our home countries tax us anyway?

f) The 150 million requirement for the employer, what exactly do you consider "the employer". If I run it through my own company/entity in the middle and I invoice and bill my only employer/service contract who has a revenue over 150 million, does this count? If it does not, it means i'll have to work directly for the employer as a permanent employee.

 

It's funny this visa. I might JUST not be able to meet the requirements. But on the other hand, I have over 100K USD in savings and I earn so much that I can technically every 6 months, take a 6 months holiday with the savings I have. It's like thailand, when they come out with these types of visas, there's always better options elsewhere that the visa's become redundant.  For me, I can already work for an employer in thailand on an non imm b visa for my skills and I earn so much back home, that I can just holiday every 6 months. That has come to me first even before meeting the requirements of this visa. It's quite funny.

 

Who is this visa suited for:

a) People who earn so much back home that want to live in thailand but don't want to be paid low.

b) People who can't get work in thailand due to being paid highly back home and employer's in thailand not wanting to hire them because of salary differences.

 

[ubonjoe]

This PDF file from the Board Of Investment has lot of info about the LTR visa.

 https://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/LTR.pdf

[NorthernRyland]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:19 AM, CrossBones said:

It seems if you make $80k a year or have assets worth $1m you can stay here for 5 - 10 years.

 

Most likely if you make 80k/year you're going to be based near your place of work or in the case you're fully remote they probably need you in the same timezone as them at least.

 

I know there's some people who are self employed and make that kind of money but how rare is this going to be and are why do they want to live in Thailand instead of any number of other countries?

 

Seriously how many people per year are going to be using this visa? I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the hundreds. It seems like another really poorly thought out plan by the out of touch government.

[DjChris28]

8 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

This PDF file from the Board Of Investment has lot of info about the LTR visa.

 https://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/LTR.pdf

I read that, but it doesn't answer most of my questions.

[DjChris28]

1 minute ago, NorthernRyland said:

Most likely if you make 80k/year you're going to be based near your place of work or in the case you're fully remote they probably need you in the same timezone as them at least.

The likely countries that will be most eligible for this visa based on timezone and also meet salary requirements would likely be:

Australia

New Zealand

United Arab Emirates

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

Hong Kong

Japan.

South Korea.

 

That's their audience.

[NorthernRyland]

1 minute ago, DjChris28 said:

Australia

New Zealand

United Arab Emirates

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

Hong Kong

Japan.

South Korea.

 

That's their audience.

That's a good point. I guess a remote working in that region could save money living in Thailand and it may make sense. Not sure about the wages there but 80k sounds really steep. I don't understand why Thailand needs to set the bar so high as if a person making 60k USD is somehow not good enough. It must be an ego trip or something.

[DjChris28]

3 minutes ago, NorthernRyland said:

That's a good point. I guess a remote working in that region could save money living in Thailand and it may make sense. Not sure about the wages there but 80k sounds really steep. I don't understand why Thailand needs to set the bar so high as if a person making 60k USD is somehow not good enough. It must be an ego trip or something.

80k is steep. The only way it saves money is if they don't have to rent back home in their home country. Employers here in Australia are reluctant to allow you remote work through a permanent employee setup and reside overseas due to worrying about tax issues. They are happy to let you run it though your own company but that has it's own problems. In Australia, it has a director resident requirement meaning if you are a sole person/director in your company, you'll have to have a residential address in Australia.

 

Dubai has a 60k USD requirement, but that is after tax AND dubai is very expensive and you can't rent while on their remote working visa. And airbnb is like $4000 USD per month in dubai so I can understand why the requirement is high. Whereas Thailand are just being greedy in my opinion. There's no need for that requirement from a cost of living point of view.

[Northwest87]

24 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

This PDF file from the Board Of Investment has lot of info about the LTR visa.

 https://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/LTR.pdf

Thank you for that; I wasn't aware of this file.

[Old Croc]

18 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

If I'm being honest, I don't expect to see a whole bunch of people both qualifying and applying for this new LTR visa.

Anyone clever enough to have that sort of financial standing isn't stupid enough to spend it jumping through the maze of Thailand's immigration hoops. 

[DjChris28]

6 minutes ago, Old Croc said:

Anyone clever enough to have that sort of financial standing isn't stupid enough to spend it jumping through the maze of Thailand's immigration hoops. 

Right. They just go holiday there on the savings. Although nobody wants to spend 600k baht on a elite visa if they only go there half the year.

 

What i'd really like to see is the elite visa offering 1 year options at maybe 120k baht.

[NorthernRyland]

1 minute ago, DjChris28 said:

Whereas Thailand are just being greedy in my opinion. There's no need for that requirement from a cost of living point of view.

Nailed it. I honestly don't think they have any idea at all what types of people earn that kind of money and what their employment terms are. They literally could have plucked that 80k figure out of thin air because it "sounds about right". 

 

From all my experience in the country the vast, vast majority of people are here because it saves them money and provides them a way to get by with less. I just can't see people earning a high wage in Western countries being able or willing to relocate full time to a country like Thailand. Sounds like a total fantasy to me but what do I know...

[sanuk711]

I just look at it as yet another option--(its not for me but....  )_ I notice that with that option-they do away

with the 90 days that some people find so absolutely arduous to do. 

 

I think that most people who have lived here for some time (say over 20 years)

realize that there has been many beneficial changes in Thailand's visa law's

[ThailandRyan]

6 minutes ago, Old Croc said:

Anyone clever enough to have that sort of financial standing isn't stupid enough to spend it jumping through the maze of Thailand's immigration hoops. 

If they accept my application it will save me the yearly extension application, although I am sure they will require proof through the BOI to continue forward.  Also an annual TM47 really does not change things to much as I do it all online now through the new system.  What it will allow and is an advantage is I will no longer have to obtain a re-entry permit for when I do my annual travel to the US to visit my children.