Extension Of Stay For Retirement

[Maestro]

From another thread, in another ThaiVisa forum:

I just got my retirement visa (barely) and was given a STERN WARNING that next year Immigration wants to see monthly deposits in my Thai bank with the foreign bank deposit code and the amount of 65K baht or more.

That’s interesting. Which immigration office was this?

Have others had the same experience recently, and at which office? It used to be good enough to bring any amount into Thailand that one needed for one’s living expenses and this could be less than 65K per month, and remittances did not necessarily have to be on a monthly basis.

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Maestro

[doctormann]

From another thread, in another ThaiVisa forum:

I just got my retirement visa (barely) and was given a STERN WARNING that next year Immigration wants to see monthly deposits in my Thai bank with the foreign bank deposit code and the amount of 65K baht or more.

That’s interesting. Which immigration office was this?

Have others had the same experience recently, and at which office? It used to be good enough to bring any amount into Thailand that one needed for one’s living expenses and this could be less than 65K per month, and remittances did not necessarily have to be on a monthly basis.

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Maestro

Hi

I fairly recently (July) extended my retirement visa at Pattaya Immigration. I was a bit concerned about this requirement to, apparently, have proof of currency transfer from outside of the kingdom (in my case, pension payments) including transfer slips. I had a talk to the nice man at counter 5 prior to doing the extension, just clarify the requirements. In essence, I told him that my UK bank would not provide transfer slips and neither would my Thai bank (TMB) and that, in any case, the majority of my spending cash was obtained from ATMs. He told me that there was no need to provide proof of currency transfer over and above the pension certification letter that I had obtained from the UK embassy in BKK. When asked about the requirement to show some cash in my Thai account he said that just a few thousand Baht was all that was necessary since I had the pension payments - I think that it's just necessary to show that you do have an account in Thailand.

I know that, officially, you should be able to show regular transfers of at least 65k Baht per month (although there has never been any indication that you have to actually spend this amount) but the interpretation of the rules seems, as usual, to be down to the individual Immigration Offices.

In the event, I just provided the usual stuff, including a letter from TMB certifying that I did have some money deposited, and the extension went without a hitch - took all of 10 minutes. I believe that many others in Pattaya have had similar, stress-free experiences, when extending. So, maybe you need to pay a visit to Pattaya!

DM