Visa report: Tourist/Non-o visa in Essen, Germany

[Soutpeel]

Only if you have 10 million baht to invest in Thailand.

That's an investment visa then, not a retirement visa correct

[ubonjoe]

Correct

[Saradoc1972]

Little follow-up here.

I successfully emigrated to Thailand on that initial visa with never a problem whatsoever when I did my visa-runs to Cambodia every 90 days.

I then went back to Germany in July 2015 to get a new one, a new passport, and settle some other business.

Applied for my new visa in Essen again, same chap at the consulate. I had saved up some 60k THB on a Bangkok bank account in case my pension was not quite high enough

to meet the 800k THB requirement for a Non-O-A visa (I still don't know if it even applies to my Non-O) with the baht having dropped to some 35 to the Euro at that time.

Chap did not even want to see that passbook when I offered it to him.

Spaghetti alle vongole, got visa after half an hour, back to Pattaya.

Little quirk with that new passport (for German citizens):

I officially cancelled residency in Germany when I left in July 2014 with all the proper paperwork.

So when I went to the town hall at my last place of residence (also happens to be my place of birth, but that actually does not matter)

to get my new passport there was a little commotion at the desk I struck how they had to go about this for lack of a residence in Germany.

Apparently the office in charge for me would have been the German Embassy to Bangkok, so they now charged some 60 Euro in additional fees.

Not so bad still, as I got my passport on fast-track within a week.

It's a bit of a trade-off if you are not living in Bangkok in the first place.

The fast-track system at the Embassy in Bangkok would only be for the desperate, as it only cuts down a 6 weeks' wait to some 4 weeks for your 30 Euro extra fees.

To get a new passport in Bangkok you'd have to go there twice and heavens forbid you haven't got all your paperwork together, so that will be two

2-hour drives from Pattaya, each of which runs up to some 15 Euro including public transport locally if you go by bus, rather 20 Euro with food and water and everything,

one way, getting an appointment, and potentially having to book accommodation.

Even with the fast-track fees on top it's about the same money, just more hassle. Much.

So... yes, getting that passport in Germany seems to have been the better option, even with hindsight.