Buy an Elite Visa like I did, or if you are age 50+, get a retirement visa. Unfortunately they have not left us any other reasonable options.

The biggest myth is that Thailand has become uniquely difficult on visas, and everywhere else is easy and welcoming. Yes, the Philippines is ridiculously easy. So is Cambodia. But would you actually prefer to live there? If you explore the visa regulations in a lot of these other countries, to live there full time (not to mention work) it’s no walk in the park. Plenty of time and expense involved, and hoops to jump through.

If you're planning to do a lot of travel in and out of Thailand while you're on the ED visa, you are going to have problems. The ED visa works if you are pretty much going to stay put in Thailand for a year (and go to classes). Immigration at the airport seems to look at these visas suspiciously now.

I’m getting my Elite visa next week. I had no idea about this. Does this TM30 rule mean that I have to prepare all of these documents and submit them again every 90 days?