What are the differences between converting a visa exemption to a Non O and obtaining a Non O 1 year extension based on monthly income requirements?

@Ken ******

have you physically been in Thailand for the last 12 months? If not then you do need the bt800,000 deposited. You should be in the L-1 section of immigration there. I deal with them every year, and have now had the same lady the last three years. She likes my wife, and let's her know everything, in detail. The other possibility, when did you turn 50. If it was within the last year, that could also be the problem

@Kool ******

The reason for the refusal has been explained in the Thai Visa immigration forum. The crux of the problem is that the applicant is trying to get a Non-O visa (note well, a visa, not an extension). He arrived in Thailand with visa-exempt entry, not on a Non-O. in Thailand. The applicant has ample documentation to support an extension of stay, but he is not trying to get an extension of stay, he is first trying to get a Non-O visa. The problem as explained in the other forum is that when the English-speaking embassies decided to get out of the income letter business and stop providing them for their citizens, Thai immigration came up with the monthly deposit scheme as a workaround. However, they did not go back and retrofit that workaround into the process of getting a Non-O visa in Thailand. The ONLY legitimate ways of getting a Non-O visa in Thailand are to have 800,000 baht in a Thai bank OR to have an income letter from your embassy (note the monthly deposit workaround is missing from the regulations).

His immigration office is balking at giving him a Non-O because technically as the law is written he doesn't qualify for a Non-O using the monthly deposit method because the monthly deposit method is not mentioned in the rules for getting a Non-O. If by some miracle he were able to get the Non-O issued, then with the evidence he already has he would have no problem getting a retirement extension based on the Non-O. But he doesn't have the Non-O and he can't get one using the monthly deposit method.

This would be a great time for the immigration officers in charge to use their discretionary powers to waive the requirement that it be a lump sum 800,000 or an income letter, and allow the applicant to get a Non-O visa in Thailand. Frankly, it will probably take an agent. Unfortunately.

@Ken ******

Yes, one would naturally assume they would be the same. Thai immigration is infamous for making half-thought-out changes to laws and this is a prime example of that.