@Rodger *******

there is nothing such as a "12-month visa". There only is a 90-days visa, followed by a 12-months extension of a temporary stay permit. The 12-months extension is not a "visa". Your wording is wrong. There is no "15-months retirement visa", though. . . . Many Immigrations have by now discontinued using wrong English and don't talk about a "visa extension" any more. A "visa" cannot get extended, only a "stay permit" can get extended

@Christian ********

having been on an ED visa before actually is BAD for your overall stay history. ED-visa are scrutinized, they make Immigration officials assume that you misused them for a longstay in Thailand. Be prepared to be approached in Thai language on Immigration! If you don't understand and speak Thai, you will have a very bad stance in front of them

@Christian ********

as you are in Thailand on a tourist visa, you should get it extended with 30 days, and then apply for the "change of visa type" to the 90-days Non-Imm-O family visa. Because in order to be able to apply for the "change", you need a minimum of 15 days on your stay permit stamp. I do not know if this is possible from out of the 60-days extension of "family visit" as this one is not a touristic entry or touristic visa, and the possibility is not listed as being possible on the Immigration website regarding the "change of visa type". You could however visit and ask your Immigration, but it won't change anything in your situation other than you need to extend anyways, because you need those 15 days left on the stay permit, and you also need 400,000 THB in your Thai bank account on the day you apply for the "change", and you need a rental contract and you need to be TM30 registered to receive any service from the Immigration office

@Christian ********

you have two options:

ONE:

***exit Thailand, re-enter visa-exempt, apply for the "change of visa type" from the visa-exempt entry to the initial 90-days Non-Imm-O Family Visa on Immigration. The fee is 2000 Baht. The visa will get issued “under consideration” for 14 days. That’s why you still need 15 days on your entry stamp if you want to apply for the “change”

You need to show a minimum of 400,000 THB in your Thai bank account when you apply for the “change”

And you need to show a minimum of 400,000 THB having seasoned in your Thai bank account for 2 months to be able to apply for the “1-year Extension of Stay Permit”

TWO:

*** exit Thailand, visit any country anywhere in the World including your home country. Apply for the 90-days single entry Non-Imm-O Family Visa through the e-visa online system of the Thai embassy in this country. For this application you must prove that you physically are inside this country!

Wait in this country until the visa has been approved and issued to your email-box as a .pdf document. Print it and re-enter Thailand. You will get stamped in for 90 days

In most countries, you need to show a minimum of 400,000 THB in your Thai bank account for the last three months, when you apply for the 90-days Non-Imm-O family Visa

And after having entered Thailand on the Non-O visa, you need to show a minimum of 400,000 THB having seasoned in your Thai bank account for 2 months to be able to apply for the “1-year Extension of Stay Permit” on Immigration

@Terry *******

for the financial proof for an extension of stay permit based on being married to a Thai wife, consecutive monthly transfers of a minimum of 40,000 THB equivalent need to be coming from abroad month for month not missing out one single month. Unless you have a work permit and earn income inside Thailand

@Rodger *******

correct wording, please! The 90-days Non-Imm-O Retirement Visa doesn't get you a "12 retirement visa". It doesn't get you any visa at all. It only allows you to apply for the "12-months extension of the temporary stay permit based on retirement". This "extended" stay permit is not a visa. The 90-days Non-Imm-O retirement visa itself actually becomes invalid for further use when you enter Thailand

@Mark ***

you must avoid AirBnB rentals. Rent premises from a Thai, using a real rental contract, or use a hotel (Bangkok Immigration accepts a TM30 of a hotel address to issue the cerificate of residence)

there couldn't be a better explanation than the one Brandon gave you. You can apply for the 90-days Non-Imm-O Retirement Visa in the E-visa system in the U.S.A., using your original income documents. Once issued the visa, enter Thailand on it, and open a Thai bank account as soon as possible. Transfer a minimum of 800,000 THB into your account. Then as soon as the money has "seasoned" for 2 months, you can apply for the yearly "12-months extension of temporary stay permit based on being over 50/retirement" on Immigration, and repeat this application every year

the requirements for the "change of visa type" in case of being married to a Thai wife, is number 6 on this Immigration list

Christian Echtler

*** firstly, you need to understand the difference between a „visa“ and a „stay permit“ and an “extension of the stay permit”.

As long as you mix up these two different things, you will always get “lost in translation” when speaking with Immigration officials, who mostly also do not keep these two different things apart from each other. In their bad English, a visa for them is the same as a stay permit, and this is so terribly and technically wrong

The Immigration official probably told you to exit Thailand and apply for the 90-days single entry Non-Imm-O Family Visa by the E-Visa system of the Thai embassy in the neighbor country, as you CANNOT use the E-visa online system while you are still inside Thailand

*** you should have applied for the “change of visa type” from a tourist entry to an initial “90-days Non-Imm-O marriage to a Thai wife Visa”

Pre-requisite for this application is you have 400,000 THB sitting in your Thai bank account (no “seasoning period” required at this point, yet), and you got a freshly printed from the Amphur “Kor Ror 22 or 2 (whichever applies) that proves your marriage is acknowledged and registered in Thailand and is still active and valid. Without you marriage registered in Thailand you cannot achieve a 1-year stay permit based on being married to a Thai wife!

You need to have a minimum of 15 days left on your “admitted stay entry stamp” to be able to apply for the “change of visa type”

***and as soon as the 400,000 THB have been sitting in your Thai bank account for 2 months, you can apply for the “1-year Extension of Temporary Stay Permit based on being married to a Thai wife” (which is NOT anything you call "marriage visa" but which is a simple "one year stay permit")

***the fee for the “change” is 2000 THB, and the fee for the application to the “extension” is 1900 THB. And I recommend you buy a single re-entry permit for 1000 THB for the extension of the stay permit, the very moment after it got stamped into your passport