What are the differences between Tourist Visa and STV in Thailand, and can I extend them?

I'm a do-it-yourselfer so it goes against my grain to say use an agent. That said, they can be helpful with a complicated case. The retirement extension for one person I think is doable by an individual. If you were married and wanted to try to get a spouse to piggyback on your Non-O Retirement visa with a dependent visa it starts to get a bit more complicated. Doable but a little more complicated in terms of timing.

Obviously, using an agent is going to cost money. I don't have a problem with using an agent if you don't mind parting with the money they will charge.

I would not use an agent if they wanted to skirt the rules. For example, if you talk to an agent and they suggest you don't really need to have 800,000 baht in a Thai bank account, in fact, you don't really even need a Thai bank account, because they know people in immigration and they can get you a retirement extension of stay without all that, then I would stop talking to that agent. What that agent is doing is a gray area if not actually illegal and the problem is that if that's how you obtain your extension you may have to continue to use that agent in the future to obtain the next extension. It's not always easy to go straight if the gang won't let you. ;-)

There are agents that will simply do the paper-pushing and leg-work for you, and not skirt the rules. This type of agent will still want to get paid of course, but much less money than the skirt-the-rules type of agent. The reason the skirt-the-rules type of agent wants more money is that they actually don't get to keep it all, they have lots of "friends" that they have to share it with.

You can judge what type of agent you're dealing with by how much they want to charge you for their services. If it's a lot of money, you know they will be skirting the rules. If it's not a lot of money it's more likely they will just be doing paperwork and leg-work for you, not paying out bribes.

Of course, if you do everything yourself, you don't have to worry about what sort of agent you've gotten yourself. ;-)

Yes, definitely don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today. You have no real control over how long some things take so you have to move swiftly on the things that you control. For instance, if you plan on using Wise set up the account now.

@Scot ******

Oh, I see. This is my understanding of the process. Assuming you're going for the retirement extension. Assuming you're arriving on a TR. Assuming you're in Phuket (other provinces similar but not identical).

As soon as you get out of quarantine you want to open a bank account immediately. Try on your own, if repeatedly unsuccessful you may need to employ the services of an agent to get you a bank account. Bangkok Bank is best. Get 800,000 baht minimum transferred into that bank account as soon as possible (Wise can be a good way to do this). Go to immigration and apply for a Non-O for Retirement when you have as many as 45 days left on your initial permission to stay. At that point, you need to demonstrate that you have satisfied the financial requirements of having 800,000 baht minimum in a Thai bank account. They will accept your application and then it may take as long as 30 days for them to approve your application. Up until you receive that approval you will have under-consideration status, meaning you will be able to stay in Thailand. If approval is granted you would get 90-day permission to stay. 45 days before that permission expires you would have to apply for a retirement extension of stay (requirement being that you must have the minimum balance of 800k in the account for 2 months prior to your application). If granted on the date of application you will be told to return the next day and pick up your passport with one year's permission to stay stamped in. At that point, you're good for a year's stay in Thailand. You cannot let the balance in that account drop below 800k for the next 3 months and thereafter it cannot drop below 400k for the rest of the year. 2 months before you apply for your next year's extension balance must be above 800k again, and so on.

I recommend doing everything as early as you possibly can. Some problems can be solved with time. If you do things at the last minute it can be very stressful.

So to get back to your question, is it really 30 days for being under-consideration? I don't know. In a sense, it doesn't matter because if you have the under-consideration status you can remain in Thailand, and to my knowledge approval is basically Pro-forma. In other words, they won't even accept your application for a Non-O visa for purpose of retirement if they think there's anything wrong with it. The expectation is if they accept your application you will get the visa, you just have to wait out the under-consideration period.

@George ************

- I can use wise to set up an account now from Malaysia?

Yes, I've used them in the past. I currently use a Charles Schwab debit ATM card to withdraw 30,000 baht at a time from a Krungsri ATM machine. The exchange rate is decent and Charles Schwab reimburses the 220 baht fee that Thai ATMs charge for a withdrawal transaction. I would use Wise again if I needed to bring over more than $1,000 at a time. Bangkok Bank used to have a wonderful service for transferring money from the US through their NY branch until the US government stopped them from doing so. Nothing wrong with using bank wire transfers either if your bank doesn't charge a lot for the privilege of sending a wire (via SWIFT).

Wise generally gives an excellent exchange rate (mid-market basically) they make their money on the fees they charge which they are very upfront about and have a calculator which shows exactly what baht will arrive in Thailand and the fees charged. It's a good service.

@George ************

- we have Charles Schwab too, but it would take a lot of withdrawals to get to 0 baht. I would think Charlie would not like that very much, on the other hand I don't really know what their trigger is.

@Scot ******

Yes, wouldn't be using ATM for transferring 800,000 baht (daily ATM withdrawal limit on my Schwab account is $1,000 I believe), but it can come in handy for bringing in $1,000 after you're here. ;-)

I would investigate the cost for Wise and compare it to the cost of doing a SWIFT wire from one of your existing banks to a Thai bank. Which one is better is very much dependent on the amount of money being transferred. With a bank, you generally have a poorer exchange rate but with fixed fees, while with Wise you have a better exchange rate but with proportional fees. Wise will do the calculations for you, while you will have to do the calculations for a SWIFT transfer from your bank yourself. Don't forget the Bank of Thailand fee of 0.25% of the total amount (minimum fee of 200 baht and a maximum fee of 500 baht) for receiving foreign currency in Thailand. A SWIFT transfer will incur this fee, but a Wise transfer won't. You always want to send foreign currency to Thailand rather than baht. The exchange rate for baht is always better in Thailand than outside.

@Scot ******

Well, the Thai bank account needs to be set up by you in person in Thailand. But the Wise account takes a few days to set up. They have to approve the account, I believe they asked me to email them a copy of my passport to satisfy the "know your customer" anti-money laundering rules. You can also link existing accounts to your Wise account as funding sources. That sort of thing. But you can't transfer the money into your Thai bank account until you actually have a Thai bank account. ;-)

@George ************

- so wise is used as a handy way to transfer money? I just looked them up, seems fairly cheap.

@George ************

- do you think using the services of a broker like mots visa service or a person on here named Chulala who has already sent me a pm is a valid and quicker way to go?

@George ************

- OK, sounds good, except we will likely be entering visa exempt, so we will be down to 35 days when we get out of asq. Seems like the timeline should still work if we hustle.

@Scot ******

I see what you mean. As far as I know, that's not a general requirement for the TR, but when in Malaysia you have to follow the rules of the Thai Embassy in Malaysia. One possible workaround would be to book accommodations through a site like booking.com which I believe allows you to obtain a booking that can be canceled without incurring any cost before you check-in. A similar strategy can be used with the ticket out of Thailand requirement. Book a ticket out of Thailand that can be canceled without incurring any cost or purchase an inexpensive ticket that you may or may not use (maybe Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur, for example).