Do I apply for a retirement visa for Thailand in the USA or after moving there?

Apply for a Non O in your home country. The Thai 🇹🇭 consulate or embassy in your home country will tell you what is required to APPLY for a Non O (it is not that much).

When you get to Thailand 🇹🇭 with your Non O visa, you will then be able to open a Thai bank account. You will need to deposit 800,000B at least two months before applying for your 12 month extension. The 800,000B will also need to sit in your account for 3 months after your extension has been granted. Following that, the amount cannot drop below 400,000B until the cycle starts again.

Please bear in mind that the practice of using an agent to ‘deposit’ money in an account, supposedly in your name is illegal and may lead to consequences for you further down the track. It may also be difficult to escape the agents clutches, should you choose to go down this path.

I hope this helps.

If you prefer to do everything yourself including going to the immigration office and and making sure you have all the necessary paperwork in order that I would recommend doing it in the US before you fly here. If you want to trust a company to do all of that for you then talk with an agency that specializes in immigration. They will tell you to do it once you get here. I used it agency and they took care of all the hassles for me and I am glad I did. I would rather spend the money and have a professional do it for me.

You should get an O visa in the US. Be careful not to get the OA visa unless you have researched the features of the OA. If you qualify for an LTR then that would be my recommendation.

For information about the LTR Google BOI LTR.

I normally would be the one to tell you to research this site: but you will get all sorts of advice from all sorts of people.

The best suggestion I find is for you to spend 2-3 weeks or more exploring Thailand and finding out where you want to live at first. Then interview several visa agents in that area and see how they will get you a O visa…and compare their costs. Make sure they are reputable by asking American expats in the area.

Apply for visa in USA and then you apply for extension to stay based on retirement after you arrive in Thailand There should be be plenty of information if you search retirement in this group

I got mine (OA Retirement) stateside PRIOR to moving abroad. No problem getting a bank account. Then came back stateside after a year to earn a bit more money and putting funds aside via WISE regularly.

The only concern is that nowadays you have to also get Thai health insurance. If you are still fairly young, probably not a huge barrier.

Suggest you apply for a non O over 50 retirement visa in the USA through the thai consulate online. Getting a 90 day non O each will make your start of life in thailand much easier, it will help you open a bank account each and deposit the required 800k baht each for the extension of stay a key retirement for you long term stay

Ask Thai Visa Centre. They'll be able to answer your questions.

Apply in the USA

Better to get your Visa before you travel which makes opening a bank account much easier which you will need soon fter arrival to transfer funds to season for two months for your first 12 month extension.

Might I suggest you search this site. I believe this question may have come up before.