I'm having a tough time deciding what course of action to take. I am in the U.S. now, and will be traveling to Thailand on April 1. I want to stay more than the 90 days allowed for under the Tourist visa, but I don't quite qualify for a Non-Immigrant visa. My pension is about 60,000 baht/month, but I don't yet quite have the extra cash to deposit the additional funds required (about 80,000) to meet the 800,000 baht total. I intend to teach English part-time. Is this feasible: Enter Thailand on the Tourist Visa, and find a language business willing to help me get a work work permit, then go to the Immigration office in BKK and pay for a visa change? Wishful thinking for sure, but I would welcome comments or suggestions. My ultimate goal is to end up with a Retirement Visa sometime. The big thing now is to somehow avoid having to leave Thailand in 90 days.

I'm having a tough time deciding what course of action to take. I am in the U.S. now, and will be traveling to Thailand on April 1. I want to stay more than the 90 days allowed for under the Tourist visa, but I don't quite qualify for a Non-Immigrant visa. My pension is about 60,000 baht/month, but I don't yet quite have the extra cash to deposit the additional funds required (about 80,000) to meet the 800,000 baht total. I intend to teach English part-time. Is this feasible: Enter Thailand on the Tourist Visa, and find a language business willing to help me get a work work permit, then go to the Immigration office in BKK and pay for a visa change? Wishful thinking for sure, but I would welcome comments or suggestions. My ultimate goal is to end up with a Retirement Visa sometime. The big thing now is to somehow avoid having to leave Thailand in 90 days.

If you do find a school that will get you a B visa and work permit, you'll have to go out the country to get the visa (any country with a Thai embassy e.g Laos Malaysia). Then on your return you'll get a work permit which will extend the B visa from three months to one year. This extension is done at your local immigration office. My experience is that it is quite difficult to find a school who will employ part timers. Many language centres do, but tend not to help with work permits.

I had a tourist visa changed to be a non-imm 'B' without leaving Thailand

as I started work at a government school and they took care of the paperwork.

I don't know if private or 'language' schools have the same power, but this does

give you a course to follow once you're here.

It was a very simple process and it took only two visits to immigration to sort

out all the necessary stamps etc.

Best of Luck.