Just went to Phuket Immigration to renew my retirement visa for the 4th year:-

Year 1 They require ฿ 800,000 in bank at time of application and accept a joint account held by my wife and I ( We are both English)

Year 2 there is the 3 month rule, no problem with that, but they say that my wife needs her own bank account. So off to the bank to open an account in her name.

Year 3 They tell me my wife does not need her own account and accept our marrage certificate as proof of being together, so we closed her account.

Year 4 (Yesterday) I go to renew and they tell me that we both need our own personal account for the

฿800,000 to sit in. So I had to go and open a bank account in my name only. We are fortunate as our visas are 4 months apart. So Monday we have to open yet another account in her name and transfer the ฿ 800,000.

So be warned everyone needs their own personal bank account for retirement visa purposes. Does anyone know where we are susposed to glean this information in order we are forewarned?

Can't you get the bank letter to spell it out? I have a joint account with my male Japanese partner, (I too am male). We renew our extension of stays at the same time, and have two deposits of THB800k each in joint names, plus sav & curr a/cs with not much in. Suan Plu, Bangkok have no problem with this, and have accepted it 3 years running. The bank letter (one for each of us) is very explicit that the monies are "owned" by both parties, but it's a total of over THB1.6m. Maybe just a Phuket problem?

Moved to the visa forum.

Are you both applying for a retirement extensions? That would explain the need for two accounts.

Your wife should be applying as your dependent based upon your extension not for retirement then she would not need an account.

As UJ said only one of you needs to apply for the extension with 800,000 in the bank . The other partner can get the same extension as your dependant without a bank account and without 800,000.

Rule 2.20

As stated above, your wife can apply for a 1 year dependent extension and piggyback her permission to stay on your retirement extension. Therefore, she would not need 800,000 THB in the bank.