Can I withdraw my retirement visa deposit from a Thai bank to invest it and still renew my visa?

400k THB must stay in the bank. At 33 THB/$, the other 400k, or about $12k, even at 5% interest rate, yields ~$600. Will be less after paying wiring fees back and forth. Consider the loss of gaining this interest as part of the cost of doing business. My $0.02

Your best line of thinking is that you have to get your head around that the 800'000 Thai baht is locked away for at least a year.If you can start depositing the 650O0 Thai baht per month and do that for the next year but you cant miss a month.Once your second 12 month extension is due use the Thai baht per month method to see if that will work if so then you are good to go.If not for whatever reason you have the 800'000 Thai baht still sitting there as backup evidence.That's the way I'm going to go so hopefully my next 12 month extension I'm going to use the per month method if good to go I'll take the 800'000 out and send it back home.Your other option is to use a Visa agent like the Thai visa centre just reach out to them on FB and have a chat to them.I'm big on having options!

Thank you everyone. I see a lot of valid points not to hassle with that money.

So let’s apply some logic and common sense here. First, before you ask questions on the board, it would probably be a good idea to know all the details about your account. You have to have your funds in your account two months prior to your application and for three months after it’s approved. After that, you could, in theory, withdraw up to half of it, roughly 400,000, but you will have to have it back into your account about six months later, so it is in place at least 90 days prior to your renewal. So if you were to proceed with this, you could withdraw approximately 400,000 Baht, pay whatever transaction fees, whether it be a percentage or certainly dealing with the buy and sell rate on your currency to convert it to roughly $12,000. You can then invest that for about six months, where you will earn somewhere in the range of about $200 on your money, assuming you could find an account that would pay you about 4%. After six months, you would have to withdraw, convert your money back to Baht, and re-deposit to your account. In the process, you would’ve likely paid some sort of conversion fees or transaction fees, when you converted your money to US dollars and then back to bought, not to mention you would technically be liable to pay tax on the $200 you just earned By the way, if for some reason there is a delay in the process, perhaps when you cashed out in the US and transferred your money back and you missed the window to have your funds in your account buy appropriate deadlines to renew your visa, you would effectively be putting your visa and your immigration status at risk Probably not the best idea,  and it may end up costing you more money than you could earn, not to mention time and headaches and possibly losing your visa along the way.

View the "lost" interest as a cost of living. Are you getting value for this cost ? Of course you are, it enables you to live in Thailand, where over the year, you will make this lost money back a few times over with the cheaper cost of living. If you are American, you would normally tip anything that "moves or breathes", so drop that a bit and bingo, you've covered your loss. In any case, if you are retired 800k is peanuts, the interest on 800k is a fraction of a peanut, so stop worrying over nothing, it's embarrassing.

Also check with your local immigraton - phuket IO wants the 800k to remind in the account the whole year regardless of what it says online etc . Leave the 800k in an account and forget about it otherwise mistakes might occur

You would lose on currency exchange each time. Absolutely pointless.

If you don’t want the 800k dying in a Thai bank account, just get an agent to handle your visa extensions

The issue you will face is that you won't get your next extension as you failed to meet the requirements of your current extension, which you agreed to do when you received that extension (as per Brandon's response above)

Good question. I feel a spreadsheet and more research is required 😀

Why do people try to game the system? Put the damn money in the bank & leave it there, period!!!

You must leave a minimum of 400k in the Thai bank. So, after fees and currency exchange, both ways, is it worth moving the money for the 7 months you are allowed?

As soon as you withdraw the money you are technically on overstay, as your extension is voided when the money is no longer in your account. Immigration will notice as soon as they look at your full 12 months of your Thai bank statements you have to submit for your next yearly extension. With the updated fast deportation rules that went into effect on Aug 28th, you would face arrest, deportation, and banned from returning to Thailand because of that overstay because you took the money out of your account. Number 2 deals with that specifically.

Just leave the money alone, it’s not worth the hassle and potential loss because of exchange rate fluctuations and fees. What’s worse is if you try to time it close, there is a chance that you mis-time the whole 800k, then you have problems. It’s just part of being here, my 800k is just forgotten about in relation to my budget.

If you do foreign transfer of 65,000 baht a month, that will suffice.

The requirements for a retirement extension are that you must keep your bank account at 800,000 baht for 2 months before you apply for the extension, and 3 months after the extension. After that, your account must never go below 400,000 baht.

That means you're only going to be able to do this with 400,000 baht, and only for about 6-7 months. Is it really worth the effort of transferring 400,000 baht out and back twice per year, paying fees and conversions both times?