Hey, greetings from a beautiful downtown Bangkok. I wanted to thank everybody for joining this evening to Baan Thai’s Thailand multi year visa webinar. We’re going to have to cover a lot of ground tonight, so why don’t we just jump right in and Copter, let’s go to the first slide, please. So before we get started with the substance there’s a little chat bubble probably at the top, maybe at the bottom of your screen.
If you want to click on that and type in a question, we’re going to get to as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar. Don’t worry about taking notes. We will share the recording of this webinar. We put it up on our website, usually two to three days after the event. And finally, for the many folks who are participating this evening and again, thanks for joining us.
There will be a bonus for participating. Let’s just jump on in here and do some quick introductions. Let’s go to the next slide Copter. My name is Mark. I’m the managing director of bond tie. I’ve been a member of the California Bar since 1987, and part of my practice is helping Thai nationals immigrate to or visit the United States.
Roy? Hi, everyone. I’m Roy. I am Managing Associate Counselor at Baan Thai. I’m a graduate from Thammasat University in 2015, and I’ve been working with a Thai law firm and some big ones. For the last 10 years, mostly I do the corporate registration with, but I am very familiar with the immigration also.
And right now I help the the, I am the head of the inbound team with Tea also our good colleague and she will introduce it. Little bit. Good evening everyone. I’m Tea I’m a consultant at Banta Immigration Solution, where I specialize in helping team with the long-term, recent and Visa or LTR. I’m a bi national French and Thai, and I speak English, French and T friendly.
I graduated from the University in Paris, and I have a dual master’s degree from the Royal University of Flow and Economics in Pompe, Cambodia. I’ve been working with BTIS with Baan Thai Immigration Solution for over a year, and I will be delighted to assist you in making Thailand your home. Great.
Thank you very much, both of you. So let’s get started here, Copter, and here’s what we’re going to cover today. We’re going to cover three. Different multi year visa options. This has been a very exciting time for Thai immigration and they’ve blown the cover off of the ball, as we like to say in the United States.
So we’re going to talk about that. I suspect that many of you are here to learn more about the DTV visa. We’re also going to touch on PR, which is another way to stay in the kingdom for the long term. Think of this as a free tasting menu. This is clearly not legal advice. Any legal advice would depend upon your particular circumstances and talking with one of our fine Thai legal counselors or lawyers.
But we will cover your multi year visa options. who those options are for, how it works, so you can calibrate to see if any of these really fit for you. We do provide additional detail on our YouTube channel, if you ever want to subscribe and check in there, as well as on our website. We also offer links on our website to all the official government sites.
And if something really does pique your interest this evening, you can certainly go on our website and schedule a free consultation with one of our fine Thai lawyers. Okay, so let’s level set here for just a moment. Bond time. Answers about 3000 perspective client inquiries every year and our easiest discussions historically have been for those who have been over the age of 50 or those married to a Thai national.
There are annual visas for both of those categories. Or working for a Thai entity, something called the non B visa, which is the business visa. And like many countries around the world, including the United States, Thailand looks to attract capital by attracting successful people who want to invest either in the cost of the visa, for example, the privilege program, or want to invest in the kingdom.
And that’s the LTR program. And we’ll talk about both of those later. However, for younger people in their 20s, 30s, 40s who really don’t have a Thai family and weren’t working for a Thai company. Those conversations historically were more difficult. That has changed, and we’ll talk about that in just a minute.
But you had a couple of options. For example, the non ED or education visa. You sign up for a six month language program, but that has a limited lifespan. Or people were doing a bunch of border runs, which is time consuming and costly. And by the way, at the end of the day, Thai Immigration Bureau is going to say enough of that, and they’re going to stop you from doing that at some point.
So let’s go to the next slide. Spoiler alert, this is the game changer. About a month ago, the Thai government formally adopted the Destination Thailand, or DTV, visa. And I like to think of this as a tourist visa on steroids. It’s basically available for anyone over the age of 20, so there’s no age barrier.
It applies to a wide variety of purposes. Roy is going to get into that in just a moment. And it doesn’t require a substantial economic investment in being here. Once you’re stamped in, the term of the visa is for five years. So that’s compelling. It’s incredibly cost effective. And Roy is going to go through some of those expenses in just a moment.
And most importantly, This is a true multiple entry visa, meaning that once you’re stamped in, you can come for a particular period of time, you can leave and come back in and you’ll get stamped in and you can stay again. So essentially you have unlimited access to the kingdom. So Roy, why don’t you go through some of the benefits as we walk people through this.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. This one is really super popular right now for the DTV. That’s it. It is clearly you after you get a DTV, you will allow to stay in Thailand up to five year with reentry permit and you will be allowed to stay in Thailand up to 180 days per entry. And when your entry permit is due, you have the option to extend it either with the local immigration or you can like to shoot, you can shoot to fly out.
And return again to reset your permit of stay. And this DTV visa can extend to your spouse and children for the legitimate window. And this visa is very cost effective. The government fee for this visa is only 10,000 baht, but it’s very based on its embassy and consulate. So the 10,000 baht payment Roy, is that one time for the entire five years?
That’s right. That’s incredibly cost effective and to extend for another 180 days, you can essentially stay for up to 360 days. How much does that cost and where can they extend? They can shoot to extend with the immigration. At any immigration office? Or they can shoot just to a fly out of Thailand and re enter to the country to reset the period again.
Got it. And at immigration, I believe the extension under form TM 7 is about 1,900 Thai Baht. I think 8,000 Thai Baht. That one is correct. Yeah, 1,900 Thai Baht. Excellent. Okay. So who is the DTV visa for? For the DTV visa, if you consider yourself as a remote worker, you work for some big tech company abroad, or you consider yourself like a self employed, for example, you consider yourself an author, you provide some consulting, you so we said to the client internationally, or you consider yourself like an influencer, like a TikToker and YouTuber and stuff, you can obtain this DTV visa to make Thailand your home base.
And also if you want to participate in Thai culture, like culinary or Muay Thai you can get the DTV for that as well. And also if you have want to enjoy the. Good health care here. You can use it as a purpose to get a DTV for their medical treatment. And another one is cultural events.
This one is really broad. So if you don’t know what you want to apply for I think you should apply just for some culinary or Muay Thai course. Great. And just for the remote workers, and Tea is going to talk about the remote working category for the LTR. which does require you to work for a big company.
You can even work for a closely held company, your own company. That’s right. Or you could be a content creator or consultant. It’s really wide open. That’s right. That’s right. I don’t know if you want to study Thai language. Oh, that might be an issue. If you have some studied have you studied the DTV program for a little bit, you might know that at the first step, The Thai government provide some example for the activity like to study a Thai language.
or something like that, but this was shared in a couple of weeks ago. Right now the Thai language cause it deserve for the ED visa. So you cannot use that tool as a purpose of for the DTV. And that raises a great point. This is a brand new visa program. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration and other government ministries are still figuring this out.
And those agencies have a lot of discretion in Thailand. And so things are likely to change as time goes on. So it’s always good to get the most up to date information before you make application. Okay. So let’s talk about how people can make the application and qualify. All right. So after you decide that you want to be a remote worker here, or you want to participate in Thai culture, you need to provide some document through the Thai embassy or consulate.
The main document, the first one is the proof of purpose. If you are a remote worker, you can like a provider. Employment agreement or your employment certificate to show that you are a worker from some big company and they allow you to work overseas. Another one is proof of residence. This is this is for to confirm that you have a right to apply for the relevant Thai embassy that have power to accept your application.
Yeah, and another one is you need to provide a bank statement to show proof that you have a fund to spend here in Thailand for 500,000 baht, equivalent to $14,000. This should issue, this bank statement should be issued in English. But for folks that Somehow have their own Thai bank account already open.
You can just transfer your fund here and obtain the bank statement from the Thai commercial bank. That’s good work as well. Another one. If you want to extend your DTV to your spouse and your child, you need to provide some certificate that show your leadership That’s good. That you are that they actually your wife or your son and again, this document is very based on the embassy and consulate.
So recommend to a discuss with some expert people. You’re like a prepare your application. Yeah, and just to calibrate a little bit, there’s about 60 countries around the world that have these kinds of visas. Some require health insurance. Some require. We think the Thai version of this, the DTV visa is pretty straightforward.
However, to Roy’s point the qualifications do vary by Royal Thai Embassy or consulate around the world. For example, most embassies will allow you to e file your application. Some do not. The price, the government fee is higher in the United States. It’s $400. And the financial requirement that you need to show in your bank is $16,000 if you’re applying from the U. S. That’s it. These vary a little bit. And then there’s a couple of embassies that we’ve run into that really have some outliers requiring, for example, showing of airline tickets from the home country. That’s only one embassy so far. And another one required a six month lease, which frankly doesn’t make logical sense.
But again, it’s really important to check your particular embassies requirements. Before you make an application, and again, we’re going to answer questions at the end of the session and Copter. If you could go to that. So we can start to see those. I’m sure you all have lots of questions about the TV, but let’s cover the 2nd of our long term stay.
Visas, and this is called Thailand privilege. Now, some of you may know this as Thailand Elite. I think about a year ago, they rebranded, became much more focused on their points reward program. They also increase the price of the visa, but this basically offers you. A super tourist visa that allows you to stay in Thailand for 5, 10, or 15 years.
It’s really directed towards successful world travelers and their families. You do get concierge service, including beginning right at the airport where you’re met at the gate, wished away to your hotel. And it’s probably the most convenient of all of the visas in terms of dealing with a dedicated group of people at Thailand Privilege who will try to make your stay here as easy and rewarding as possible.
Now, we are authorized Thailand Privilege agents and Tea is one of the members of that team. So Tea, why don’t we go into some of the benefits? Unlike the DTV under the Privileged Visa, you never have to leave for the whole duration of the visa, 15 years. And the application process is very straightforward.
There’s no income or deposit requirements. This is basically only your passport. This visa offers a VIP treatment with a point program that you can use to buy services and privileges. And those points, by the way, are granted every year. You can’t carry over unused points, but every year that you’re in the program, you’ll get additional points for things like dining and air travel and all of that.
Okay, so who is this for, Tea? So this visa is designed for successful individuals and their family. It is perfect if you’re not qualified for other type of visa, because as I mentioned you only need your passport to apply for it. And this visa also allows you to work remotely from Thailand.
Technically, anytime you’re working in Thailand, whether that’s remotely or earning money in Thailand, you need a work permit. The DTV visa, one of the categories of LTR visa, and the Thailand privilege all expressly allow you to flip open your laptop and work remotely from Thailand. Okay, let’s go to the next slide Let’s just get into the qualifications.
This is basically you’re paying for your stay here. And the visa cost is 900,000 Thai Baht for a five year visa. That works out to about $5,000 a year. If you compare that to the cost of living if you’re coming from a large western city. The cost of living here is a lot less than it is over there.
So it’ll probably make up for the cost of the visa within a few months. There was an application fee. You may have heard of a 50,000 that was applied to the cost of the visa that has been waived. For the remainder of 2024, your visa history matters. If you had a history of overstaying a visa in the past, good idea never to do that.
That may cause you to be denied. And also, if you’ve held an ED visa in the past, you may have to provide additional information. There isn’t a path to permanent residency here. However, During the term of your visa, whether it’s 5, 10, or 15 years, you can truly make Thailand home. You don’t need to leave at any time.
You can open a bank account and you can really enjoy everything that the kingdom has to offer. Okay, so that’s visa number two. Let’s go to visa number Three. And this is the long-term resident visa. So now let’s pick about the long-term resident visa and my specialty LTR. This is a 10 years visa designed for anyone retirees, professionals, or remote workers.
And let’s, let me just comment here. This is administered by the Board of investment. And the board of investment has a charter and that’s to drive economic growth in the kingdom. They report directly up to the prime minister of the country. This visa is also relatively new. That’s why we say it’s a pretty exciting time for those of us in the Thailand visa business.
This was started in September of 2022, and it was started in response to the economic downturn caused by the COVID pandemic. Many of you know that Thailand is dependent on tourist dollars, visitors to the kingdom. That obviously dropped off quite a bit during COVID. It’s come roaring back. Thank you very much.
But this is really to try to attract folks who have been successful or highly skilled in their professions to come live here for the long term and spend their money here. Let’s get into some of the benefits. The LTR visa offers various benefits with On other type of visa, you need to report your address every 90 days to immigration.
Under the LTR visa, this requirement is annual and the one year report is due after one year of continuously stay in Thailand. You can come and go as you please. The multiple re entry permit is included. Under other type of visa, Sometimes you have to buy a re entry permit. So you can also bring your family, your spouse, and your children up to 20 years old.
After 20 years old, they will have to switch to another type of visa. You can work on this visa. You can get a work permit. There’s no requirements to hire a Thai staff. to get a work permit, and the other type of visa, the work visa, you need to hire at least Thai, the employer needs to hire Thai, four Thai staff for one foreigner, and the marriage visa, it’s two Thai staff for one foreigner, so this can be benefited.
To be more attractive on the employment market. There’s no requirements to, to extend this visa every year. This is for five plus five years. And the big benefit is the tax exemption on the other type of visa. If you’re staying in Thailand for more than 180 days, You become a tax residence and you are required to file taxes and to pay taxes on the on your income from overseas.
And this is your tax exam. All your income from overseas that you transfer [00:19:00] that you bring in then will be exempted from the foreign tax income. And that’s a big deal here. We’re going to go into taxation a little bit later but to have your foreign earnings either tax exempt or if you’re working here under the highly skilled category to have it capped can be a huge advantage.
Also for those of you who are on the webinar tonight who are under an annual visa and have tracked down to every year. As Tea mentioned, you’ll go five years, then you go back into the BOI, show the BOI that you still qualify for the visa, and you’re here for another five years. From a money and time savings, it’s a hugely advantaged visa.
The LTR visa, there’s four categories. The wealthy pensioner is the category for the retirees or people over 50 years old. You don’t have to be retired, actually. The wealthy global citizen is for those with investment in Thailand. The work from Thailand professional category is designed for the professional, professionals working remotely for substantial overseas company.
And lastly, the highly skilled professionals for applicant working in Thailand in specified industries, and there’s a list of industry that will be upset by the BOI. So I’m going to give you just a couple of numbers to remember, and there’s a lot of nuance to this. So these are just kind of high level numbers.
But if you can remember these two numbers, I think it’ll be helpful for the wealthy pensioner and the wealthy global citizen. Remember, $80,000. And for the pensioner category, that’s passive income. That could mean Social Security, interest, dividends, anything that’s not wage income. For the wealthy global citizen, it’s also $80,000, but that can be any kind of income. And then for the investment in the kingdom under the wealthy global citizen, It’s about 500,000. Now there are different kinds of ways to qualify, but if you can remember 80. And 500. That kind of is the bar that you’re looking for. And similarly, the 80,000 would be the remote worker as well.
And for the professional working remotely, as Tea mentioned, this is for large companies, and they either have to be publicly traded, think Meta, think Cathay Pacific Airlines, or they have to do 50 million in revenue per year for three years, 150 million total revenue, the difficulty if you’re working for a private company is most private companies don’t like to talk about their revenues with governments.
And so we’ve run into that. We’ve run into that issue. And the other issue is if you are a professional working remotely for one of these big companies tend to have a lot of subsidiaries. and you need to be working for the publicly held entity and not for one of the subsidiaries. So it gets a little bit complicated.
However, if you can qualify, your earnings overseas are tax exempt from Thai tax. So there’s a huge benefit there, and the juice may be worth the squeeze. Okay. So let’s talk about how somebody might qualify and what kind of documentation and this is an online application team. Yes, the application is online, but sometimes the BOI, the Board of Investment, may request additional documents or need to have clarification on your documents.
So it’s best to have someone here in Silent to represent you and to discuss your application and your documents with them. So mainly the most important is the proof of income. As Mark mentioned, you need to show in all the categories, at least $80,000 per year. This will be only passive income for the wealthy pensioner category, not the salary, not business income.
What is passive income will be all income from investments and any pension and benefit from the government. You need also on some category to invest in Thailand type of investment that will be upset will be mainly [00:23:00] do and the most is the other really state. So if you buy a condo in Thailand, you can rent a land long term at least 10 years.
And you can also invest in shares in a Thai company or government does with a majority of at least five years. Under wealthy pensioner, the minimum investment is 9 million baht. And under wealthy global citizen, you need to invest at least 18 million baht in Thailand. And by the way, a lot of or have heard that foreigners are not able to buy land in Thailand.
Condo projects that are specifically reserved part of that project for foreign investment. However, a long term lease is permitted. Any lease over 10 years would qualify for under this investment category. Okay, so that’s the LTR. Now we’re going to switch. We’ve talked about three visa programs, and Roy’s going to get into this in just a moment, but for those of you who have been here at least three years, have been successfully employed here, and you firmly decided to make Thailand home.
You may want to consider permanent residency. It is really one of the only two ways to truly immigrate to the kingdom. The other way is citizenship. We’re not going to deal with citizenship today. That’s more complex, but we will go over a little bit of PR in case somebody is either. Qualified now, or they want to do some long range strategic planning and may want to think about being qualified in the future.
So Roy, why don’t we talk about the benefits of PR? Okay. Thank you, Mark. So you started that very nicely for the PR, permanent residency. If you can get this one, it will basically free you from your visa issue. As you may know, if you want to stay in Thailand, you need to obtain the proper visa and also you need to like meet the requirement of certain kind of visa, whether for you need to find a work, you need to have a Taiwan, you need to invest in some significant amount to eligible for some kind of visa.
But after you get the PR it will stay and not based in the circuit, your stay will not based on any circumstances. So you can basically stay in Thailand without a visa anymore. Okay. Cool. And also the PR is the starting point for to obtain the Thai citizenship. And as he will mention for the foreign, for the foreigner who stay in Thailand, they need to file for the Thai report that a report of your stay every 90 days.
If you get a PR, it’s no more this kind of hassle works. And also you need, don’t need to extend your visa anymore. And by the way, somehow you don’t need a visa, but you’ll still be able to work in Thailand, but you need, still need a work permit. And after you get a pr, you can obtain a title, advance, or how Register, registration Certificate, this kind or document.
We allow you to do some transaction here in Thailand opening my account selling a car or selling your scooter. It’ll be much easier here after you get back. You really are part of the society here. And I do think that, Thai people, when, if you can show them a Tabien Baan, which is a proof of your residency, there’s an intrinsic value of land, I think, in this country it goes a long way in really integrating you into the society.
Yeah, thanks very much. And to be able to be eligible to apply for the PR basically you need to hold three three Visa for with no break. And also you need to have some kind of certain salary amount, let’s say 100,000. But each month is the save. And also you need to be able to speak Thai because in during the application process you, the immigration will conduct an interview with you and ask you who you are, ask your detail, ask your status in Thailand, and this need to be conducted in Thai.
But I believe you just, this is just for the conversation level, right? Intermediate conversational level. And we also have flashcards. And a resource guide on the interview process. If you want to go on our website and you can download those, they’re free and it’ll give you an idea of what that Thai language interview will be like.
Okay, thank you, Mark. And at the end of the day, if you’re going to apply for the PR, You must been, you must need to know that it’s like a long road ahead. You, it will require you a lot of investment in your time, efforts, and expense. By time, the application process might take up to two years to complete.
And your effort, you need to like talk with many authority here in Thailand, or even from your home country to acquire and pulling some information and document together. And also the expense. Might be considered expensive based on the normal Thai government fee because I think this is the highest fee for the individual method for the visa.
And just to calibrate a little bit, and as I mentioned before, we do U.S. immigration work here and help people obtain their green cards for Thai nationals. That costs thousands of dollars, and right now USCIS and NBC approval. Is taking between 14 and 20 months and, anytime you’re looking to join the club, if you will, and become a permanent resident of another country, that country is going to take time and to really look at you, are you a good moral character?
Do you meet the requirements? The diligence process is going to take some time and expense. A lot of our clients that get PR, we had many over the last couple of years, when we see them get that PR status, they feel so great because they feel like, they put all the visa and all of that stuff behind them, and they’re truly part of the Thai society.
So at the end of the day, we get great feedback that it’s worthwhile. We just don’t want to minimize the fact that you’re going to make an investment of time and money and effort. And for those of our clients, we call it a true partnership because there are certain things that we can collect through powers of attorney and so on, but we’re going to rely on you and frankly, your company to provide a lot of that information as well.
Okay. All right. So that’s. Those are the four ways we wanted to talk about in staying long term in Thailand. I do see some questions coming up about tax. And as a U.S. passport holder and a citizen of the United States, I will remain tax domiciled in the United States. As long as I’m a citizen there, but because I also live in Thailand for more than 180 days out of any given year, I am also taxed domiciled in Thailand.
And what that means is under the current revenue rules is that income, any income brought into Thailand, foreign owned or income is essentially subject to Thai tax and you have to file a Thai tax return. Thank you very much. Now, the Revenue Department announced earlier in the year, and I’ve read some additional articles just recently, that the Revenue Department may include not just the money that you bring into Thailand, but all income earned overseas.
So again, I go back to what Tea was talking about with the LTR visa, and if you do qualify for that visa, if this rule changes, Then the LTR Visa becomes something that you should really look at to, to the extent that you qualify for it. Now, I know taxes are a sore subject with many people, and many people are sensitive to it, and understandably it’s a chunk of money out of your paycheck. And I and we get that. However, all is not lost. There are tax treaties between Thailand and most Western countries. That includes the United States, the UK, many of the EU countries, and Australia. And these tax treaties do a couple of different things. In the first instance, they exclude certain foreign earnings from tax at all, and that would include, for example, in the United States, Social Security.
In other countries, it might be your public and even your private pension earnings. And the second thing that most of these treaties do is allow you to get a credit. For any tax you pay on those earnings in your country and credit those against any tax that you might owe here in Thailand, and it’s been my experience, typically that the tax rates in the EU in Australia and the United States tend to be higher.
In our home countries than they are in Thailand, and that essentially means that even though you’ll have to file a tax return here, you’re essentially with those credits not paying any additional tax. So there’s 2 rules of thumb, and I want to go on the record. We are not tax advisors, and we are not tax specialists.
There are terrific companies. You can go on YouTube. You can Google them. There are terrific tax advisors here. very much. U.S. Brits, of all kinds of tax advisors here, but our two rules of thumb are this. If you are tax sensitive, just pay attention to the amount of time you’re staying in Thailand under any of these long term under these, any of these long term visas, and you can manage that by staying outside of Thailand for 180 days a year and not becoming tax domiciled here.
But if Living here in Thailand and enjoying the cost of living and everything that Thailand has to offer is more interesting than worrying about the tax. Then get a trusted tax advisor and run the numbers and see what kind of income you have overseas that will be excluded and ultimately what kind of foreign tax credits you can take here.
I’ve been told and I’ve heard that a lot of the tax advisors here charge about 400 to do your tax filing here. There is some expense. There is a ministerial kind of aspect to this. But again, most of the countries you’re from, and I’m looking at the names on the list of people here, will have a double taxation, a treaty and so can certainly take advantage of that.
Okay thank you again. We’ve got some questions showing up here. I would encourage you to at this point to click on that chat bubble, it may be the icon at the top or the bottom of the page and go ahead and type in your questions. We’re happy to spend some time with you now and answer those.
But let’s go to the next slide, Copter. And for those of you who stuck with us today, and if you engage one of our fine Thai lawyers or Thai legal counselors, Roy, Tea, Mint, Pear included, and if you engage over the next couple of weeks by October 10th, we’ll provide a 10 percent discount off our fee for any of the visa programs we’ve talked about today.
Or for the corporate work that that Roy does or for our other services. Okay, so again, thank you for coming today. Let’s go to our first question. It’s for the retirement LTR. I think that’s the wealthy pensioner category. They plan on entering Thailand next month on a tourist visa.
You’re probably going to come in. Visa exempt. And right now, if you’re coming into Thailand and you’re from one of the 97 visa exempt countries, which is virtually every country in the world, you can come in for 60 days and enjoy the kingdom. And under that same form, TM 7, you can actually extend for another 30 days.
And stay here for a total of 90 days. In any event if you’re applying for the LTR visa in, let’s say, early next year do you need to do an FBI criminal background check, and does it require fingerprinting? And the answer is, T do they need a criminal background check? So it depends on your citizenship.
For most citizenship, you don’t need, but for some it’s case by case. And for the US, because this is FBI for the us, you don’t need, you don’t need to do a criminal background. And I want to thank Justin for that question. Also, you’re going to see a number of requirements on the BOI official website.
You may also see a lengthy application. A lot of that has changed. The application actually has been shortened quite a bit. And some of these requirements that you may read about either online or on the official website just aren’t required anymore. So I would say for the vast majority of Western countries, EU, UK, Australia, US, You do not need a criminal background check.
Okay. So somebody asked, we, we had what specific, what specifically does it mean for the DTV visa that you’re considering Thailand as your home base? And I think what that means is if you haven’t decided that Thailand is a place you really want to retire to, but you want to spend more than a holiday here.
And maybe you want to spend six months getting to know the neighborhoods in Bangkok or living on a few of the different islands here, you can use your DTV visa for that purpose. Now, you’re going to either have to enroll in some sort of culinary or Muay Thai or cultural event, or if you’re a content creator, you work for your own company, show a purpose as a remote worker here.
But it really is for 10,000 Thai Baht, which is about 300 for the five year visa. So if you do that on a pro rated basis, it’s about 75 bucks a year, which is pretty darn good, I think. You can kick the tires here pretty hard, get to know whether you want to make Thailand your home without making a big investment.
So thank you for that question. Another question, this is as an LTR holder, visa holder, Who is exempt for tax and will you still need to file a Thai tax return? So Tea, why don’t you run down the four categories? So I have is that for the full category, what’s pensioner, what’s globalized season, highly skilled professional and work from time professionals, you are exempted from taxes.
But you are not exempting from filling taxes. When you become a tax resident under any type of visa you have to file a tax visa. So get a tax advisor. You will have to file a return, but if you have an LTR visa and you’re a wealthy pensioner. Or a wealthy global citizen have made an investment here, or you’re working remotely, your foreign earnings will be exempt, and the Revenue Department is well aware of that.
If you come here, and you work in specific industries as a highly skilled worker, your tax is capped at 17%. So I don’t know what your tax rate is in your home country, I would imagine it’s a lot higher than 17%. The top rate here for income tax in Thailand is 30%. 35 percent Roy, is that correct? Yeah. So 17 percent is basically cuts 50 percent off your tax rate.
So again if you’re really looking to make Thailand home and you can qualify for this visa, the tax benefits alone make this really worth looking at. Here we have another question. Both my children have Thai and UK passports and my wife is Thai. Does this work in my circumstances? And I would assume you’re talking about this being the DTV visa.
You can always apply for a DTV visa if you’re an expat. Yeah. But with a Thai spouse, you could also apply for a non O dependent or marriage visa. And the benefit of a non O marriage visa is that Even though it has to be extended every year, it’s one of the B 2 visa types. They give you a pathway to permanent residency.
So the two visa types are non O marriage and non B visa. And if you have a non O marriage, you can get a work permit. Your tie to expat work ratio is 2 to 1, under a non B it’s 4 to 1, and you’re on a pathway to permanent residency. So you may want to take a look at your options before you make a decision, and if permanent residency is on the horizon for you, really consider the non O marriage visa.
Okay, another question. Do we have to prove that the duration of the Muay Thai course, for example, will be five years, or is the DTV issued only for the duration of the course? So Tee, you want to? Oh, okay. I can. Oh, Roy, jump in. So basically, for your initiate for DTV, we would recommend to acquire some kind of certificate that you’re going to attend Muay Thai course or culinary course for at least six months to show that you have some high of long period to stay here in Thailand.
And when you get here in Thailand, you need to extend it because your permit of stay you are, you read 180 days if you should, to extend it with the local immigration, you might need to provide another document. So to save you a headache, you might need to reconsider reentry the country again. to reset this period.
I think that’s a great point, Roy. Whether it’s medical treatments, whether it’s a Muay Thai academy, a culinary school or other cultural events, a six month period is really what you should be looking at. Now, if you file form TM 7 and want to stay here for a total of 360 days, You may have to requalify.
Otherwise, just pop out across the border, come back in again, get stamped in for another 180 days, and you won’t have to go through that effort. And it’s not only medical treatment, it could be wellness treatments, chiropractors. We haven’t yet figured out if maybe a meditation program with the Buddhist Academy might qualify.
We think it will. But we haven’t had anybody approaches on that yet. And again, to Roy’s earlier point, if you want to study the Thai language. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all embassies around the world are saying you’re going to need a non ED visa for that purpose, not the DTV visa. So we have another question, do I have to retain a job outside of Thailand to get the DTV?
So once you apply, it’s my understanding. Yeah. And the company you’re currently working for, is you a certificate that says you’re entitled to work remotely and you qualify and you’re stamped in for five years unless to Roy point you’re extending. I think you can change jobs or maybe change your perspective in that regard or lose your job, but still you’ll have you’ll be stamped in for five years.
Yes, that is correct. But you. For the normal visa or visa in general, you should stay in Thailand according to your purpose. And if for your DTV apply under remote worker, you should still be the remote worker while you stay here in Thailand. To Mark’s point, sometimes you still have the possibility to change your job or lose your job.
If you could not going to extend it in Thailand with the immigration, you might need not need to recall re qualify it just to a about a pop in again, but if you should to extended in Thailand, yeah, you need to show some kind of qualification that you still meet the requirement. And again, this is a brand new visa program.
It is about a month old. Yeah, and the government is changing qualifications. So it’s always good to stay up to date on those as our Thai Attorney Mint does almost on a daily basis. All right, we have time for a couple more questions. We want to be respectful of people’s time this evening. This one, I think maybe Tia or Roy, you can handle.
For the LTR qualification, is building a house in Thailand recognized as an investment? Yes, if you build a house in Thailand, it can be recognized as an investment. You will need to obtain a land appraisal from the land office, and the value appearing on the document will be counted as an investment in real estate.
And again, if the land on which you’re building that house you’re leasing that land for more than 10 years, the value that you’re putting into that leasehold, as well as the construction will count toward that investment. And so we would counsel people to look. At long term leases. Again, foreigners in terms of buying land here is problematic at best.
Great question. Is the LTR visa a potential road to PR? I think we think theoretically it should be, but not at this time. And I don’t think anybody has really presented themselves for PR under an LTR visa, cause it only started in 2022. And you have to. Essentially hold the same category of visa for three consecutive years.
It’ll be interesting to see what the government says in 2025 and beyond. If somebody’s here, they’re earning 100,000 Thai baht a month, and they’ve held their LTR for three years. Theoretically, they should be able to qualify. But right now, the answer is no. So if PR is important to you, non B or non O marriage.
Okay. If you want to come into Thailand with a long term stay as a wealthy retired pensioner, wealthy pensioner and you’re leaving your former country and its tax system, and I’m wanting to pay taxes here in Thailand on my investments this includes crypto, what is the best way for this to happen?
So that’s a very interesting question. If you qualify as a wealthy pensioner. Your earnings overseas, your foreign earnings, are all exempt under the Revenue Code, and that’s by royal decree. However, let’s be clear that any earnings that you manifest in Thailand are going to be subject to tax.
to Thai tax. And so if you’re making money here, for example, let’s say you come in as a wealthy pensioner, you decide you want to go back to work, your company sponsors your work permit, and you begin to work here, all of your earnings in Thailand will be taxed in accordance with the Thai Revenue Code. So I hope that answered your question.
If my DTV was applied for under the cultural heading, do I need to have a job outside of Thailand? No. If you’re going to participate in just Thai culture, you just need to show the certification that you’re going to participate in this course. And then you just ask about your your job overseas.
Great. And you can take advantage of the cost of living here and enjoy yourself for the next five years. Is there a way if I’m married to a Thai national, but not working in Thailand to get PR? That’s a very good question. How would you answer that, Roy? Yes, for the PR, there are many categories, subcategories if you want to apply for the PR.
It’s similar to the LTR, but normally people will go with working in Thailand and apply for the PR. But if you were to marry a Thai citizen and want to PR, you still need to provide some proof that you have the money to support your family. It might be possible. It’s possible, I would say, as a practical matter, you’re much more likely to have your application accepted if you’re earning about Baht a month for three years than if you’re just married to a Thai national.
However, if you’re a woman, an expat, married to a Thai national, and this is the one exception, Your path to Thai citizenship is pretty straightforward and much easier. So something to consider if you’ve fallen in love here and you’ve married a Thai national. Okay. What documents are required for LTR under the wealthy pensioner category?
This is something where Tea spends most of her time and I feel sorry for the BOI officers who are looking at complex investment portfolios. And tax returns from around the world to prove up the 80,000 of passive income. I don’t even think there’s a Harvard Business School course that would cover all of that.
And yet this is what we’re asking the BOI to] do. So God bless the folks there at the BOI. But Tea, maybe you can talk about what kind of documents this person should be thinking. So for a white seat pensioner, you will mainly have to prove that you have more than 80,000 American dollar a year of passive income.
And the best way, the most straightforward way would be your tax returns. If not we can use other documents, but it will depend on the type of income. And Tea is being a little modest here. Tea works with some of our clients for months on end. And doing great advocacy with the BOI and getting them comfortable in one form or another with, for example their investment portfolios and how they can prove that gains on the sale of stock.
The gains on your investment don’t count, but the gains on the sale of your investments do count. And so that’s really the art to the LTR application process. And again, if you think you qualify, Tea would be happy to have a free consult with you and talk through your particular circumstances. Great question.
Can I apply for DTV from within the kingdom? Apparently the spread answer is no. To get a DTV right now, you need to file by either e file or submit the application at the local nearby embassy. And Mint is sitting here off camera. And again, if you want to talk to Mint about the application process she’d be happy to.
I applied for LTR in respect to being over 50. Okay, so that’s the wealthy pensioner, but they rejected the application because they say salary is not allowed. It has to be passive income. And that’s right. And, this is a good observation, but When the DTV, when the LTR visa was first rolled out, they accepted any kind of income and about a few months in, I’d say three or four months into the program, they suddenly made it passive income at one point.
If you’re a U. S. taxpayer, they were accepting just 1099, which is a filing that a company will do to show. Income other than wage income. Now they want to see your 1099s and your 1040s. So things change over time. And a lot of times the BOI might not tell you the reason for rejecting your application. Tea has developed great relationships down there and can talk to the BOI and kind of ferret that out if you’d like her to.
Okay. I think we’re going to do two more questions. Now. We wanted to be done in 45 minutes, but we by the way, we really appreciate the interaction. This has been terrific tonight. So thank you. This person writes. I qualify as a wealthy pensioner. Congratulations. I’m from the US and have interest in dividend income exceeding 80, 000.
Before taxes but only for the last 12 months. As I only retired last year. Does this qualify Tea? So yes, if it appears on your tax return, so 2023 and reapply this year it will qualify great And again t would be happy to chat with you, but congratulations on your success One other thing you need to think about however is making sure that you purchase And health insurance policy that specifically and expressly covers you in the kingdom and has a coverage limit of $50,000 it can have a high deductible. It can have exclusions for pre existing conditions, which a lot of Thai insurance policies are written that way. The BOI isn’t really looking at the quality of the policy, but they are looking at the coverage amount. So for people in their 50s and 60s, pretty easy and pretty inexpensive to get.
As you get into your 70s and beyond, buying insurance here becomes a little more problematic. The alternative to that is you have 100,000 sitting in immediately available funds for the last 12 months and that will satisfy the health insurance requirements. So great question. Thank you for that. Do we have one more?
If we can scroll down here, Copter, please. Scroll the, Oh, okay. Has anyone used dental work as a DTV vehicle? For example, implants. That’s very interesting. I think mint it’s been more traditional medicine, but I don’t see any reason if you could get a letter from your dentist saying that over the course of the next six months you need all kinds of expensive dental work that wouldn’t qualify.
You think so, right? Yes. From my experience some client that really need the DTV right now, they contact with The hospital that they know and acquire some kind of certificate that have a physical checkup. And that still works for the DTV. That’s interesting. Okay. So again, I think the key period of time here is six months.
And if you can get your health care provider to say, This is a six month program. Yeah. That will likely qualify. Okay. All right. One more question. Actually we’re going to do two more questions. Because both of them look great. Is the LTR visa tax exempt completely or does one have to pay 17 percent?
Please clarify. So great question again. So for foreign earnings for the wealthy pensioner, For the wealthy global citizen and for the remote worker, your foreign earnings are 100 percent exempt. For the highly skilled category working here in Thailand, your tax rate is capped at 17%. And again, for any of these categories, if you’re making money here in the kingdom, You’re going to pay money on that, but your foreign income is 100 percent exempt under this category.
All right, somebody wrote apologies for this one, so you hooked me in here. I’m flying into Thailand December 2nd. Welcome to the kingdom in advance. It’ll be cool and hopefully a little less rainy here. Is it correct that the ETA implementation has been postponed? This is a great question. ETA is Electronic travel authorization.
Thailand announced that they’re going to require, like many other countries, for you to fill out a form online before you come here with basically the bio page of your passport, your travel information. The pilot program was supposed to have started in December. I haven’t heard about postponements.
Have you? Yes, I haven’t. I haven’t either. Keep checking back. So for pilot program, they’re probably only going to pick a limited number of countries to try this out first with full implementation expected by June of 2025. So while you’re apologizing for asking, I think it’s a great question.
We’re apologizing because we don’t have any further information. As happens here, sometimes suddenly it’s rolled out and we’ll get. Inform that day. I would say that the moment we get additional information on the ETA, I will post up a YouTube video. So feels free to subscribe to the station. Okay. Look, we didn’t get to all the questions.
We apologize. We’ve run almost to the end of the hour. I want to thank my distinguished colleagues, T and Roy, for joining me tonight. I want to thank all of you for participating tonight. The questions were great. The interaction always makes us very happy. Again, a bonus for participating. If you want to reach out to Tea, Mint, Pear, Roy and we always will encourage you to.
Feel free to talk to us. We love long term relationships and a free consultation can be scheduled through our website. So thanks very much from downtown Bangkok. We appreciate it. And until our next webinar, take care. Thank you. Thank you very much.
