Incorrect Retirement Visa information?

[wineman]

Just read an article in a magazine here about documents required when applying for a retirement visa. Amongst other things it states that a medical certificate showing no prohibited diseases, issued in the country where the visa application is submitted. The certificate must be notarised and have been issued within the past three months.

The medical issue is of no concern to me personally. What is though, is the accuracy of the statement correct?.Anyone on here know, or care to comment?

I renewed my retirement visa last November, and wasn't asked for that document. Nor for my previous 6 applications. Maybe it's a recent change to the rules, or the enforcement of an existing rule.

[Genericnic]

I think you may be confusing the original application for a retirement visa, which does require the medical, with an application for extension of stay, which does not require it.

David

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[ubonjoe]

A medical certificate is is only required for a OA visa application at an embassy or a official consulate.

[partington]

I renewed my retirement visa last November, and wasn't asked for that document. Nor for my previous 6 applications. Maybe it's a recent change to the rules, or the enforcement of an existing rule.

Just to emphasize what you did was not a 'renewal' of your retirement visa. You have never done this, and currently do not have a valid visa.

What you have done, and did last time, was ask for the period that you were permitted to stay when you entered on the visa you once had, to be extended for a year. In effect you are asking : " I was given a period of 90 days (or 365 days, depending on the visa) to stay when I entered on that last visa I had. Can I be allowed to stay a year more?"

Every year you do this, long after your original visa has expired, you are still asking for the period you were permitted to stay on that extinct visa to be extended. You never get a new visa, and you never have a currently valid visa, which is why if you leave you will not be allowed back in under these conditions (unless you make special arrangements by actually buying a new permission to enter - the 're-entry permit'.) So it's important to understand the difference, and to understand that you do not currently have a valid permission to enter Thailand, ie 'visa'.

This is why your application each year , the TM7, is not entitled "Application for visa", but "Application to extend temporary stay in the kingdom".

Edited April 16, 2014 by partington

[Langsuan Man]

You must be careful here in Thailand on what you read in magazines and what you hear in bars, both of which are probably wrong

[Jingthing]

Ignore the rest ... this forum is the best and most accurate source for Thai visa information ... HANDS DOWN.

[OJAS]

Ignore the rest ... this forum is the best and most accurate source for Thai visa information ... HANDS DOWN.

Absolutely - even better and more than accurate than Thai Immigration themselves more often than not!!

[PlastikbinLina]

Ignore the rest ... this forum is the best and most accurate source for Thai visa information ... HANDS DOWN.

Absolutely - even better and more than accurate than Thai Immigration themselves more often than not!!

True, and without contradiction until sadly you meet a Thai Immigration Officer who has the last word. Say what you like about the accuracy of the source but he, the Thai officer, has the last word right or wrong and there's no redress.

Edited April 17, 2014 by ubonjoe
moved reply from quoted text

[Suradit69]

Ignore the rest ... this forum is the best and most accurate source for Thai visa information ... HANDS DOWN.

"... most accurate source for Thai visa information "

Yes. And for Thai extensions of stay information too, as long as people asking questions/ commenting are able to distinguish between visas and extensions of stay.

As Partington very correctly pointed out to whoever was talking about having renewed his retirement visa six times:

Just to emphasize what you did was not a 'renewal' of your retirement visa. You have never done this, and currently do not have a valid visa.

If anything can be called a "retirement visa," it would be the O-A, although it's actually labeled a "long stay visa," as I recall, and can only be obtained outside of Thailand. But what most retired people do has nothing to do with retirement visas. For most of us who trek to immigrations annually, we are getting an extension of stay granted by immigrations (hopefully) NOT getting or renewing any sort of visa.