@Brook *******

He asked about visas that didn’t require frequent extensions. I know several people with 20 year Elite visas. I have a pensioner LTR.

If you are somewhat wealthy then there is the Elite visa which you can get for 5, 10, or 15 years or the LTR visa which is 10 years. Otherwise you have to get an O visa which you extend yearly. Also, with an O visa you will have to do 90 day reports.

Pay attention to the requirements for the visa and the later requirements for subsequent 1 year extensions. They are not the same.

When I got a new US passport last year it took 1 month. Plan on whatever processing time the US embassy says it is.

The OA requires health insurance. The O does not require health insurance. You probably have an O visa.

There are a lot of recent stories about problems opening bank accounts even for expats with long term visas.

I opened a Bangkok Bank account last October in Sisaket province. The bank person had never seen an LTR visa and called a supervisor over. They weren’t difficult about it. In fact they were quite friendly and I had my new account in about 45 minutes.

There are only about 4,000 LTR visa holders and they aren’t often opening bank accounts. I think the current heightened scrutiny about foreigners opening bank accounts is causing confusion among bank employees fearful of being connected to allowing an account to be opened that ends up being used for illegal purposes.

This was in October, 2022. It took them a couple of months to get to my application. Once they started looking at it then it took a couple of weeks to get the approval. I scheduled an appointment at the BOI office in Bangkok. They finished a few more documents and then walked me over to the immigration office across the hall. There Immigration cancelled my OA visa and entered the ink stamps for my LTR. I paid the 50,000 baht that day in the Immigration office.

I went to the BOI website and used their online application. I should say that my finances are simple. I qualify for the pensioner LTR with a single work pension. I submitted my US 1040 tax return. It shows that I have only two sources of income - work pension + Social Security. They never questioned my finances. I already had an insurance policy to maintain my OA visa. I uploaded the same insurance certificate that I used for my OA visa extensions. I uploaded a copy of my passport.

I switched from an extension of my OA visa to my pensioner LTR while inside Thailand.

I divorced in January. We both went to the district office. I had a lawyer. The process took a little over an hour. It was an uncontested divorce. It was final that day.

Consult a lawyer if they both don’t agree and/or can’t go to the office together.