@Gregory ********

Unfortunately, that's true. For someone who wishes to stay in Thailand long term (and not have to leave) the Non-O visa and retirement extension comes the closest to what you are looking for. There are financial requirements, of course, but you only have to visit immigration once a year and for 1,900 baht you can get a new extension of stay. Only your first 90-Day Report needs to be done in person, from then on you can do online. Setting an electronic calendar reminder to yourself when the next 90-Day Report is due (actually 15 days before it's due) can help greatly with not forgetting.

The Thai Elite Visa is not as good as the retirement extension because to stay in Thailand (and not have to leave) the Thai Elite Visa requires you to go to Thai Immigration once a year and pay 1,900 baht to get an extension of stay. The only thing missing is that you don't have to meet financial requirements for the Thai Elite visa annual extension. Of course, you've already paid 600,000 baht to get the Elite visa.

Also, just like the retirement extension, the Thai Elite visa requires you to do a 90-Day Report every time you have stayed in Thailand for 90 consecutive days.

@Darren ******

Either you or Thailand Elite Visa doesn't understand how their visa works.

@Darren ******

Wrong [UPDATE, wrong with respect to the Thai Elite Visa].

The Thai Elite visa gives you one-year permission to stay when you enter Thailand. If you do not either leave Thailand or extend that stay at Thai Immigration when that permission to stay expires you will go on overstay. Read what the OP is asking.

The Thai Elite Visa does NOT allow one to stay, in the words of the OP, "without having to exit the country and/or check-in with and pay annual fees to Thai Immigration" No visa does that I know of.

@Wayne *******

"According to the firm which operates Thailand’s exclusive long stay visa program, “many” Thailand Elite members have been found to have overstayed.

Cases of overstay appear to have occured at the end of the last visa amnesty, with members failing to apply for an extension of stay within the required time limit.

Earlier this week, the company sent a memo (below) to members warning them of the penalties for foreigners who overstay in Thailand.

Members who overstay were warned they face a 20,000 baht fine or could even be barred from Thailand for one year."

83-thailand-elite-members-warned-about-overstaying/

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@Wayne *******

That is wrong. Take a look at your latest permission to stay stamp in your passport. If that date has passed you are on overstay. It doesn't matter if you have a Thai Elite visa or not. A Thai Visa Elite member has been fined, deported, and banned because he didn't know when his permission to stay expired and he overstayed. Thai Elite visa could do nothing to help in that circumstance.

I think your answer can lead someone to believe that with a Thai Elite visa one can stay in Thailand for over a year without paying annual fees at immigration. That's simply wrong. His question was exactly about that. I pointed it out because I wouldn't want someone to act on erroneous advice and go on overstay.

@Michael *******

You must be looking at a different OP than I am:

"What visa type allows for the longest continuous stay without having to exit the country and/or check-in with and pay annual fees to Thai Immigration?"

Annual fees are at the heart of the question he asked. The answer to that question is not "Elite visa." The Elite visa has annual fees if you do not leave the country after your one-year permission to stay expires. If you don't go to Thai Immigration and apply for an extension of stay you will go on overstay.

@Michael *******

The OP is asking specifically if there is a visa that will allow one to stay in Thailand without having to check in with or pay annual fees to immigration. You responded "Elite visa." That's simply a bad answer because it's factually wrong.

The reason it is a bad answer is that if the OP would act on your answer he could find himself on overstay, which I imagine everyone would agree is not a desirable outcome.

I will continue to point out wrong answers whenever I see them, especially ones that can harm people if they rely on them, irrespective of what side of the bed I wake up on. ;-)