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Filing Wealthy Global Citizen under the new text. Condo in my name, valued above the USD 500k Thai-investment line, and total assets over USD 1 million including that condo. The form no longer asks me for a salary. I want to be dull and correct: the 500k can sit inside the 1 million, yes? It is not 500 plus another 1?
Inside. The Thai investment is part of the million, not an extra million. That was the sentence that stopped me over-selling a bond position I don't have.
Thank you. I will stop letting my cousin explain this to me on WhatsApp.
Have the valuation and the title match the name on the passport, including the order of given names. Shared ownership is counted as your share only. If your spouse is on the title, don't claim the whole condo.
Confirming what Kenji and I argued about in November. I cannot find a five-years-in-ten test in Por. 3/2568 for Highly-Skilled or Work-from-Thailand. My four years and eight months would have been a wait under the old rule. I am filing against the February contract.
Good. The colleague I mentioned is annoyed, in a friendly way. He waited four months for a rule that just disappeared.
I'll buy him a beer in Bangkok if this actually goes through. Still have to clear income and the industry list.
Industry list still matters. Electronics is an easy one. 'I do strategy for a startup' is where I see people get vague and then get asked what the company actually does.
Por. 3/2568 is up. It is dated today and it repeals Por. 2/2565 and Por. 6/2566. Applications from today use the new qualifications. Thai is the binding text. The English PDF next to it is marked as a translation. I am not a lawyer, but the shape matches the January press release: no WGC income test, USD 50 million for private WFT employers, experience years removed, parents named as dependents.
Reading it now. If the subsidiary clause survived, I can use the parent accounts. Helga, is that actually in the Thai text or only in the press summary?
It is in the announcement. A company that is 100 percent owned by a qualifying employer can rely on the parent. A partial stake does not. Get the share register, not a group brochure.
Parents are named, and the four-person cap is not in this BOI text. The January release said the wider family rights still needed Interior. I am treating 'BOI will endorse' and 'Immigration will stamp' as two different sentences until someone shows the Interior notice.
Por. 3/2568 applies to applications from 4 February 2025. If an English translation disagrees with the Thai announcement, the Thai text is the one the BOI is applying. The pre-screen on this site is being read against that announcement. It is still not the endorsement.
For those of us already on LTR from 2023, do we have to do anything when this new announcement lands, or does it only hit new applications? Asking from Phuket, where the rumor mill is ahead of the PDFs.
Your stamp is your stamp. I'm not re-filing because a press release was kind to newcomers. The five-year extension will be under whatever rules exist when that comes due. That is a 2027 problem for those of us stamped in 2022 and 2023.
Ok! Wealthy Global Citizen and I am going crazy. One page: you still need $80k income. Another page: income is gone, show assets. Which file are they asking for THIS WEEK? I have the million. The condo in Bangkok is in my name, done, finished. A tidy salary I do not have!
This week the live form still asks. The press release says the income test is going. Until Por. something replaces Por. 2/2565, I would assume the officer in the portal is on the old form.
Then I wait a few weeks rather than get a refusal under a rule that is about to be repealed.
Agreed. Your condo can count toward the Thai investment if it is already transferred and the value is documented. It does not fix an income line that the current form still contains. Wait for the announcement, then file once.
BOI press release No. 8/2568 is out today. Cabinet signed off on 13 January. The summary I'm reading says Wealthy Global Citizen drops the personal-income test, Work-from-Thailand private-company revenue falls from USD 150 million to USD 50 million over three years, and the five-years-of-experience rule is going. They also talk about parents as dependents, but that part says it still needs an Interior announcement. Can someone check me before I tell my brother to re-file?
I read the same release. Two cautions. It is a press summary of a Cabinet decision, not the replacement for Por. 2/2565 yet. And the family change is explicitly 'after' a Ministry of Interior announcement as well. I would not upload a parent tomorrow on the back of a press release.
That's the sentence I wanted a second pair of eyes on. I'll wait for the actual announcement before anyone in the family moves.
50 million USD. If this number lives in the real text, my employer clears it. November, this page: 62 was a dead end. I do not celebrate a press note. I open the spreadsheet. That is all.
And if the five-year test really dies, I don't have to push my Bangkok start to June. Kenji, you were right that they didn't round. You may also have been right only under the old announcement.
I'll believe the experience change when I see it in the announcement, not the press note. In 2023 they counted months off a CV and were not romantic about it.
Honest question. Is this visa mostly a way to sell agent packages? I've had two companies quote me six figures in baht to 'guarantee' a Wealthy Pensioner file, and the requirements don't look that mysterious.
The requirements aren't mysterious. The document chasing is. A guarantee is nonsense because the BOI decision is final and you don't pay the visa fee until they have already said yes. Anyone selling a guarantee is selling a story.
Endorsement itself is free. The 50,000 baht is the issuance fee, at the counter, after approval. An agent's professional fee is a private invoice on top of that. If the quote doesn't split those, ask them to.
Qualification endorsement does not have a BOI fee. The issuance fee is paid only after approval, when the visa is collected. A private firm's fee is not a government charge, and nobody can guarantee the endorsement. The test on this website is an unofficial pre-screen. The BOI decides.
Sorry if this is tiresome. British police certificate, ACRO, up to 30 working days, which is a polite way of saying a month and a half. Has anyone lodged the file without it and sent the thing on later? Or does one's clock simply not start until every last PDF is sitting there?
I waited. The moment the file is 'complete' is when they say the 20 working days begin. If you submit a hole, you are just waiting on yourself.
Get the certificate translated if any page isn't English. German ones were sent back in my husband's file last year for exactly that.
The BOI upload page has failed three evenings in a row on the same PDF. 8MB, passport scans plus the tax returns. It gets to 100% and then 'something went wrong' with no reference number. Anyone else, or is it just me and a bad file?
Split it. Their portal still chokes on merged PDFs over about 5MB even when the stated limit is higher. I uploaded the passport, the tax PDFs, and the insurance as separate slots and it went through.
For us the move is the whole family, or it is not a move. My husband would be the Work-from-Thailand one. I don't want a category of my own. The children are 8 and 14. Is the cap still four, and is he inside the four? And if I am only the dependent, are we pretending I will not work?
Spouse and children under 20, and the old notice capped the family at four total. You would be fine numerically. Working is not included. I was told a spouse can ask for permission to work, a child cannot.
Four total would be him plus the three of us, so we land exactly on the cap. Good to know it is that tight.
School letters are a separate pile from the visa. The dependent endorsement did not care which Bangkok school we had picked. The school cared a lot about the visa. Do the BOI file first.
May I ask how strictly Highly-Skilled applies the five-years-in-ten rule? I have four years and eight months in the role, and a master's. The Bangkok contract is written to start in February. I would rather know now if they round. Moving a start date is a conversation I only want to have once.
They did not round for a colleague in our Bangkok office last year. He was a few months short and they told him to wait. Master's helped the income test, not the years.
Alright. February is too soon then. I'll ask them to start the contract in June and I'll file once the fifth year is real.
Same in our electronics group. HR wrote a very long letter about 'equivalent experience' and BOI ignored it. The CV dates were what they counted.
Work-from-Thailand. I think this is a stop. Employer: private, Poland, 11 years. Revenue, three years together: about 62 million USD. The number I keep reading: 150 million. Can the subsidiary use the parent figures? Or is 62 simply no?
I'm on a listed US company so I never had to hit that revenue test. From the checklist I saved in October, private companies were still at 150 million over three years, and I did not see a subsidiary shortcut. Don't quote me as gospel.
That's what my HR sent me too. So I'm short by a lot, not by a rounding error.
Highly-Skilled is a different door if a Thai entity will actually hire you. Work-from-Thailand is specifically remote for the foreign employer. You don't get to pick the one with the easier company accounts.
Keen not to pay for the same insurance twice. 47, Australian, heading for Work-from-Thailand. Does it have to be a Thai insurer, or will my current policy do if the schedule actually says inpatient in Thailand up to USD 50,000? Happy to buy local if that's the rule. Just tell me before I pay.
Mine was a foreign policy. They cared about the Thailand inpatient limit and the dates, not the letterhead. I had to highlight the USD 50,000 line because the schedule was in AUD.
Useful. Mine is in AUD too. I'll get the broker to add a one-page conversion note rather than hoping an officer likes my spreadsheet.
Check the remaining term. They want at least 10 months of cover left when the qualification letter is issued, not when you start the upload. My first policy would have expired in month nine and I had to renew before they would finish the file.
The BOI accepts health insurance with at least USD 50,000 of medical cover in Thailand and 10 months still to run, or Thai social security, or a bank deposit kept for 12 months. The deposit figure for a main applicant is USD 100,000. A dependent uses a smaller deposit. The checklist on ltr.boi.go.th is the list they actually score.
Ok so I'm 53, quit in March (or got quit, depends who you ask), and I cannot tell if Wealthy Pensioner will even look at me. Social Security doesn't start till I'm 62. The little UK pension is already on, about $18k. Oregon rental did maybe $29k last year. Together that is not $80k. Not close. There's the other door, $40k plus $250k sitting in Thailand. Does a condo count if I haven't bought it? I've looked. I haven't bought it.
Unearned only. A friend filed last spring. Salary was refused. Social Security counts when it pays, not as a forecast. Buy the Thai investment first. I bought bonds, then I uploaded. A condo you might buy is not a condo.
Right. The answer I was hoping was wrong. So I either wait around until the pension and the rental grow up, or I park $250k over there and use the smaller band. And the bonds. They had to have five years left, didn't they. I'm asking anyway.
Yes. Government bonds need at least five years of remaining maturity, Ministry of Finance paper, in your own name. A condo can be the $250k instead, but only the share that is already transferred to you. A reservation agreement will not do it.
Separate point, because people mix these up. If you are in Thailand 180 days and you remit that Oregon rent in the same calendar year you earned it, the Revenue Department has treated that as taxable since 1 January 2024. The LTR overseas-income exemption has conditions. I would not pick a category just to avoid a filing.
Almost two years. Still 150 million. My company grew. It did not become a different animal. I look here so I do not open the PDF every month. If the number moves, someone will shout. I will hear it.
No change in the company test as of this week. I checked again before transfer season. Private company: 150 million over three years. Listed company: the other door. Experience: still five years.
Then I stay where I am employed. And I stay annoyed. Both can be true.
contractor column: also unchanged. still a no. the hostel has a new dog. that's the news.
New year, new tax ghost. From 1 January, if you're here 180 days and you bring foreign income in the same year you earned it, they're calling that taxable. So what is the LTR exemption actually worth? Or is that another line off a poster?
The January rule is about a tax resident remitting foreign-source income. An LTR exemption, where one applies, is not a dispensation from filing. If you need those ideas in a single sentence, you are not finished reading.
I'm done buying the sentence. I'll pay someone who argues with the Revenue Department on a Tuesday.
I will file. The exemption is not a personality.
I want this written down while it is still exact. The insurer excluded a thyroid condition and the policy became a correspondence. I used the deposit. One hundred thousand US dollars. My name. Twelve months. The statement had to show the balance never went under. A blunt instrument. It was accepted.
Same route for my husband, later. The statement is the proof. A letter saying the balance was 'usually' there came back.
Blunt is a kindness. I'll take a blunt bank letter over a policy full of maybe.
I used the Suvarnabhumi lane, mostly to see whether it was theatre. It was not. It is also not a reason to abandon a privilege membership, before the replies begin. The sign is easy to miss if you walk as though the airport already belongs to you.
i missed the sign and did the normal line like a tourist. officer was fine. my pride is not.
Lane is signed. Don't swap queues.
Phuket. Collected. He wanted the letter, the passport, the insurance, the fee. He did not want my feelings. Five years. I wrote the date in the car, because I will not remember it in the parking lot.
The date is the product. Good.
Chiang Mai was slower and louder. Same stamp. If your landlord will not do TM30, fix that before the dinner. I did the dinner first. The dinner was a mistake.
Por. 6/2566 is dated today, 16 March 2023. It sits with Por. 2/2565. I will not summarise it from a group chat. Read the Thai text before you amend a file that is already in.
Agreed, on a separate ground. A new visa announcement is not a new charging provision. Do not rebuild a theory of your personal income because a PDF gained a number.
Already stamped. A new number on a PDF does not reopen me. I will read it. I will not redecorate.
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