What is the best long-term visa option for a 29-year-old UK national looking to live in Thailand?

It depends what you'll be doing here - if working, ask your employer to sort out a work permit and visa - if studying, get a visa through your college/university - if you're so rich that you won't be doing either, buy an Elite visa.

you can get almost 6 years out of an Non-ED visa. But you HAVE to attend the school, as this will get checked. You can learn Thai for 3 years, and then switch to another language for 3 more years. 100% LEGAL (!) but just NOT with every "school" - there are a many half witted not so legal schools out there . .in case you are interested, google for "easy ABC Pattaya"

Getting an education/volunteer or other garbage junk tier visa will ruin your chances to get the Elite visa in the future and make you ineligible. Good thing to keep in mind if you actually plan to stay here long term and not just for 1-2 years.

Elite is the best value for what you get, you could open a business but that'd end up being more expensive with the amount of random fees and investment required will end up being more than the elite anyway.

You can apply for the Elite visa before the 15th of this month to get the old prices (600k baht instead of 900k for 5 years) and during that time you can just use visa exemption+extensions while waiting for the application to be approved which typically takes around 8 weeks. You'll then have an additional 30 days to make the payment and you're not obligated to if you change your mind.

Education visa, and learn Thai👍

* Elite visa ($$$)

* Volunteer visa (time consuming and can't have income)

* Work visa (gotta pay taxes and gotta have qualifications)

* Education visa (best to get one from a university. Make sure you actually go to class, though)

* Marriage visa (still need to show a certain amount of money in a bank account. And marriage is no simple thing.)

You can an LTR based on remote working. That’s the best visa only about 60,000 baht for 10 years. The thai elite visa is very expensive the prices went way up.

Get a degree certificate and then a job teaching English but the money is not great

Elite of you have cash and don’t need to work. 20 years 45 grand. If you work remotely and have 80k USD a year in income and have 1 million USD, you can buy 500k USD property and get 10 year LTR that allows work.