Retirement Visa With Pension

[cwilliam]

I have a retirement visa and a pension over the required amounts.The way I read it you don't have to have any minimim amount in the bank.Had 400k last time,1% interest is a waste of my money.Can you get by on say 10,000 baht in the bank?

[Sojourner]

At Chiang Mai Immigration I found the bank balance issue to be a discretionary call. The Lt. Col. told me she would prefer seeing about 250K baht in my account whenever I come in for another one year extension even though my pension exceeds the minimum monthly requirement.

[Firefan]

cwilliam; one way to squeeze a bit more out of your cash by putting them into one of the bank funds. BKK Bank (and other banks too I am sure) have a boring but safe short bond fund paying 2-3% with no redemption or purchase charges. One can redeem within a day via ATM directly into your normal account so fairly easy to handle. (First purchase have to be at bank though).

I have recently done that myself. Disclaimer: even a short bond fund can have fluctuations in value. Cheers!

[PeaceBlondie]

I agree with Sojourner, that the local officer may wish to see at least 200K, regardless of pension income. Some guys spend every satang of their monthly pension, with nothing in Thailand to cover a major illness.

The Hua Hin Immigration Police give us a short list in English that makes it clear you can either have the pension, the savings, or a combination of the two. Truth is, they'd like to see some balance in a Thai bank, no matter how big our pensions are. So, I'm going to keep 200K, even though my embassy certified that my pensions are far more than adequate.

Also, Thai banks such as Bank of Ayudyha have fixed accounts like a certificate of deposit, that offer much higher rate of return than mere passbook savings.

[The Dude]

Thai Immi law says 65K/mo with no combined bank acct savings. Would think that this would suffice at BKK Immi for said retirement visa. It's not like you can't access cash if you needed it, you just don't want to stick it in a Thai bank. I know that I plan to do as you and get visa based on pension income of 65K/mo, when my time comes, and zero in a Thai bank. It's written in stone and BKK immi is by the book as far as I know

Edited November 18, 2005 by The Dude

[Mali_in_CM]

Hi The Dude,

Do you have a link or other reference on that rule?

TY

[cwilliam]

cwilliam; one way to squeeze a bit more out of your cash by putting them into one of the bank funds. BKK Bank (and other banks too I am sure) have a boring but safe short bond fund paying 2-3% with no redemption or purchase charges. One can redeem within a day via ATM directly into your normal account so fairly easy to handle. (First purchase have to be at bank though).

I have recently done that myself. Disclaimer: even a short bond fund can have fluctuations in value. Cheers!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Money is no problem,not trying to squeeze anything.The point I am trying to make is that the book says pension income or(or) money in the bank.I just renewed my 1 yr visa(Bangkok) no problem and I have medical insurance from outside the country.I did show outside bank statement of value of 10 million baht.I know what the book says but I' m not sure they do.

[JohnC]

Hi Mali You dont say what your country of origin is , however the following is a link to the Thai Embassy in London re long term visa (retirement)

http://www.thaiembassyuk.org.uk/visalongstay.html[/url]

Edited November 18, 2005 by JohnC