What are the requirements and process for obtaining a 12 Month Extension of Stay on a Non-O Retirement Visa in Thailand?

@Dennis ********

A "visa" permits and regulates the ENTRY into the country.

Depending on the visa category, you will receive different lengths of stay permits. For Thailand, these can be 15, 30, 60, 90, or 180 days. They can also be 5, 10, or even 20 years.

The STAY PERMIT regulates STAYING in the country.

The duration of the permitted stay depends on the visa category with which you entered.

A single-entry visa becomes invalid upon entry and cannot be extended or used for another entry.

You have entered the country “on a visa” and you are now inside the country on a stay permit. This is also evident from the entry stamp:

This stamp states "admitted until" and a date. This stamp is the actual stay permit. This stamp is not a visa. The entry date is in red, and the expiration date of the "admitted until" permit is in blue.

In the upper right corner, next to the wording “visa class”, the visa category under which you entered the country is either handwritten or stamped.

If you leave the country before the expiration of your stay permit without a re-entry permit, the visa itself does not expire (because you no longer have any visa)... it is just the stay permit that will expire.

The "extension of the stay permit" is not a visa.

It is an “extended stay permit”.

No immigration office can extend any visas; technically, that's impossible, even though they often refer to a "visa extension" in their terribly bad English

Unfortunately, immigration doesn't differentiate between the terms "visa" and "stay permit." They consider them one and the same. This is not correct.

However, a handful of immigration offices have seen the light and stopped talking about "visa extensions."

I need absolute clarity in my visa consultations, I ignore the immigration office's error and will always use the correct terminology.

Lack of words also plays a role. It's easier to say “you have a retirement visa" than to use the correct term, "you got a one-year extension of the temporary stay permit based on retirement."

If you don’t understand this, I really can't help. Then all my efforts are in vain and you need to get educated.

@Nongnuch *******

have you got nothing better to do that play with semantics? 🤯

@Nick ******

Of course there is such a thing as a “retirement visa”

Actually, the term can mean seven (7) different visas and stay permits, it depends what people like to say, be it wrong or not.

With kinds regards and thanks to Robert Lagas, who wrote it up and whose original text I have only marginally altered.

Once more, because people try to give advice based on what they think is a "Retirement Visa"

First of all, you DO not have to be retired to apply for this visa. You however need to be 50 years or older.

Well, some Thai embassies will insist that you already receive a pension, or they will tell you to apply for the Non-Imm-O/A Longstay Visa. What “your” embassy is doing, you need to check.

Second is that all options have DIFFERENT rules, regulations and requirements.

So please read and try not to give incorrect advice by using the requirements for a different type of visa or extension of stay.

What is a retirement visa?

It is a phrase used by foreigners and Immigration and it could be 7 different types of visa or stay permits, with different rules, regulations and requirements

OR

it could even be an 1 year Extension of Stay based on being over 50 years of age and willing to sit out the rest of their life inside Thailand.

It is easy to type “retirement visa”, but very difficult to understand which option the person refers to

Options are:

1. Single Entry Non Immigrant O visa based on being over 50 years of age

2. Multiple Entry Non Immigrant O visa based on being over 50 years of age (it got discontinued by October 2023 and is not available any more)

3. Non Immigrant O visa based on being over 50 years of age without entry by conversion at local immigration office

4. Non Immigrant O-A visa (Long Stay)

5. Non Immigrant O-X visa

6. Long Term Residency (LTR) visa

7. Extension of Stay based on being over 50 years of age and willing to sit out the rest of their life inside Thailand (stamp from Immigration, which is not a visa)

ONLY for options 3, 5 and 7 the applicant needs a bank account in Thailand or a Certificate of Income from their Embassy.

Option 2 cannot be applied for any more, since all Thai Embassies and Consulates took it out of the E-visa program.

Option 3 is applied for by conversion of your Visa Exempt Entry or Tourist Visa at your local Immigration Office inside Thailand.

Option 6 is applied for with support of BOI Thailand

Option 7 is applied for at your local Immigration Office AFTER you used a Non-Immigrant visa.

Other options are applied for at a Thai Consulate OR for those countries who are legit, on-line.

Thanks for reading this long explanation.

@Nongnuch *******

not reading all that. The fact you posted it when I didn’t ask shows you are showboating rather than trying to be helpful. Have a good day

@Nick ******

I am admin of a visa advice group. I got over 300 pre-texted advices on my harddisc. Pre-texted because many questions are about re-appearing topics . . . I actually HELP people every day

@Dennis ********

and the extension stamp looks like this . . . Nowhere it says anything about being a "visa". Actually, it says TWO times it is a "stay permit"

@Dennis ********

you would have an entry stamp like this one . . it clearly says that you are "admitted until" for 90 days. The visaclass you entered on can be seen in the upper right corner. This stamp is a stay permit, this stamp is NOT a visa. Your 90-days Non-Imm-O Visa would be an A4 paper document from a Thai Embassy which you printed out at home

@Dennis ********

ah, so my guess was very close. Today, your 90-days report due date was less than 15 days away, actually only 10 days away, that's why they let you report and issued the slip