Will I be asked for health insurance when reentering Thailand on an OA Retirement Visa issued before October 31?

The inconsistency is with the IOs and consulate staff, who dont seem to understand the rules themselves. Having so many consulates and immigration offices with different requirements for identical visas/ extensions only adds to the confusion. If the rules were identical across the board (like every other country) this wouldn't happen.

Right now it is inconsistent. I get the impression that MOST people are being let in, the people who are refused are more likely to report it. If they do refuse, they are letting people in for 30 days and they are not invalidating the visa.

As it is so inconsistent, if you were unlucky enough to be rejected it is possible you could just do a border bounce within this 30 days and you might well get stamped in for the full year on the visa when you come back.

The London embassy also recently, only in the last few days, and apparently after feedback on refusals at the airport on visas issues by them, added the following to their section on the O-A visa:

Several immigration offices have all independently confirmed it will apply to extensions. There is really no question there, it definitely applies to O-A extensions.

The question that is open and inconsistently applied right now is whether it applies to entries for people who got their visa before 31 Oct. Most people seem to be getting in OK but there have been several reports of refusals at BKK.

The text I show I just the text Immigration. I'm not claiming to know how they will apply it. I'm on a Non-Imm O-A visa myself and I have chosen to change to a Non-Imm O the next time I go to my native country. Otherwise I would have bought health insurance. It is only checked when you ask for extention or if you leave the country. As you can read in other groups when you enter the country some Non-Imm O-A visa holders without have been asked to buy a health insurance within 30 days of their arrival. As always, if they don't check you or even if you don't get cought there is no problem (even for murder, 55) . Im just posting what I know, I don't want to pretend I know better than anyone else.

@Steven **************

I also think that.but it will devistate expats that cannot get insurance do too age or ill health.

@Keith ************

. As far as I know, at the moment it only affects OA visas acquired after the date of the new rule. They can't backdate it. As for extensions, it wouldn't surprise me if its introduced for them too at some stage in the future.

Well said

@Steven **************

...

@Gilbert ********

. So you are using the website of an agent that's plugging an insurance company in their information to determine the rules?

@Gilbert ********

so you are saying all retires applying to extend their O-A visas in Thailand need medical insurance. It only applies to new visas. Otherwise thousands of older Farangs will be Denied and have to leave .not true..

Pretty clear to me...

"there is an element of vagueness on the really finer points of this, that really make it difficult to provide any foresight as to exactly how this is going to be implemented. I think that is probably purposeful. When you write regulations, you want to leave the regulatory authorities or the adjudicating officers, the line officers if you will, some leeway to deal with things"

It states : "get insurance coverage anyway because failure to do so I think would probably cause a high likelihood of possibly having problems with Immigration at the time of entry to the Kingdom of Thailand"

But even they don't know for sure ..