800,000 Retirement Extension in Chiang Rai Feb 6, 2019

[mojaco]

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.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by mojaco
clarification

[jacko45k]

Any mention of when you do the 90 day report you will need to prove you still have the 800,000 baht?

[mojaco]

3 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Any mention of when you do the 90 day report you will need to prove you still have the 800,000 baht?

They did not say anything about that.  They did renew someone's 90 day while I was there and no mention to him.  They also didn't say anything special to me when they told me it was too early for me to do my 90-day and they would see me in a couple of weeks.  I was NOT told to prepare anything special for my next 90-day.  But I will probably do mine online as in the past anyway.

Edited February 6, 2019 by mojaco
clarification

[pontious]

That is a PITA - new rules do not start till 1 March.

[jacko45k]

18 minutes ago, mojaco said:

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.

This is important, thanks for posting. I just wonder how they will check up on this.

Edited February 6, 2019 by jacko45k

[NancyL]

I did an 800,000 baht retirement extension in Chiang Mai yesterday, February 5 and was told by the CM immigration officer it was OK to spend that 800,000 baht now -- that the new rule about not touching it for three months and not ever letting it go below 400,000 doesn't go into effect until March 1.  Whew!  Got in under the wire this year.  

 

I turned age 65 a couple weeks ago and my pension starts at the end of February, so next year I'll have a year's worth of monthly deposits into a Thai bank in excess of 65,000 baht/month and I can start to spend that 800,000 baht now on a condo remodeling project.  Sometimes you get lucky.  

 

The immigration officer made sure I understood exactly what was needed to prove monthly deposits and then we had a nice chat about the remodeling project when I told her I was going to spend the 800,000 baht right away.

[steve73]

Thanks for posting your experiences - I'll be doing mine in the next week or two at Rayong.  I'm hoping they adopt the CM approach rather than CR. 

[Thailand]

An immigration clusterf--k of epic proportions.

[pontious]

2 offices - 2 different answers - this will be a real buggers muddle.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

9 minutes ago, NancyL said:

The immigration officer made sure I understood exactly what was needed to prove monthly deposits

 

Nancy, what was her guidance on that point?

[NancyL]

Just now, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Nancy, what was her guidance on that point?

To make copies of the Thai bankbook, with each monthly pension deposit highlighted in yellow, a letter from the bank verifying the current balance and ownership of the account and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

[Peterw42]

Great post @mojaco. Given that they didnt issue any instructions to come back in 90 days etc, that pretty much confirms that they will check account at next extenstion.

 

That also means they wont be catching anyone, using an agent etc, until next extension.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Peterw42

[pontious]

9 minutes ago, NancyL said:

To make copies of the Thai bankbook, with each monthly pension deposit highlighted in yellow, a letter from the bank verifying the current balance and ownership of the account and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

Hope everyone in CM has a pension then.????

[steve73]

11 minutes ago, NancyL said:

To make copies of the Thai bankbook, with each monthly pension deposit highlighted in yellow, a letter from the bank verifying the current balance and ownership of the account and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

So this effectively rules out bringing in savings or investment income for those of us who do not receive sufficient pension income..?

[Peterw42]

1 minute ago, pontious said:

Hope everyone in CM has a pension then.????

Yes thats right, still no information for people living on share dividends etc

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

20 minutes ago, NancyL said:

and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

 

That's going to be a bit difficult, if the applicant is getting their monthly funds from a variety of sources beyond things like Social Security as is still allowed -- bank interest earnings, stock dividends, retirement fund mandatory withdrawals, etc etc...  Lots of income sources don't provide an annual benefit letter.

 

In addition to all of the above, I also have a government agency pension... and I get monthly statements showing my benefit. But in many years of receiving it, my former government employer/pension plan has never sent me any kind of annual statement saying how much I am going to receive for the year ahead. Although forms like IRS 1099s might show the same thing, if Immigration even understood what they are.

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[watcharacters]

4 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Yes thats right, still no information for people living on share dividends etc

 

Would you be able to simply sell some of your equities so you'd be OK to deposit the required  ฿800K in a Thai bank? 

 

Once you have the required  (฿800K)  deposit you could live off the remainder of your dividends happily.

[OJAS]

27 minutes ago, steve73 said:

Thanks for posting your experiences - I'll be doing mine in the next week or two at Rayong.  I'm hoping they adopt the CM approach rather than CR. 

You might be interested in this report by an acquaintance of mine about his experience in connection with his latest retirement extension at Rayong yesterday:-

 

"I asked about the latest Police Order, which is perfectly clear as to what is required re maintaining 800k for 5 months of the year and 400k for the other 7 months, but says nothing about the verification process. Are we going to have to start producing our bank books/ statements every 90 days? The answer - as far as Rayong Immigration is concerned - is no. As long as when you next apply (after the first application under this Order) you can produce a record of the required balances for the previous year you're in the clear. This is what I hoped they'd say, and eminently sensible."

[Peterw42]

Its great to have this confirmation but I cant see how this will stop the agents and friendly IOs, at the moment they either get you some bogus bank docs or an IO signs off on a (no funds) extension. Come next years extension and the agents and IOs will just do the same, bogus documents or sign-off on no 400k etc.

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Peterw42

[cleopatra2]

9 minutes ago, OJAS said:

You might be interested in this report by an acquaintance of mine about his experience in connection with his latest retirement extension at Rayong yesterday:-

 

"I asked about the latest Police Order, which is perfectly clear as to what is required re maintaining 800k for 5 months of the year and 400k for the other 7 months, but says nothing about the verification process. Are we going to have to start producing our bank books/ statements every 90 days? The answer - as far as Rayong Immigration is concerned - is no. As long as when you next apply (after the first application under this Order) you can produce a record of the required balances for the previous year you're in the clear. This is what I hoped they'd say, and eminently sensible."

Does checking at next extension  provide its own difficulties. 

It is assumed failure to maintain the conditions of existing permission will adversely affect the granting of any subsequent application. The question then raised , what further restrictions if any will be applied to obtain subsequent permission of stay.

How long will such failure affect subsequent applications, 1 year , 2 or other

[DrJack54]

59 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Great post @mojaco. Given that they didnt issue any instructions to come back in 90 days etc, that pretty much confirms that they will check account at next extenstion.

 

That also means they wont be catching anyone, using an agent etc, until next extension.

Yes, I agree, thankyou for the report OP. Also Peter, im thinking (hope) that the funds held in account for 90 days was never going to work if tied into a 90day report or even a revisit to imm. I never have done a 90 day report in 7 yrs. I'm hoping this requirement will be checked when you go to do the following annual extension as you suggest the most logical. Would it be too much to expect that the detailed advice wasn't already available.

[NancyL]

1 hour ago, Peterw42 said:

Yes thats right, still no information for people living on share dividends etc

I specifically told her that my pension starts in a few weeks, so she showed me examples of other pension applications from earlier that day (so much for customer confidentiality).  Had I told her that I was switching next year to living on share and dividend income, she may have shared with me a correct application from someone using that method.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, NancyL said:

I specifically told her that my pension starts in a few weeks, so she showed me examples of other pension applications from earlier that day (so much for customer confidentiality).  Had I told her that I was switching next year to living on share and dividend income, she may have shared with me a correct application from someone using that method.

 

There's nothing in the new police order re retirement extensions that addresses or limits what kinds of sources of income can or cannot be used to make the required 65,000 baht per month transfers into a Thai bank account.

 

So despite that particular immigration officer's comments, I would NOT take them as meaning in any way that somehow non-pension income is suddenly not going to be accepted. The main thing is, they want to see the 65K each and every month coming into a Thai bank account, not where every baht of it came from.

 

I can envision, perhaps, that some officers might want to see some backup documentation in some cases showing the source/sources of the funds, perhaps to show the person is not "recycling."  But most all of the other non-pension sources of income also have varying kinds of statements or documentation, which I'm sure would suffice if required.

 

 

[cmarshall]

15 hours ago, NancyL said:

I did an 800,000 baht retirement extension in Chiang Mai yesterday, February 5 and was told by the CM immigration officer it was OK to spend that 800,000 baht now -- that the new rule about not touching it for three months and not ever letting it go below 400,000 doesn't go into effect until March 1.  Whew!  Got in under the wire this year.  

 

I turned age 65 a couple weeks ago and my pension starts at the end of February, so next year I'll have a year's worth of monthly deposits into a Thai bank in excess of 65,000 baht/month and I can start to spend that 800,000 baht now on a condo remodeling project.  Sometimes you get lucky.  

 

The immigration officer made sure I understood exactly what was needed to prove monthly deposits and then we had a nice chat about the remodeling project when I told her I was going to spend the 800,000 baht right away.

So what is necessary to prove monthly deposits?  Is the bank book not enough?

[ocddave]

15 hours ago, pontious said:

2 offices - 2 different answers - this will be a real buggers muddle.

Got to love the consistency of rules applied in Thailand, might as well not have any, or they should just put a warning "Note: We may interpret rules/regulations whatever way we damn well please!"

[fforest1]

32 minutes ago, ocddave said:

Got to love the consistency of rules applied in Thailand, might as well not have any, or they should just put a warning "Note: We may interpret rules/regulations whatever way we damn well please!"

Basically the rules are whatever the immigration officer who is processing your visa at that moment says the rules are......This can be a very good thing or a very bad thing....  

[lamyai3]

15 hours ago, NancyL said:

and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

This is precisely the kind of grey area where individual embassies were able to apply localised knowledge, and make informed interpretations based on the multifarious income sources of their own citizens. If immigration is now anticipating taking on this role and expecting documentation it'll be a nightmare. 

[indepth]

16 hours ago, steve73 said:

So this effectively rules out bringing in savings or investment income for those of us who do not receive sufficient pension income..?

Doubt it. Wouldnt ;make sense. Oops, forgot, TIT.

[Chicken George]

I did mine in Chiang Rai yestetday. Told new rulrs start 1st March given paper copy of nrw rules to confirm.. No mention made of how they will check 800k in there in 90 days. I dont think they know either. 

Its here to stay.

[chrisinth]

17 hours ago, NancyL said:

To make copies of the Thai bankbook, with each monthly pension deposit highlighted in yellow, a letter from the bank verifying the current balance and ownership of the account and also to bring the annual letter from the pension provider of how much pension is received.  

I wonder how many people that will affect between the age of 50 and the pensionable age of their home countries. Yes, I understand that some have private pensions, but certainly not all.

 

As I said in another thread, I personally know people (mostly in the O&G) who were literally forced into the 'retirement visa' option as they were FIFO and being questioned about their visa exemption entry counts. These people aren't married and most have been using Thailand as a base for decades.

 

If they stick to the term pension literally, I can envisage a lot of grief for many.