LTR Visa is Now available for Long Term Residency

[aublumberg]

5 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

... while Thailand is still struggling with the LTR visas and also just promoted buying a Rai of land for 30 million thb with conditions ...

Yes, interesting how this suddenly popped up again. I think it's THB40+m, and also not really of freehold nature as far as I understand and yet it gets a lot of vocal opposition locally. Let's see how it pans out. Personally I don't think foreigners can ever permanently own land in Thailand (without current and future workarounds), not in our lifetime anyway. But an interesting new twist to the LTR positioning ... looking forward to all the fine print.

[K2938]

Around 1,000 people applied for the LTR Visa from September 1 to October 20, according to the Board of Investment.

 

Anucha said the visa would be given to four groups of people. He detailed the groups and the number of applicants so far:

• Wealthy individuals: 88 applicants
• Wealthy Pensioners: 430
• Work from Thailand: 366
• Highly skilled professionals: 160.

Meanwhile, another 144 were applicants’ spouses and children.

 

The top five countries from which these applicants hail are:

• United States: 232
• China: 140
• United Kingdom: 109
• Germany: 68
• Australia: 51

 

(https://www.nationmultimedia.com/thailand/policies/40021449)

[anotherexpat4444]

for these LTR  , Besides the 50000 THB processing fee  are there any yearly fees ?  

[keemapoot]

1 hour ago, anotherexpat4444 said:

for these LTR  , Besides the 50000 THB processing fee  are there any yearly fees ?  

No yearly fees at all, though there is a re-qualification check at five years, but I believe that is also fee-free.

[aublumberg]

7 hours ago, K2938 said:

Around 1,000 people applied for the LTR Visa from September 1 to October 20, according to the Board of Investment.

 

Thanks for sharing. What the article doesn't say is how many have been approved in that period. 50? 100? 

[ThailandRyan]

5 hours ago, anotherexpat4444 said:

for these LTR  , Besides the 50000 THB processing fee  are there any yearly fees ?  

No yearly fees at all.

[ThailandRyan]

3 hours ago, keemapoot said:

No yearly fees at all, though there is a re-qualification check at five years, but I believe that is also fee-free.

Yes fee free for all 10 years.

[Boomer6969]

7 hours ago, K2938 said:

Around 1,000 people applied for the LTR Visa from September 1 to October 20, according to the Board of Investment.

 

Anucha said the visa would be given to four groups of people. He detailed the groups and the number of applicants so far:

• Wealthy individuals: 88 applicants
• Wealthy Pensioners: 430
• Work from Thailand: 366
• Highly skilled professionals: 160.

Meanwhile, another 144 were applicants’ spouses and children.

 

The top five countries from which these applicants hail are:

• United States: 232
• China: 140
• United Kingdom: 109
• Germany: 68
• Australia: 51

 

(https://www.nationmultimedia.com/thailand/policies/40021449)

Interestingly the pensioners are the largest group. Not surprisingly as the LTR is the first sensible long term retirement visa offered by Thailand (no health insurance nor local deposit, and explicit income tax exemption). Let's hope BOI keeps up the good work.

[Boomer6969]

On 7/9/2022 at 10:10 AM, JustThisOnePostOnly said:

People in that bracket are better off with the Elite visa, imho.

Can you explain your Math?

[ThailandRyan]

34 minutes ago, Boomer6969 said:

Can you explain your Math?

The Thai Elite Visa holders are not better off IMHO for these reasons:

 

1: Annually the holders of an Elite Visa, if they do not leave the country, still have to pay 1900 baht at the end of their 1 year stay to get another entry stamp good for another year.  An LTR Visa holder is stamped into the country for a 5 year period and does not have to ever leave in order to avoid the 1 year stay stamp the TE Visa holders need to do.

 

2: TE Visa holders must still do 90 day reports.

 

3: The annual cost for an LTR Visa is only 5k Thb for the year, while the Thai Elite Visas run from the cheapest 5 year visa costing an individual 600,000 Thai baht for a five-year visa which means they pay 120,000 baht per year or 10,000 baht per month.  So the LTR Visa is much cheaper overall.

 

4: Both Visas allow for Fast Track services at the airport and multiple re-entry.

 

So unless one avails themselves to the higher end TE Visa and golfs religiously and leaves the country annually, they are actually worse off in my view.

[Mike Teavee]

2 hours ago, Boomer6969 said:

Interestingly the pensioners are the largest group. Not surprisingly as the LTR is the first sensible long term retirement visa offered by Thailand (no health insurance nor local deposit, and explicit income tax exemption). Let's hope BOI keeps up the good work.

You need $50,000 of Health Insurance cover or Social Security coverage or deposit $100,000 to "Self Insure"

 

 

[ThailandRyan]

10 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

You need $50,000 of Health Insurance cover or Social Security coverage or deposit $100,000 to "Self Insure"

 

 

I think he was possibly saying you did not need a Thai policy and could be from outside, and that way it would not require a policy from here nor a deposit into an account here, at least thats the way I read it.

[Mike Teavee]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

The Thai Elite Visa holders are not better off IMHO for these reasons:

I think you're reasoning makes absolute sense when you're over 50 & earning > $80,000 pa but if you're under 50 (& so need to invest $500K) or > 50 but earn between $40-80,000 pa (so need to invest $250K) then I would suggest that the additional returns you'd get from these investments in your own country would probably more than cover the 50K it would cost for the 20 year 1Million baht TE Visa (You'd need an extra $1,350 in returns to cover it). 

 

Plus as discussed above there's the Health Insurance requirement but really everybody should have at least this level of cover anyway (Be it via an insurance policy or a decent amount set aside to self insure)   

 

[Pib]

I'm not surprised the Wealthy Pensioners is the largest group since the requirements are arguably reasonable although the insurance requirement requiring 10 months being left on the policy when applying can throw a monkey wrench in the application...but at least they offer a 100K USD self-insure option in lieu of a policy or even a social security-type insurance coverage if it provides coverage in Thailand.  Once again, arguably reasonable requirements.

 

However, the Wealthy Individual group only having around 88 applicants does not surprise me since the requirements are very high.....four requirements must be met with one of the four requiring a BIG investment in Thailand of USD 500,000 which is on-top of meeting an annual income of 80K USD requirement and having 1M USD in assets under your belt. Insurance requirement same as for Pensioners. Per BOI snapshot below the applicant must fulfill all four requirements....no either or's....must meet all 4.  IMO the 500K USD investment in Thailand is the real tough requirement and is probably what is suppressing applications in this group.

 

 

[ThailandRyan]

54 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

I think you're reasoning makes absolute sense when you're over 50 & earning > $80,000 pa but if you're under 50 (& so need to invest $500K) or > 50 but earn between $40-80,000 pa (so need to invest $250K) then I would suggest that the additional returns you'd get from these investments in your own country would probably more than cover the 50K it would cost for the 20 year 1Million baht TE Visa (You'd need an extra $1,350 in returns to cover it). 

 

Plus as discussed above there's the Health Insurance requirement but really everybody should have at least this level of cover anyway (Be it via an insurance policy or a decent amount set aside to self insure)   

 

If Under 50 and not qualifying under The Work from Thailand LTR Visa or the other one For High Skilled professionals, as they are unable to meet the qualifications then I would agree with you, but if over 50 as I know many are and having the 80K USD a year minimum This LTR Visa makes more sense.  Sure there are other Visas that people can fit into but I still this one as having value for those that qualify over obtaining the TE Visa

[Lacrimas]

11 hours ago, K2938 said:

Around 1,000 people applied for the LTR Visa from September 1 to October 20, according to the Board of Investment.

 

Anucha said the visa would be given to four groups of people. He detailed the groups and the number of applicants so far:

• Wealthy individuals: 88 applicants
• Wealthy Pensioners: 430
• Work from Thailand: 366
• Highly skilled professionals: 160.

Meanwhile, another 144 were applicants’ spouses and children.

 

The top five countries from which these applicants hail are:

• United States: 232
• China: 140
• United Kingdom: 109
• Germany: 68
• Australia: 51

 

(https://www.nationmultimedia.com/thailand/policies/40021449)

I'm a bit skeptical about these numbers because applicants doesn't mean successful applicants. I'd be surprised if half of these got approval. Especially the Work from Thailand individuals.

[keemapoot]

1 hour ago, Lacrimas said:

I'm a bit skeptical about these numbers because applicants doesn't mean successful applicants. I'd be surprised if half of these got approval. Especially the Work from Thailand individuals.

I disagree. At least half (the two “wealthy” groups) would likely not even bother applying if marginal. Everyone knows instantly whether he or she qualifies on the criteria.

[K2938]

35 minutes ago, keemapoot said:

I disagree. At least half (the two “wealthy” groups) would likely not even bother applying if marginal. Everyone knows instantly whether he or she qualifies on the criteria.

Not so sure about this because it very much depends on how the BOI actually applies the rules.  Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet who both have a net worth above $100 BN for example generally pay no or only a very marginal amount of income tax as is widely known because they manage their affairs such that they basically do not have any taxable income.  So if the BOI were to really stick to their income tax statement approach these people would not qualify.

In any event, somebody who got approved recently stated here or on another similar forum that about 150 LTR visas have so far been approved according to what he was told, though I have no idea if this figure is correct or not.  And if the Thai government wants to fulfill its goal of issuing 1 million LTR visas over 5 years, it would on average need to issue nearly 1000 visas each working day.  So about 1000 applications within nearly two months is quite far below this and this is even applications and not visa approvals

[Misty]

6 minutes ago, K2938 said:

Not so sure about this because it very much depends on how the BOI actually applies the rules.  Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet who both have a net worth above $100 BN for example generally pay no or only a very marginal amount of income tax as is widely known because they manage their affairs such that they basically do not have any taxable income.  So if the BOI were to really stick to their income tax statement approach these people would not qualify.

In any event, somebody who got approved recently stated here or on another similar forum that about 150 LTR visas have so far been approved.  However, I have no idea if this figure is correct or not.

I think the BoI's asking for income tax filing is one verifiable way to show that you have enough gross income to meet the BoI standard.  Not about how much taxable income you have. 

 

Guys like Bezos do have substantial gross income (they live on something, right?) but they manage US taxes by offsetting it with losses, for example selling stock that's underwater and netting the loss against any income.  Even Bezos pays tax, though. According to this article, while he was able to pay no tax in two years between 2006-2018, he paid a lot of tax in the other years. https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-did-not-pay-income-taxes-2-years-report-2021-6

 

"For the years he did pay federal income taxes between 2006 and 2018, Bezos paid a total of about $1.4 billion on a reported income of $6.5 billion, or a rate of about 21.5%."

 

 

[Lacrimas]

47 minutes ago, keemapoot said:

I disagree. At least half (the two “wealthy” groups) would likely not even bother applying if marginal. Everyone knows instantly whether he or she qualifies on the criteria.

I don't think so. Many will just try and see if the application just goes through and they get counted. I'd do it myself if my income was anywhere close but sadly it isn't.

[mrmagyar]

41 minutes ago, K2938 said:

Not so sure about this because it very much depends on how the BOI actually applies the rules.  Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet who both have a net worth above $100 BN for example generally pay no or only a very marginal amount of income tax as is widely known because they manage their affairs such that they basically do not have any taxable income.  So if the BOI were to really stick to their income tax statement approach these people would not qualify.

In any event, somebody who got approved recently stated here or on another similar forum that about 150 LTR visas have so far been approved according to what he was told, though I have no idea if this figure is correct or not.  And if the Thai government wants to fulfill its goal of issuing 1 million LTR visas over 5 years, it would on average need to issue nearly 1000 visas each working day.  So about 1000 applications within nearly two months is quite far below this and this is even applications and not visa approvals

The BOI have confirmed that a tax return is not strictly necessary if you can prove income in another way (dividend receipts, for example)

[K2938]

6 minutes ago, mrmagyar said:

The BOI have confirmed that a tax return is not strictly necessary if you can prove income in another way (dividend receipts, for example)

That is good, however Jeff Bezos would still be in trouble.  Amazon.com Inc. does not pay any dividends.  So his about $150 BN worth coming from his holdings in Amazon would still not make it

[keemapoot]

58 minutes ago, Lacrimas said:

I don't think so. Many will just try and see if the application just goes through and they get counted. I'd do it myself if my income was anywhere close but sadly it isn't.

Well you may have a point there in that you don’t have to shell out the 50k Baht until approved, so I suppose some guys might run it up the flagpole to see if it flies. I guess these people have more time on their hands than I do.

[Boomer6969]

5 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

I think he was possibly saying you did not need a Thai policy and could be from outside, and that way it would not require a policy from here nor a deposit into an account here, at least thats the way I read it.

Indeed, I got my visa just by doing about 10 scans of my existing policy and bank account, 45 minutes of "work" to upload and fill in my application and that was it.

 

 

[Boomer6969]

7 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

The Thai Elite Visa holders are not better off IMHO for these reasons:

 

1: Annually the holders of an Elite Visa, if they do not leave the country, still have to pay 1900 baht at the end of their 1 year stay to get another entry stamp good for another year.  An LTR Visa holder is stamped into the country for a 5 year period and does not have to ever leave in order to avoid the 1 year stay stamp the TE Visa holders need to do.

 

2: TE Visa holders must still do 90 day reports.

 

3: The annual cost for an LTR Visa is only 5k Thb for the year, while the Thai Elite Visas run from the cheapest 5 year visa costing an individual 600,000 Thai baht for a five-year visa which means they pay 120,000 baht per year or 10,000 baht per month.  So the LTR Visa is much cheaper overall.

 

4: Both Visas allow for Fast Track services at the airport and multiple re-entry.

 

So unless one avails themselves to the higher end TE Visa and golfs religiously and leaves the country annually, they are actually worse off in my view.

You didn't mention that LTR retirees can apply for a work permit, and that income from overseas isn't income taxed.

[ThailandRyan]

2 hours ago, mrmagyar said:

The BOI have confirmed that a tax return is not strictly necessary if you can prove income in another way (dividend receipts, for example)

All I supplied was a letter from my pension provider which indicated my monthly lifetime benefit I was receiving. Total over the year in excess of the 80k usd. That's it.

[ThailandRyan]

55 minutes ago, Boomer6969 said:

You didn't mention that LTR retirees can apply for a work permit, and that income from overseas isn't income taxed.

You are correct, that is something a TE visa holder can not get. Another bonus.

[ThailandRyan]

3 hours ago, K2938 said:

That is good, however Jeff Bezos would still be in trouble.  Amazon.com Inc. does not pay any dividends.  So his about $150 BN worth coming from his holdings in Amazon would still not make it

I am sure he pays himself a salary.

[K2938]

1 hour ago, Boomer6969 said:

You didn't mention that LTR retirees can apply for a work permit, and that income from overseas isn't income taxed.

For highly-skilled professionals, the 17% flat tax rate is indeed a tax benefit under the LTR visa.  For the non-working LTR visa groups including retirees, overseas income is not really taxed in Thailand anyway unless remitted in the year it was earned:

"Highly skilled professional holding an LTR visa will be taxed at the flat rate of 17% and benefit from a tax exemption for overseas income. Thailand Elite does not have such incentives; however it is to note that Thai tax law already exempts taxation on overseas incomes as long as they are not transferred to Thailand within the same fiscal year as they have been generated."

(https://thaielite-express.com/thailand-long-term-residence-visa/)

[Boomer6969]

14 hours ago, K2938 said:

For the non-working LTR visa groups including retirees, overseas income is not really taxed in Thailand anyway unless remitted in the year it was earned:

Correct, but I appreciate the added flexibility  I get from the  full exemption. 

 

Anyhow, at 70  and not overly healthy I feel like I got PR, all of a sudden, without any sacrifice.