Thailand Eases Long-Term Visa Conditions to Draw Wealthy Foreigners and Digital Nomads

[BritManToo]

29 minutes ago, TimBKK said:

what makes Danang so great?

Fantastic beach, clean sand, clean water .......

[StayinThailand2much]

So, they're still trying to attract Goldman Sachs-style staff, working remote... How '2021'! 😆 

[TimBKK]

27 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Fantastic beach, clean sand, clean water .......

Puts Pattaya’s city beach to shame, of course that’s a pretty low bar.  

[Wake Up1]

9 hours ago, koolkarl said:

Stop forcing foreigners to file a tax return if a tax resident and pay taxes on their world income.  This is absolutely essential in

attracting wealthy foreigners.  After all, the Thai government gives absolutely nothing for paying taxes, no health care, no residence

status.

LTR do not pay tax on income earned outside of Thailand. 

[placnx]

9 hours ago, hotchilli said:

You do have a point there...

Maybe their next strategy will be offering cheap housing for Californians.

Such as Thais in LA. IS Thaitown far from the flames?

[newnative]

12 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Targeting affluent foreigners who have no intention of coming here.

     They're already here--with plenty more on the way.  Pattaya certainly has them.  Mercedes just opened a fancy, new dealership--and I thought the 'old' one--just a few years old--was quite nice.  That one will be for used Mercedes--apparently enough of a market here that it needs its own space.  Just about every other luxury car brand has also set up shop, along with a number of the Chinese brands.  From Audi to Zeekr, they're here.

    Beachside, Arom Wongamat is selling smallish 82 sqm 2-bedroom condos for 16MB.  That's 195,000 baht a sqm.  Copacabana, a fairly new project in Jomtien, has even smaller 72 sqm 2-bedrooms for 18MB.  That's 250,000 baht a sqm. 

    Back in Wongamat, a new project just getting started called Once Wongamat, near the Circle, will have high-floor 73 sqm 2-bedroom condos for 19.3MB, 265,000 baht a sqm.  That project will supposedly be the tallest in the Pattaya area.  Several other mega condo projects, likely equally pricey, are under construction or soon will be.  

    Just for comparison purposes, the 1 bedroom/1 bath condo my spouse and I owned at Northshore was 79 sqm and neither of us thought it was especially spacious.  Paying about double for about the same space as our very nice NS condo means you are attracting some affluent buyers.  As someone who knows a little bit about condos in Pattaya, I am rather astounded that these super-pricey projects have been built with these breath-taking price tags, for not especially spacious condos--and with more proposed.  

    Over on the Darkside, by Lake Mabprachan, D-Space III has pool villas for sale for 49MB.  Siam Royal View has a house listed for 189MB, as well as a number of others ranging from 23MB to 150MB.  One of the larger projects on the Darkside, the starting prices at SRV are now around 18MB for some of the original smaller homes.  As dear old Dad used to say, 'Too rich for my blood.'

    There are new housing projects scattered all over the Darkside, which is a booming area.  Many of the new projects have starting prices of 12MB or more.  One example of what is happening on the Darkside:  The Baan Pattaya company has built 6 projects, all successful.  The first 6 projects had houses with starting prices under 10MB, with somewhat escalating prices as the projects were built and material and land costs rose. 

    Baan Pattaya 7, just breaking ground, is a departure.  The houses will have a completely different look and the starting prices will be much higher--14MB.  This points to where the single-family housing market is heading in Pattaya, with builders targeting the more affluent buyers who are either relocating to Pattaya or are investing in luxury property to rent out--also a growing market here.

     Just scratching the surface with my remarks, but it is indeed eye-opening when my spouse and I drive around and tour some of these really nice, new high-end projects, which we have been doing a lot of lately.  We could probably visit a new project every week and never run out of new ones to visit.   To conclude with what I started with, the affluent foreigners are already here--and have been here for years.  Some are my neighbors.

[Jaggg88]

8 hours ago, 2long said:

Do any of you guys have first-hand experience with the digital nomad thing?

I thought it was show 500k and some evidence of your job for 5 years of up to 180 day stays,

 

This 5.4/1.8 BILLION Baht over three years for the employer sentence in the OP confuses and worries me.

You are confusing DTV with LTR

[khunPer]

Shows that there were after all not that many wealthy people favouring to stay in Thailand...

[BangkokReady]

23 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Thailand must update their old laws so that foreigners can do volunteer jobs too.. and must be tax friendly, scrap the alcohol control laws, lower the alcohol and foreign food import taxes, and be friendly to foreigners.... That will do more good than easier visa conditions...Don't see a foreigner as an ATM, or a criminal, or someone who will destroy the Thai culture...because that is what is being done now..

 

I don't disagree, but Thailand isn't going to do this anytime soon.  There's no way they're going to return to the "foreigners are nice people who we don't need to fear and should welcome" stance.

[BayArea]

10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Fantastic beach, clean sand, clean water .......

Da Nang in about 10 years' time will rival Sai Gon and Ha Noi as the major center for business, technology, and tourism in Viet Nam. the gov't has put forth a concerted effort to transform Da Nang into a green city that is livable for both locals and ex pats. It's a clean city considering its growing size. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 1/14/2025 at 5:04 PM, webfact said:

Appealing to Global Citizens

 

For ‘wealthy global citizens’—an enticing category for high-net-worth individuals—the Cabinet has axed the prerequisite annual income of about 2.9 million Thai Baht (US$80,000) over two years before one can apply for an LTR visa.

 

This move acknowledges that some investment-ready candidates were previously disqualified due to income thresholds, despite their financial contributions aligning with Thailand’s economic goals.

 

The OP report could have been a lot clearer of just what is -- and apparently is NOT -- going on with the abovementioned change.

 

What's not said in the above excerpt re the Wealthy Global Citizens category of LTR visa eligibility is that apart from the now eliminated requirement for $80K USD in annual income, the visa still DOES require a minimum investment of various kinds in Thailand of at least $500K USD -- which is hardly walking around money for most folks. That's a pretty important detail to omit.

 

Meanwhile, there is another different LTR visa category for so-called Wealthy Pensioners age 50 and above. It too currently has an $80K USD annual income requirement, with no mandatory lump sum investment required.  But the removal of the income requirement cited in the OP apparently does NOT pertain to the Wealthy Pensioners category, so it appears that the $80K income requirement still applies for that group.

 

And that means no matter how much money a retiree person might have sitting in their investment / retirement / other accounts, unless they're willing to draw down at least $80,000 of it per year in annual income as shown on their annual tax returns (regardless of whether they actually need that much to live here), the Wealthy Pensioner visa likely isn't going to work for them.

 

Although for the Wealthy Pensioners category, there apparently still remains a different workaround whereby you can get by with only $40K to $80K USD in annual income, IF you're able to also pony up at least a $250K investment in Thailand (in such areas as Thai government bonds, foreign direct investment, Thai real estate, or any combination of those. Again, a $250K cash investment in Thailand isn't something many pensioners are likely going to entertain, IMHO.

 

So all in all, the removal of the annual income requirement for the Wealthy Global Citizens category only -- where a $500K USD investment in Thailand is still required -- strikes me as a whole lot less than it might seem on the surface.

 

[Gknrd]

Affluent foreigners want to be able to breath the air where they live... hahaha

Thailand is a joke , and continues to push out this dribble so a few people will bite that know nothing of Thailand. 

 

Next year rinse and repeat. 

[jaywalker2]

20 hours ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

That legislation hasn't even been written yet. 

Tax residents only pay tax on assessable income remitted.

 

Would you prefer the US system, paying tax on all worldwide income remitted or not, and annual reporting of all financial accounts worldwide?

The US and Eritrea are the only countries in the world that based tax oblligation on citizenship rather than residency. I don't know what relevancy that has.

[jaywalker2]

20 hours ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

That legislation hasn't even been written yet. 

Tax residents only pay tax on assessable income remitted.

 

Would you prefer the US system, paying tax on all worldwide income remitted or not, and annual reporting of all financial accounts worldwide?

By the way, most popular retirement destinations -- Malaysia, the Philippines, Panama, Ecuador, Portugal, Greecee, even France! -- don't tax expat retiree income. And to tax remittances of credit purchases is insane. That's not even income.