What are the best visa options for an Australian couple wanting to reside in Thailand for several months a year?

On the DTV part specifically, one thing from our own file that might save you some time: I hold a DTV and I have not been able to open a Thai bank account with it.

My wife is here on an education (guardian) visa, and that visa has to be extended against a Thai bank balance — so holding an account is a precondition, and a bank opens one for her. Same family, same city, and only one of us has an account. The DTV asks for its 500,000 THB once, at application, and it can sit in any country's bank; mine sat in Japan and I never converted it.

I can't speak to Non-O or the dependent route — I have not done either. But if the bank account is one of your two goals rather than a nice-to-have, I would take that question to an actual branch for whichever visa you settle on, before you apply rather than after.

Not the bank account and that might be a deal breaker but the 6 month MEV for tourism would give you the time in Thailand.

There are a few problems with what you've stated.

First problem, no Thai embassy sells trailing spouse dependent visas anymore if the primary person is on a non-O visa. Also, you say "partner", but Thai embassy generally do not recognize anything other than a marriage. I don't know what the situation is, but if you are not married, the Thai embassy does not care. Not that it matters because they would not be able to get the dependent visa anyways.

The 2nd problem is that there's no such thing as a "12 month multiple re-entry permit."

The non-O visa is a 90 day visa. That means when you enter Thailand, you would be given a 90-day entry stamp. Purchasing a re-entry permit only keeps your EXISTING permission alive if you leave Thailand, otherwise it would be cancelled. The re-entry stamp is only valid as long as the stamp in your passport that you purchase it for. So if you enter on a non-O and receive a 90-day stamp, and then purchase a re-entry permit, it's only going to be valid until the end of that 90 days. If you leave and returned during that 90 days, you would receive the same stamp you had before, because the re-entry permit kept it alive and allowed you to re-enter on that previous stamp. It DOES NOT give you any extra time, and does not make anything 12 months.

To get 12 months, you have to apply for the 1-year extension from the immigration office. That requires proof of 800,000 baht in your Thai bank account for 2 full months, and then must remain at 800,000 baht for 3 months after the extension and can never drop below 400,000 baht. It must be brought back up to 800,000 a full 2 months before the next extension application. Most people just leave the 800,000 baht in the Thai bank account full time. You would actually need 1.6 million baht between both of you since you would both need your own non-O retirement visas.

The only visa that SOME embassies will allow a trailing spouse dependent non-O visa for is if the primary person has a non-OA visa. This is a 1-year multiple entry visa, but it requires a more extensive application including criminal history check, health certificate, and mandatory insurance. If you tried to extend this non-OA visa in Thailand, you will require a updated health insurance from the approved list of Thai insurance companies, forever. That's an additional expense that you will have to pay every year to maintain it.

As an Australian, you do have access to an option that almost no one else in the world has, which is the non-OX visa. One of the Thai embassies/consulates in Australia (I always forget which one) is the only one in the world that allows you to apply for the 10-year non-OX visa using money in your home bank account. Everywhere else they require you to show 3 million baht in a Thai bank account. But this single embassy lets you show that deposit in an Australian bank account and issue the visa. This visa also has an insurance requirement, and you won't actually get 10 years out of it. The visa is issued as a 5-year visa, with the option for a 5-year extension. There has never been any report of anyone succeeding in getting the extension. Most people just go back to Australia after 5 years and apply for a new non-OX.

Hi

Have you looked at the LTR as an option?

You can sponsor your spouse once you are approved