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Please advice me on my legal Visa Possibilities


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Dear Community

 

Please advice me on my legal Visa Possibilities

 

I arrived with a "30 Day Visa on Arrival" in Thailand

 

Recently, I got another 30 Days Visa at Thai imigration

 

The Officer ( Jomtien Immigration ) told me,  after the second 30 Days, I can apply directly for a Non O Visa,

if I have 800.000 Baht on my Thai Bank Account ( what I do since more than a Year )

 

I am not sure, if this Information is accurate or legal

 

Please advice me

 

Thanks in Advance

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First, some terminology. You arrived in Thailand on a visa exempt entry (a visa on arrival is something different). You subsequently received a 30-day extension of your permission to stay.

 

You are presumably over 50 years of age. If so, the immigration official is correct. You can change your current entry into a 90-day non immigrant entry via a process often referred to as conversion. Towards the end of the 90 days from the conversion, you can then apply for a one-year extension. All this is perfectly legal.

 

The application for a conversion needs to start when you have at least 15 days left on your current permission to stay. It might be even longer at some immigration offices. You need 800,000 baht in a Thai bank, and proof the funds came from abroad (the bank can provide you with the transaction form that shows this). The subsequent one-year extensions of stay are most easily accomplished if you can just leave the 800,000 baht sitting unused in your Thai bank account. If this is going to be problematic, there can be other options.

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Yes it’s legal and normal as a prerequisite to ‘retirement’, however, you usually need at least 15 days of your permission to stay remaining when you apply.

 

I’ve no personal experience at that office, but I believe they were (maybe still are) pushing applicants to use an agent who charges a rip off amount to get it done. It should only cost 2,000 baht for the visa and is an easy application when applying direct to immigration.

 

It’s probably only worth doing if you are planning to apply for a 1 year extension of stay based on retirement a couple of months after the visa has been issued.

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