In this interview, Martin shares the Differences in Thai Retirement Visas OA versus O and why he picked the OA visa.
Martin first started coming to Thailand in 2015 and moved to Thailand in 2017. So he has been living in Thailand for about 4.5 years ago. He last visited the USA in 2019. He married a Thai citizen and they are building a house together.
Martin came to Thailand in 2017 with an OA Thai retirement visa. He lives in Thailand as a retiree and is not working. So Martin has no work permit issues.
There are two main things to discuss. First, there is getting the visa, and then there is extending the visa once you get there.
Differences in Thail Retirement Visas OA versus O Visa
There are two major ways of retiring there, the OA visa and the O visa. Martin came to Thailand on an OA visa. Martin decided to get the OA visa because it is logistically very simple. With the OA visa, Martin doesn’t have to think about it all year long.
They both have an age requirement of 50 years of age.
With the OA visa, he is in and out of the immigration office in 90 minutes for his annual extension. That is why he picked it. You can only apply for an OA visa outside of Thailand at a Thai consulate.
To get the OA visa, you have to prove either certain assets in the bank or a certain income per month. Plus there is a criminal background check and a medical form that your doctor needs to sign. Then a bunch of bank statements.
Then you get your OA visa, which is a one-year visa. And then you can come to Thailand.
The other visa that he didn’t get, but a friend did, is called the O Visa. You can get it in different places, and people shop around to find the most advantageous place to get the O visa. You can get it in London, Los Angeles, but people were also shopping around and getting it in places like Laos.
Depending upon where you went, the requirements would be different. So people would go to whichever consulate that they preferred. The other way to get an O visa is to show up in Thailand on a tourist visa and apply for an O visa.
Whether you get the O visa inside or outside Thailand, you have 90 days to complete additional requirements. At the end of that 90 days, you could apply for a one-year extension.
Whether you have a year with an OA visa, or you have 90 days with the O visa, you fill out the same form to try to get your one-year extension. It is the same form but they know whether you started with an OA visa or an O visa.
Martin doesn’t believe there are any financial requirements to get the O visa. But to get the OA visa, he was required to show money in his US bank. So whether you are getting the OA visa based upon the lump sum, or the monthly pension amount, it could be in your US bank, and you would provide bank statements to prove it.
But when you go for the one-year extension, whether for the OA visa (after 1 year), or the O visa (within 90 days), the money needs to be in a Thai bank by the time you apply for the one-year extension.
And those financial requirements in the Thail bank, in your name only, at the time of application, are either (1) 800k Baht (about $26,000 USD), or (2) 65k Baht monthly income (about $2100 USD). If based upon the monthly income, it has to show that it entered the Thai bank from a foreign source. It has to be coded on your bank statement as from a foreign rather than a domestic transfer.
There is even a Facebook group that is dedicated to sharing how to make sure the monthly income shows up as coded as a foreign transfer. Plus, the monthly amount can’t drop below the required 65,000 Baht. So the exchange rate could mess you up and if the exchange fees increase that could mess you up too.
That is why Martin decided to just put 800k Baht in a Thai bank and just leave that in his Thai bank account. That way he doesn’t have to worry about making sure everything is perfect with the monthly payment requirement, exchange rates, wire transfer fees, and foreign transfer-coding requirements.
But having 800k Baht ($26,000 USD) in a Thai bank upsets many people since it is earning no interest. But Martin thinks it is worth the peace of mind so he doesn’t have to worry about getting his annual extension because something stupid happens in the monthly transfer process. He is in and out of the immigration office for his one-year extension in about 90 minutes.
So what Martin does is logistically simple, but some people rather comply with the 65,000 Baht monthly requirement.
The 800k needs to be in the Thai ban for 2 months before the annual extension and needs to stay in the bank for 3 months after the one-year extension, and they do check on that, and then for the other 7 months of the year, you can bring it down to 400k Baht ($13k USD).
But he just leaves the whole $800k Baht in the Thai bank year-round so he doesn’t have to worry about the timing of everything. And you can do that with either an OA visa or an O visa.
Health Insurance Requirement (OA visa versus O)
Thailand added a health insurance requirement for anyone on an OA visa. It applies only to OA visa holders, not O visa holders. The new rule was made retroactive, so it applied to anyone on an OA visa no matter how long ago they entered Thailand on an OA visa.
The requirement for an OA visa holder is 400k Baht ($12,600 USD) health insurance for in-patient health insurance coverage and 40k Baht ($1,260 USD) out-patient health insurance, which isn’t that high really.
There are two ways to approach the health requirement. Some people just get the minimum policy from one of the approved Thai companies. Martin just thinks of that first way as paying a fee rather than having real coverage. It would not be enough to solve a real insurance problem.
Since it is only for OA visa holders, you could leave Thailand and return on an O visa to get rid of the requirement. Leaving and returning made sense before the health crisis, but now getting back in might be too complicated or impossible depending on how the crisis unfolds.
But Martin solved this OA requirement another way. Martin had a 10 Million Thai Baht Policy with a Thai Company (with a large deductible) before they made this new rule so he was already qualified.
So Martin just preferred to keep the real Thai health insurance he already had. It may also be possible to get foreign insurance that qualifies for this new requirement also. Martin believes you can get your foreign insurance company to fill out a form that Thailand requires that states your policy meets the minimum requirements, but he is not sure.
Thai Marriage Visa
If you apply for a Thai marriage visa, all of the financial requirements are cut in half. O it would be 400k Baht in the Thai bank or 40k Thai Baht monthly income. Martin has married a Thai woman so he could switch to a marriage visa if he wanted,
If Martin switched to a marriage visa, the health insurance requirement no longer would be required when he gets his annual extensions. But he has decided to just stay on the OA visa.
So the health insurance requirement is only for OA visas. There is no health insurance requirement for the O visa or the marriage visa.
Whenever you talk to other ex-pats about the OA insurance requirement, there is always a debate about whether or not they will eventually require health insurance for the O visa, but so far that hasn’t happened.
Differences Applying for the OA or O visa
When Martin originally applied for his OA visa in Thailand, he brought in his bank statements from his US bank showing he had the 800k Thai Baht requirement in the bank. And he brought in his pension statements and all of the documents they required that had to be notarized.
But was not sure which they used to approve his OA visa for the first year. He doesn’t know if they required the 800k Baht equivalent to be in his bank for the two months before or 3 months after issuing his first 1 year OA visa.
He checked on the Thai webpage in Los Angeles and didn’t see it there either.
So you will need to prove the financial requirements present in your home country bank when you apply for the OA visa. But the financial requirements do not seem to be present when you apply for the O visa, but you do need to meet the financial requirements in a Thai bank when you apply for your first one-year extension for both the O and the OA visa.
Problem with the O visa
When you arrive in Thailand on the O visa, you have to apply for a one-year visa extension within 90 days. With the OA visa, you have one year before you apply for the one-year extension.
With the O visa, that means you have to open a bank account within the first month. The 800k Baht lump sum or the 65k Baht monthly must hit the account within 30 days. Because it has to be there for two months already when you apply for the O visa extension.
Some people have a hard time opening Thai bank accounts in the 30 days period.
With the OA visa, you have 10 months to get the banking part handled. Again, you have to apply for the one-year extension and show the money has been in the Thai bank for 2 months already at the time of application for the extension.
OA Visa 2 Year Extension Trick
Martin said he may not work now because the borders are closed, but people used to be able to leave Thailand and return during the first year and they would automatically give you another one year on re-entry even though you had not yet put money in the Thai bank yet.
Facebook Groups (Thai Visa and Finacial Requirements)
Just go to the Facebook group and tell them you are a newbie. They will teach you exactly what to do to meet every requirement.
Facebook (Thai Visa Advice): This group will answer all of your questions
Transferwise Facebook Group: Get the name of this Transferwise Facebook Group from the Thai visa advice group above. This Facebook group is totally dedicated to the financial coding requirements of making sure that money arrives in your Thai bank with the correct coding required to meet the one-year visa extensions. Plus, Transferwise, or now called Wise.com, is a cheaper way to transfer money into your Thai bank. Fees of $12 USD instead of wire transfer fees of $35 USD.
Thai Government Approved Insurance Agencies
There is a Thai Government Insurance webpage that lists all 12 of the Thai insurance companies that all qualify for the health insurance requirements of Thai Immigration. One of the companies on that website is called LMG. LMG has the rock bottom requirements that meet the OA requirements cost-wise. You don’t presently need this for the O visa, just the OA visa.
Martin has Pacific Cross which is also listed there but he has never made a claim so he is hesitant to recommend it until he sees how they pay claims. He got a policy with a $1500 USD deductible since routine care in Thailand is so cheap.
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We have not independently verified the information shared by this guest. So do your own research before relying on any of this information.
