mojaco

400/40 is for marriage to a Thai extension, not retirement. 800/65 is still the retirement requirements

I arrived at Chiang Rai Immigration (the city office) at 7:30 AM. Others began arriving at 7:45. When doors opened at 8:30 there were about 15 in line, and I was #1 (first time! I took a photo of that queue number). It took 1.5 hours to process both my retirement extension and my wife's (she is my "dependent" and so no funds required for her). The IO processing the two extensions was busy doing that the entire time, and it looked like there is more paperwork involved this year. There were some extra pages to sign, and they also stamped over my signature on many of the pages I had already signed. One positive was that this year they made a few copies in the office for me to sign. Last year I had to take my passport and drive to a remote location to have a copy made so I could do my wife's extension as my dependent. This year I didn't have to do that. I had always used the USA Embassy income letter before, but in late October I put 800,000 Baht in my Bangkok Bank savings account as a result of the "new rules" I read on Thai Visa. Today I extended for one more year using the money in the bank option, and the IO gave me a copy of the "newest new rules" effective March 1 (the "2.22 Retirement" rules posted on Thai Visa). But at this office, the rules are immediately effective. So I was told that from today (when the extension is granted) I need to keep the 800,000 for the next three months, and 400,000 continuously thereafter. I asked if moving 800,000 from my normal savings and putting it in a Fixed Deposit account was OK? The IO said, "As long as the transfer out of savings and into fixed deposit takes place in the same day, it's OK". So to make life simple for a while, after the extension I opened up a Fixed Deposit, 1 year, 1.50%, automatic renewal account at Bangkok Bank in Chiang Rai. I did not ask any questions about the other options. But at least for now in Chiang Rai, this is the immediate process for "800,000 in the bank" extension. There were no other unusual difficult issues with renewal. It was about the same as last year, although they did want the signed Tabien Baan, ID card, and rent letter from whom I am already registered with by a TM30. They also wanted every signed page with the signature at least 2.5 inches from the page bottom so they can stamp over the signature and then the IO signs below that stamp, so I had to re-sign some pages I had already signed in advance. As in the past they did not ask for a map. One aside, my wife in not a native English language speaker and so has great difficulty writing her name in English script. I asked if someday she could just use a thumb print. The IO said that was OK.