Thailand’s LTR Visa Just Got Easier Access and Expanded Benefits

Overview

The Thai cabinet has approved significant changes to the 10 year Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa program, initially launched in September 2022. These changes are designed to make it easier to qualify for each of the four LTR visa categories. The updates include allowing an unlimited number of dependents, reduced revenue requirements for remote workers, expanded fields for highly skilled professionals, and the removal of the income requirement for wealthy global citizens. Stay tuned for more updates on these beneficial adjustments.

Key Takeaways

  • Wealthy Pensioner Category: Now allows unlimited dependents, including parents and legal dependents.
  • Work-from-Thailand Professional:
    • Revenue requirement for privately held companies reduced by 66% (from $150M to $50M).
    • Eligibility extended to employees of wholly owned subsidiaries.
  • Highly Skilled Professional: Expanded to include non-STEM fields like risk management, sustainability, and education.
    • Eliminates the 5-year work experience requirement.
    • Offers a capped personal income tax rate of 17%.
  • Wealthy Global Citizen:
    • No longer requires $80K annual income.
    • Focuses on $500K investments in real estate, Thai entities, or government bonds (with limited avenues for the latter).

Transcription

The Thai cabinet just approved big improvements to the 10 year LTR visa program. This popular visa was rolled out in September 2022 to attract talented and successful expats to the kingdom to share their expertise and to make Thailand home. This visa offers myriad benefits, including personal income tax privileges, access to a digital work permit.

And of course, avoiding annual visa extension trips to immigration required under most other visa programs. And for full disclosure, I’ve held an LTR visa since 2023. And I’m very glad I made this decision to go in that direction. The upcoming changes will make qualifying for an LTR visa easier. So if you think you didn’t qualify in the past, you may now have the opportunity to apply.

So let’s jump right in and talk about the changes to each of the four categories of LTR visas. Now the most popular LTR visa for our clients is the wealthy pensioner category. This requires you to be over the age of 50 and earning at least 80,000 in passive income. Passive income can include rentals, private or public pensions, dividends, and interest.

Now while these basic requirements will remain in place, applicants will be permitted to bring in an unlimited number of dependents under their LTR visa. And this will now include parents and legal dependents, making this the most family friendly visa in the kingdom. And the good news is that these family friendly benefits extend to all the other LTR categories.

Now turning to the work from Thailand professional, this is available to anyone employed by a well established company and who are fortunate enough to have the flexibility to work remotely. There are two significant changes. First If you work for a privately held company, the company revenue requirement has been lowered by 66%, from 150 million U.S. dollars over the prior three year period to 50 million. And you’ll still qualify if you work for a public company whose stock is traded on virtually any exchange. Perhaps more importantly, you can now be employed by a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company. We know it’s a common practice for large companies to employ its workforce through subsidiaries, and it’s great to see the BOI taking a practical approach to this corporate reality.

The third category is the highly skilled professional working here in Thailand. The previous focus was exclusively on STEM related jobs such as technology, but this will be substantially expanded to include fields such as risk management and sustainability. Perhaps most importantly, it will now include higher education and vocational instruction.

If you’re teaching here or thinking about teaching here, you’ll want to explore this visa opportunity if for no other reason than you’ll enjoy a personal income tax rate capped at 17%. Also eliminated from this category and from the remote working category as well is the five years work experience requirement.

Again, this change is intended to cast a wider net and attract more highly skilled folks to working in or remotely from the kingdom. The fourth and final category is the wealthy global citizen who can show a total net worth of one million U.S. dollars. and who invests at least 500,000 in Thailand. These investments can include real estate, whether in a condominium that can be owned in fee by an expat, or a long term lease of 10 years or more in other real estate.

It also includes capital investments in Thai entities. Nominally, you could also invest in Thai government bonds, but currently There is no practical avenue to make this investment. Now, the most important change in this category is that the applicant is no longer required to show 80,000 in annual income.

This makes sense, given that the focus of this category is on capital investments and besides high net worth individuals typically have more than enough cashflow to support themselves and their families. We expect these cabinet approved changes to go into effect soon. So for further updates on the LTR and other visa programs, please subscribe to our channel or you can sign up for our newsletter in the link below.

Thanks for watching.