Retirement Extension ~ Phuket Oct 10, 2019

[Ebumbu]

Phuket Immigration Report: Type O Visa for Retirement, Extension 

 

1) My nationality is USA. I bought the typical list of strange items to the office, including hand-drawn map of house and picture of me with house numbers in view. They didn't even look at it. Fine. 

 

2) For the financials, I brought three things: an updated bankbook, a 12-month bank statement with each page signed by the bank, and a bank cover letter in Thai. The IO literally went down the column of credits for each month of the year. It was OK to make more than one deposit in a month, if the total exceeded 65k. It was not OK to average two or more months together. The debit column was completely ignored. His attention was on counting 65k deposits for each month. Period. Source wasn't considered. 

 

3) There was endless signing, and then signing the signing. Endless photocopies of photocopies. Forms included TM7, TM47 and others I didn't know about (I just renewed passport). They stationed one IO outside to help applicants get organized. When ready, the guy outside organized my documents into a big sandwich, clipped a number to them, and prepared them for the IO inside.

 

4) Almost no words were exchanged with the guy inside who scrutinized the package silently, stamped everything, and collected the money. One minor glitch: The IO inside had some objection about one extension I did four years ago. He shook his head, pointed, and might have said "no good." I remained silent and still with a neutral expression. I had used an agent years ago, and it crossed my mind that she might have done something wrong. I just held my breath and he let it go. Who knows? 

 

5) Picture taken, money collected, receipt given, and I picked up extension the next day after 1pm. Boom, good for another year. I was warned not to be late on 90 day reports, ever, and to make sure that each individual month exceeded 65k baht. There would be no averaging. I had already understood that. They may have done away with the "combined" method. It seemed like it, but unsure. 

 

Any fears I had had about Phuket's unpredictable requirements were unfounded. No problems! Agent not needed at all.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by Ebumbu