Update On Permanent Residency Visa

[BHBKK]

Since coup 2006 no permanent residency VISA (PR) have been issued. I have friends that completed the application over 2 years ago and are still waiting to receive their PR.

I had great hopes with the democrats coming to power VISA situation will improve or at least that the existing legal options to obtain a VISA are possible again.

Does anybody here know firsthand whether PR applications are possible again and PR have been granted? Same actually applies for investor VISA and retirement VISA. Regarding the latter a rumor persists that the qualifying age will be increased to 55 years.

[Mario2008]

Permanent residency is not a visa, making your post somewhat confusing.

The option to apply for permament residency still exist, although you can normaly only apply in the month of December. Immigration annouces when you can apply and did this also last december.

There is no age limit for permanent residency, but there is a requirement to pay taxes. Normaly retirees do not qualify because of that.

[ubonjoe]

None of the things mentioned are visas. Permanent Residency is not a visa.

PR it is still available and a 2year wait or more is not unusual.

An extension of stay for a 10,000,000 baht investment is possible.

Retirement extensions are given everyday. Infact they just made a change that makes it easier for first time applicants because now the money in the bank has to be there for 2 months instead of 3.

I have heard no rumors that they are going to increase the retirement age.

[Time Traveller]

Actually I thought people that have PR have what is called a Immigrant Visa. For people without PR they have a NON-Immigrant visa.

I.e. the latter is a temporary visa, and the former is a permanent visa. Hence they have PR status. Is this correct or is there another visa also?

[ubonjoe]

You enter the country using a visa which allows you to get a permit to stay for the amount of time allowed by the visa. After you are in the country you are no longer on a visa. That permit to stay can then be extended.

PR is not a visa of any kind. I guess you could call it a never ending permit to stay.

[PattayaParent]

They have actually LOWERED the retirement visa age from 55 to 50 only about 5 years ago.

[EdtheTruth]

I have had PR for about 2 1/2 years now. It is true that PR itself is not a visa, and with PR you can stay in the country permanently without any type of yearly renewal process.

However, to exit and enter the country you need an immigrant visa and a re-entry permit (single or multiple). I'm staring at my immigrant visa stamp right now in both my passport and residence book. So PR itself does not mean you never need a visa again (unless you never plan to leave the country).

The immigrant visa and re-entry permit are good for only one year, so obviously if you leave the country every year you have to go in and get a new visa and re-entry permit each year.

On an interesting side note, I had a little problem in Room 301 this week. When I received PR more than 2 years ago, I paid for an immigrant visa and multiple re-entry permit. It turns out that I never left the country, and therefore the visa and re-entry permit expired having never been used. When I went in this week to get a new visa and re-entry permit, I was informed that my old visa had to be 'canceled' before I could get a new one (even though it had expired). This, of course, made no sense to me since the visa expired last summer. However, they claimed that there was a regulation that required a visa to actually be used, and that if it is not used it must be separately canceled. No big deal, except it added 1 day to the process. That is, they would not cancel the old visa and give me a new one in the same day. Luckily, I had exactly one day to spare: I'm leaving tomorrow for the States so all is good.

I'm curious if anyone with PR has encountered this issue because I had never heard of this before.

[keestha]

Since coup 2006 no permanent residency VISA (PR) have been issued.

Anybody out there who has been issued PR after the 2006 coup?

[Mario2008]

Since coup 2006 no permanent residency VISA (PR) have been issued.

Anybody out there who has been issued PR after the 2006 coup?

As far as I know of the answer is no. But the right place for this is:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Camerata-s-G...html&st=400

[Maestro]

…On an interesting side note, I had a little problem in Room 301 this week. When I received PR more than 2 years ago, I paid for an immigrant visa and multiple re-entry permit. It turns out that I never left the country, and therefore the visa and re-entry permit expired having never been used. When I went in this week to get a new visa and re-entry permit, I was informed that my old visa had to be 'canceled' before I could get a new one (even though it had expired). This, of course, made no sense to me since the visa expired last summer. However, they claimed that there was a regulation that required a visa to actually be used, and that if it is not used it must be separately canceled. No big deal, except it added 1 day to the process. That is, they would not cancel the old visa and give me a new one in the same day. Luckily, I had exactly one day to spare: I'm leaving tomorrow for the States so all is good…

I started a gallery of Thai visa, extension and re-entry permit stamps and would be grateful if you could scan and post here a copy of the new immigrant visa and re-entry permit you got just now for my collection. Thank you very much in advance.

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Maestro