Hi. I'm retired this year and would like to stay in Thailand. I want to make a combination of 9 months Thailand and 3 months Belgium to see my kids. June, July and August I would be gone. I can prove I have 65.000 Baht every month but I not have the 800K to put in a bank. What kind of visum should I ask?

Thanks, Mario Belgium

Hi all. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Coming on a non-O early next year and will get retirement visa on 800k. I'm thinking of transferring to 65k per month in the second year. So I'm wondering if you can spend the 65k each month, as long as it's coming in regularly, or it has to stay in the bank in totality. Thanks

Couple of questions if I may. I'm in Thailand now,on visa exempt. I'm married to a Thai for 22 years, she has UK citizenship. We've lived in the UK holidaying in Thailand amongst other places never staying more than 3 weeks so visa never been an issue. Now I've retired we want to spend longer in Thailand, maybe buy a place, we're thinking halk/half, UK winters in Thailand. UK summers in UK. We're here now and intention is to stay here until May, spending a month 6 weeks in various places while we decide where to settle. So first question, can I get a non O while I'm here, seems tricky catch 22 as non 0 requires bank account, and to get bank account requires visa and which non O would be best, marriage or retirement, seems marriage as requires less financial commitments but I defer to your expert advice. I'm thinking forget the non O until we return UK next May and then get it in UK in readiness for returning to Thailand next November, but if can do it while here, we will for ease. Next question is border runs, since I'll need to to stay here until May and we planned to holiday in Viet Nam, Laos anyway. Could I do border runs after 60 days rather than extending 60 to 90 days, I realise that would be 2 border runs needed to reach May rather than one, but that doesn't bother us and saves us 1900 baht to spend on a trip if my thinking is correct? Also, I have a certificate of residency from Thailand immigration since were staying with my wife's family while we're here, if that helps with the first question. Thanks all.

RESOLVED: OK, I think it’s clear now, and I understand where I went wrong. The Non-O visa is available through the Thai eVisa website, but it’s not labeled as “Non-O”...it only shows up if you select the option to “stay in Thailand for no longer than 90 days” under “Retirement.” I had ruled that out because I want to stay longer, and I didn’t realize that you could apply for the correct 90-day non-O visa first, then extend it inside Thailand.

Since I didn’t see a way to apply for Non-O in advance and didn’t want to buy extra health insurance (I already have excellent coverage), I was planning to enter as a tourist and adjust status to non-O. Thanks to your guidance, I now see exactly how to apply for the Non-O in advance and skip that workaround.

Really appreciate everyone’s help. This was very useful! 🙏

ORIGINAL POST: Can someone help me resolve this catch‑22?

I’m a U.S. retiree with a pension and full health insurance. I plan to enter Thailand on a tourist visa (or visa‑exempt entry) and then convert to a Non‑Immigrant O retirement visa from inside Thailand. (EDITED: I'd enter as a tourist because I have excellent health insurance as a federal retiree, but I understand that the documentation is not sufficient to apply for an O visa online, whereas it's not a requirement to show my U.S. health insurance when converting in-country. If any U.S. federal retirees with FEHB coverage have managed to get around this problem, I'm all ears!)

I understand I’ll need 800,000 THB in a Thai bank account to convert to the O visa, but I also keep hearing that banks won’t open accounts for people on tourist visas. So how do you open a bank account before converting to an O visa...or, conversely, how can you convert to O before opening the bank account?

Would love to hear how others successfully handled this.

hi, when applying for spouse visa for dtv, does the money need to be int he name of the spouse or the name of the sponser ( current dtv visa holder?)

Hi everyone, has anyone applied for a DTV from California with a spouse and 2 children? I cannot find solid information regarding how much we need to have in our bank account for the 4 of us. My 2 kids are under 10 years old.

I see a few articles and blogs saying we need to show proof we have 500,000 THB for the primary applicant - but I also see some articles stating we will need to show proof that we have 2,000,000 THB for the 4 of us. Eek.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much!

How difficult is it to apply for Non-O visa while in Thailand. I gather you can only open bank account with this visa, in order to deposit 800000tbht for retirement visa?

My dtv got rejected I had all documents but I think they were funny about how long yhe 500k baht had been in my bank, but over the span of 3-6 I’ve had at least 1.5M baht through my account.

This was at Ho Chi Minh.

I’m going to Hanoi tomorrow to try again.

Any advice or is it not worth retrying

Hello everyone,

I want to apply for a DTV visa for Thailand, but I have a few questions.

My current residence is in Canada, but my available funds and bank account are in France, the country where I was born. I’m wondering if having my bank account in a different country from my residence could cause any issues with my application.

If I go to Vietnam and apply from there using my French passport and my bank in France, do you think that could work better?

When I was living in Canada, I had to renew my French passport at the French Consulate in Vancouver in Canada. On my passport, my residence is listed as my Canadian address. Could this be a problem ? Thank you for your advice!

Hi everyone 👋

I’ve almost finished preparing my application for the DTV (Workation) visa for Thailand at the consulate/embassy in Ho Chi Minh City, but I still have one question to be sure.

👉 I have a personal Revolut account with more than 500,000 THB on it, so I can meet the required funds.

👉 However, all my invoices/services (European clients) are paid into my business account, which is not the Revolut account.

My questions are:

1. to make the file more consistent, would you recommend submitting both the Revolut statement (to show the 500,000+ THB) and the business account statement (which matches the invoices)?

2. and for those who have already applied in Ho Chi Minh City, did you present everything on one single PDF page?

👉 for example: invoice on the left, and on the right the corresponding transaction on the business account (so the officer can match it right away) — does that work or do they prefer separate documents?

If anyone has done it with a personal account for the funds and a separate business account for the activity, I’d really appreciate your feedback 🙏

Thanks!