What visa options do I have as a 33-year-old expat looking to retire in Thailand?

Dude. Go to Cambodia and ride the wave there. Thailand is raising the bar and it’s good if you’re established. Cambodia on the other hand is going to be a lot easier for you on visa and costs plus you will be able to thrive there much easier if you want to make it a long term home.

🤯 Having worked till retirement I find your comment offensive. You are lazy and you obviously think you are entitled to bludge off what ever society you live in. What about the people around you who will have to support your vagrant and self serving lifestyle by providing you a place to live or cook and clean for you as I doubt you are capable of putting any real effort into anything other than giving retires a bad name.

SPAM

This post reminds me of “mine is bigger than yours “.

Just border run it

Easy.....start a business here, become the Director, hire a few staff, and you're good to go.

This seems the latest fade these last few years people as young as their twenties with this fantasy they got off likely some hippy-dippy Khao San Road moocher muppet YouTube give me your money channel. Lived here going on twenty four years and of all the expats I have encountered even in their elder years most in my opinion moved here with some serious flawed ideas. Many gained knowledge from a bar stool , a beer and some alcoholic idiot expat. Just look at some of the Thai women they ended up with. Long story short YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THAILAND!

Is crazy when you deal with some people that can't think. I moved to a new town in Florida to start a new life, and most places require a 1 year lease. A few landlords said because I did not have a job yet, I could not be trusted to pay the rent. I told them I can pay a year's rent UPFRONT in full if they want... They told me I can't... 🙃

Buy into a structured annuity for a set amount per month. Pacific life is goid

Why not hop around on tourist visas for a few years

Good luck with that. I think your future is in the Philippines

You're not made to stay in Thailand. Walk away.

$100:00 us a week ,he’ll that should get you a citizenship FFS

I moved to Thailand instead of PH because the job market was better for me. I have toyed with the idea of starting a US business and becoming an employee and try to work-out a visa that way. The US and Thailand have some sort of treaty that gives special treatment to the US business ( However, most the people I have talked don't know anything about it and it is still a huge amount of paperwork.

As a US citizen (well most people) you can get an METV which gets you 9 months. For the first 9 years that I live in Thailand, I have had a few of those. I would estimate 6 of the 9 years that I have lived here, I have been on short term visa, doing 2 week border runs.

Philippines is good too. If you are unwilling to pay for the elite visa and unwilling to get creative with your thai short term visas and assume that risk, then most definitely you've made the choice to not stay long term Thailand.

There's a reason why so many people dished out $30k for the elite visas before the price went insane. You are not the first or the last to realize to stay in Thailand long term you need to either pay premium for a visa or get married or get old. No the Philippines doesn't charge people for visas because it's not Thailand, in all the ways why people would rather be in Thailand if they "could".

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

Philippines beckons no language barriers either and they have lots of American food - enjoy🙏

See ya in the Philippines.

The Philippines needs guys like you. Thailand does not. Go to the Philippines and just forget about Thailand. EVERYONE will be happy that you did.

How much money do you have in the bank?

Did the OP even reply or say thanks for the advice?

Use an agency to open a company that will employ you and stay with working visa ... around 3k year

Just​ setup a thai company and employe yourself that's it visa done ✅

Go to Philippines to live for now. Come to Thailand on holiday for a month at a time. See how the visa situation here changes. The tax position is becoming more challenging for some of us. And populism/nationalism with racism seems to be growing all over the world. Recent events have shown it may be on the rise here too. Wait to see how that plays out for a couple of years. By which time many of us might join you in PH!

Calm down please.

You seem to expect living in Thailand is your right. Well, it's not. You need to satisfy conditions for that, and if you don't, Thailand prefers to see you go to the Philippines. If the Philippines is happy about that too, and you are as well, then everybody is.

You a get an ED visa for 300$ a year if you do it directly with a school.

Start with the education visa first as others have suggested. Who knows, after a year here you may end up qualifying for the marriage visa🤣

Not a millionaire but enough money in bank to retire ? What a joke. You are delusional

You could do an ED visa for learning Thai for starters. If you're open to getting a more advanced education, you could go to college or explore other options. I haven't checked if it's still there, but Cordon Bleu used to have a center in Bangkok. ED visa may be your only option, but, as others have said, it could create issues for other options in the future. The other possibility is a multiple-entry tourist visa. It won't get you a full year, but it gets you a fair amount. I don't know for how long you can do those though. Maybe you could do one first then ED.

At your age it will be a difficult road.

You may get away witha couple years on ED visas but then could cause problems for other visa later.

For example you cannot get an elite visa with an ED visa in your history (at least now anyway).

If Thailand is where you want to be then you will likely have to bite the bullet on an elite visa to get you to retirement age.

You can easily live here well on 3-4k US per month.. so if you are budgeting 8k, you can afford the elite.

Or it's off to PH.

Say hello to the Philippines.

Go to Thailand apply for education visa learn Thai.

Enjoy the Philippines. When you turn 50 then maybe you can give Thailand another look.

Good luck dude

Have you consulated a visa agency yet?

There are plenty of individuals successfully living in thailand in similar situations as yourself.

Some start on ED, others do visa runs, and some use visa agencies for more stress free options which will cost you less than $100 per week.

As for your idea for the 10 year LTR, while it's creative you must remember that they will need all the company information, and it will be pretty clear what you are attempting to do. We have successfully assisted with hundreds of applications with that visa type, and it is a very thorough review process. So it will not be hard to see that you are still self-employed.

As you posted before your answer is the Philippines. Come and visit Thailand!

Looks like you're off to the Philippines