Retirement In Thailand

[dinfisher]

The one yr retirement visa seems straightforward after coming in on a 9o0 day non immigrant visa but if you get it duty can be charged on import of HHGDS because one does not then hv a work permit or resident's permit. If you get the one yr visa you can not then get a residents visa after 3 yrs now. One has to bring in a minimum of 800,000 baht but bank do not open accounts for those without permanent addresses or work permit/residents permit but one needs a bank ac to remit the forex to. If one wants to buy a house by seeting up a thai company one will need to get a work permit to control the funds and signatures for the company but the retirement visa seems to say that you can not have a work permit. The other topic is that my daughter was born in thailand in 1973 under the old laws and got a thai birth certificate which led to also getting a thai passport. she left when she was 3 and the passport expired in 1978. She now wants to get thai nationality back by getting an ID card but amphurs are reluctant to issue one and refer you to immigration proof of nationality division where there are some 500,000 hilltribe applications to consiedr and a waiting list of several years! By law she has the right but without the id can stay in thailand and only has a 30 day visa on her otgher passport. has anyone had a similar problem and solved it? Regards david Fisher

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Firstly...as soon as you get a one year extension of the Non-Immigrant visa you can bring your household goods into Thailand.

Second...The Siam Commercial Bank will allow retirees to open a passbook account.

Third... your daughter would have been better off applying for a Thai passport overseas. But with her old passport and Thai birth certificate she can apply for a new passport at the Passport Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 123 Chaeng Wattana Road Laksi Bangkok 10210. You cannot get a work permit as a retiree. Your daughter could own a house if she regains her Thai citizenship. You could certainly own a condominium.

[dinfisher]

Tks for Dr Pat Pong's info. Some clearance agents say only those with resident's permits or one year work permits can bring in hhgds on a duty free basis as the one year retirement visa does not yet qualify one for duty free imports! My daughter tried for 9 months to get a new passport through the thai embassy in london to no avail which is why she came her to try locally. she did not yet succeed and has now had to go again but we hope to continue the process here and call her back if there is approval for an id card fm immigration.

[kandt]

As for many similar issues here in Thailand it depends to a great extend where you enter/stay and with whom you are dealing. I am specifically referring to the visa, bank and import issues. I Entered Phuket, Thailand in September 2002 on a 90 days non-emigrant visa which was subsequently converted to a 12 months retirement visa. I was informed by a local lawyer that in Phuket, both Siam Commercial Bank and Bank of Asia would allow foreigners with a retirement visa to open a savings account, and we selected BOA being a little more modern in our view. I was also informed by the moving company handling the import of our household effects (Transpo) that I would be allowed to import my household effects duty free, within 6 months after first arrival. Thereafter I would have to pay normal import duty. Obviously, we imported our HHE within the six months and did not pay one satang in import duty.

The same lawyer assisted us in establishing a Thai company, without a working permit (because one cannot have a retirement visa and a work permit), to take care of the land and house that the company own and we lease for thirty years with a possibility for extension for another thirty years. Hope this is helpful?

kandt