I have just received approval for an LTR Wealthy Global Citizens Visa, so I thought it would be useful to share my experience in the hope that it might help others. A lot will be transferrable to other LTR visa types.
TLDR:
* Health insurance policy has to have a minimum of 10 months remaining. If you have an existing policy expiring earlier than 10 months, you will either need to renew early, take out a separate policy, or wait it out and apply after your policy renews.
* Cash is king. The BOI doesn’t recognise leveraged investments (E.g. buy-to-let property with interest-only financing) or properties with a high equity value but with a low mortgage balance. Private/start-up company ownership, assets that the BOI are unfamiliar with or don’t understand, or anything else that does not have a clear dollar value are going present challenges.
* Thai property can be used as evidence of global assets, but it undergoes a lot of scrutiny. Ensure that everything is properly registered, that all taxes have been paid, that you have records of international transfers, and that the property is held in your sole name. If you have used a company structure to buy a villa, they will not recognise more than your 49% shareholding. If in joint names, only 50% will be recognised.
* Investment in Thailand has to have been made before you apply. There seems to be no limit on how far back this can be, but for all investments they will only consider the original acquisition price, as their objective is to show that you have injected >$500k into the Thai economy.
* It helps to prefix each document with a cover page, explaining what the document is, and also highlighting key values (E.g. total income on a tax return, or net balance on a bank statement).
* Despite all the issues below, the process is very efficient, pragmatic, and when compared to other visa options, there is significantly less administration. Everything was done online, and documents in English did not need to be notarised. There is also no need to show originals or provide hard copies (other than a copy of the passport, entry stamps, and visa pages when you go to get the visa inked in). The process is very straightforward so you shouldn’t need to engage an agent since there is very little value they could add.
* All in all, someone holding $500k or more of foreign stocks, mutual funds, or cash, with a $500k investment in Thailand should not have an issue meeting the criteria. It may be more challenging for someone with a diversified portfolio of alternative investments, especially if their total assets are just above the 1 million mark.
Longer version:
Since moving to Hong Kong over 20 years ago, I have always had a fond affinity with Thailand, racking up over 400 visits in that time. I have learned to speak Thai (passably), and read and write (like a 7 year old). My Company counts AIS, Central Group, Minor Group, and CP All as customers and we have had a long term joint venture with a company in Bangkok. I had always viewed Thailand as the place I would retire, but in my late 40’s, my options were limited.
In September 2021, I found my self stuck in Phuket due to Covid. At the time, I was returning from the UK, and Hong Kong had banned all direct flights from the UK, requiring people to isolate in a third country for 21 days. My plan was to wash out my time in Thailand and return In October, and do 7 days quarantine. However, during that time, Thailand got placed on the “naughty list”, and the rules around having an antibody certificate changed so I was looking at the prospect of 21 days hotel quarantine if I returned to Hong Kong as planned. With the political situation rapidly deteriorating in Hong Kong, I made a decision to relocate few weeks into that stay.
At the time of my LTR application, I had 77 (APEC Business Travel Card) Thai entry stamps, 6 Covid extensions, and one visa exempt entry and extension where I had entered whilst waiting for my expired APEC card to renew. All of my visits and Covid extensions were bona fide and I had been legitimately stuck in Phuket. Flights were extremely limited and there was a genuine shortage of quarantine hotel rooms, with each release of a block of rooms snapped up within minutes. My record was not questioned during immigration clearance part of the process. I share because it seems that immigration in this case seemed to care less about about how/how-often I was in Thailand, and more about why I was here. Histories of visa exempt border runs and multiple Covid extensions may not be viewed so favourably.
I applied for the LTR visa on 14 September 2023 and received it today, 26 October. 43 days in total. Most of that time was going back and forth with different proposals on how to demonstrate that I qualified and waiting on third parties to provide additional documentation.
After the initial submission, I received an email 2 days later regarding my income proof. Hong Kong had a backlog of Tax Return processing due to their Covid shutdown and my 2022/23 tax demand was not available. I submitted my 2021/22 return, and used bank statements and payslips to prove my 2022/23 income. I sent a screenshot showing that my 21/22 return had only been issued 2 months ago and that the 22/23 return was unavailable. The BOI was understanding and asked for my 20/21 return to make up 2 years of income.
Two days later, I received another email. My health insurance would be expiring in November, but I needed to show a policy with at least 12 months on it. Fortunately, my broker was able to renew the policy early and I received next year’s forward-dated policy certificate, which was accepted.
The next issue was with my villa. I had purchased a villa off-plan (I.e. it had not yet been built yet). The land lease was all in order, with the appropriate Government registration and taxes paid and my name on the back of the Chanote, but they were insisting on seeing the Government stamped sale and purchase agreement for the structure. In my case, there was no such agreement, as the property had not yet been registered. Ownership was established via a transfer of the construction permit from the developer’s name into my name after the land lease had been registered. This is a perfectly legal way to acquire ownership of a structure, but it was not on the BOI screening staff’s list of accepted documents, and they stated that there was no clear evidence that the price indicated in the construction agreement was the price that was actually paid.
This took 2 weeks of negotiation and escalation within the BOI to have the property investment recognised. I (politely) argued that:
* transfer of a construction permit, along with a construction agreement is a legal and valid way of acquiring ownership of a Thai property,
* such a method results in more tax revenue than a sale and purchase, since VAT is chargeable on the construction, and the developer’s profits are subject to corporation tax,
* by engaging a Thai developer to construct a property, it is guaranteed that the economic value will remain in Thailand. Whereas with a sale and purchase of a property owned by a foreigner, there was a risk that the sale proceeds could be remitted overseas,
* by not recognising this method, the visa would be less attractive to people that wished to have a property built to their own specifications, and could negatively affect the construction industry by not recognising off-plan property purchases,
* the property had been properly registered and had a house book and Land and Buildings tax registration in my name,
* there was evidence that funds were transferred from overseas, and that these funds had gone to the Thai developer.
I also provided the Chanote, Blue and Yellow House books, a letter from the Or Bor Tor stating that the property was registered in my name for Land and Buildings tax, evidence that funds were transferred from overseas, and invoices and transfer confirmations from my Thai account to the developer. After a week of deliberation, I received confirmation that my villa purchase satisfied their criteria.
The biggest challenge was with proving wealth. The BOI seem to think that wealthy people keep their money in cash, investment accounts, or other liquid forms. In reality, cash is put to work, locked up, and only truly quantifiable when an asset is sold. My villa counted for a large chunk of the $1m requirement, but was not sufficient on its own. I have a number of overseas properties that all have significant equity, but most are wrapped in limited companies and all have mortgages against them. Because of the properties either not being directly in my name, and/or having outstanding mortgages, none of these assets could qualify. This could be significant for anyone that has a buy-to-let portfolio, or any other business where it is common to use interest-only financing to acquire assets to generate cashflow.
Gold held in a bank account qualifies as an asset under the LTR criteria. Hong Kong uses Troy MACE a a unit to measure gold. 1 MACE is equal to ~3.7429 grammes or ~0.24689 Baht. My bank statement does not show a dollar value, it only shows the number of MACE held in my account. The BOI rejected this evidence since my statement because it did not contain a dollar value.
Most of my assets are tied up in 2 companies that I own 50% and 34.5% of. On the LTR application form Closely Held Stocks are included as an asset category, but the BOI don’t seem to have a clear process to value a private company. Before I applied, they had told me that I could “provide a financial report that includes details about the percentage of company revenue you hold”, and that “another acceptable approach would be to offer a shareholding list as supporting documentation”. I presented my share certificates, the shareholding registry filings, annual returns, and audited accounts that showed 2 years of revenue. The response I received was that my asset documents were “quite hard to understand” and I was asked instead to show a bank or investment statement with $xxx,xxx in my sole name.
Not wishing to dive down a rabbit-hole, in the end we reached agreement that I would transfer an amount from one of my companies into a Time Deposit account in my sole name. The only trouble was that this would not show on a bank statement until my next statement date of 21 October, so more waiting.
Just when I though I was all-clear, the “Consideration By Government Agencies” step came back to ask for evidence of 2022/23 income. I contacted the Hong Kong tax office and they agreed to accelerate processing of my 22/23 return. After uploading this and my latest bank statement showing the time deposit, my application moved to the “Qualifications Approved” status.
Things got stuck again at Step 7 with Immigration. I have entered Thailand with an APEC Business Travel Card. This gives 90 days each entry, allows the same activities as a Non-B visa without a work permit, and cannot be extended or converted to another visa type. During step 6, I was asked to provide details of my current stay and visa. APEC wasn’t listed so I provided details under “other”. My status bounced between “Returned Pre-Approved” and “IMM/DOE Pre-Approve Visa/WP Issuance” each morning and afternoon with a couple of emails back and forth, before changing to "VISA/WP Issuance Pre-Approved” this morning.
Booking the appointment to have the visa inked in was fairly straightforward with slots available as early as tomorrow. The LTR portal also provides the required forms, pre-filled with my information and a “Notification of qualification endorsement” letter. From all accounts, this final step is fairly straightforward and should only take a couple of hours.
What I did appreciate was the flexibility and pragmatism of the BOI. My original application was under the Highly Skilled Professionals category but was refused since my company wasn’t considered “reputable and established”. In the rejection, they quoted Tesla as an example of the type of company that would qualify. However, they encouraged me to try another path and were genuinely supportive at each stage. My only criticism would be that time was wasted evaluating the requirements one-by-one. Time could have been saved by notifying my about their income, insurance, and wealth issues at the same time.
My end goal is Permanent Residence and ultimately Thai Citizenship. The BOI confirmed in an email that the LTR visa does provide a path to PR, providing I work and meet the other requirements. However, it is too early to have been tested. The BOI is under the Prime Minister’s office and has a somewhat frosty relationship with the Ministry of Interior who handle PR and Citizenship applications so they may take a different view. We’ll have to wait at least 2 years to see what happens when the first cadre of LTR applicants become technically eligible to apply.
