How to Apply for Thailand’s LTR Visa

This post is not really dog related, but it’s how to apply for Thailand’s LTR (Long Term Resident) visa. This type of visa allows the holder to stay in Thailand long term. We’ve lived in Thailand permanently since 2018 but Thailand doesn’t make it easy for us expats to stay long term. Previously we stayed as we had a wedding planning company, Dream Asia Weddings, which planned weddings throughout Asia. Through that company we got non immigrant visas. Those allowed us to stay for 1 year, having to report to immigration every 90 days.

When covid hit, unfortunately the business closed as no-one could get to Thailand to get married. Along with that went the visa’s. Until we did our Europe trip, we moved to covid extensions based on our previous non immigrant visa’s. We did apply and got approved for the Elite visa, but at a cost of 800,00 THB (approx US$21,000) for 5 years it was quite a pricey option. Especially considering we don’t plan to permanently be in Thailand long term. Rather, we like to come for a few months at a time in between our travels. Hence, when we knew we were going to go to Europe for a bit we decided not to pay for the Elite. At 50,000 the LTR visa is much more cost effective.

Current Visa Situation

For coming back to Thailand this time, we got approved for an STV visa (Special Tourist Visa). This was a special type of visa for the covid pandemic. It allows you to stay for 90 days and then can be extended twice further. It therefore gives you 9 months in Thailand in total. This has now stopped so we were one of the last ones to come in on this. However, as we now plan to go to Japan in January, this will no longer be valid for our return.

Long Term Resident Visa (LTR)

When we heard about the new Long Term Resident (LTR) visa we were of course very interested. In this post I am only going to concentrate on the Global Wealthy Citizen part as this is the one we applied for. There are 3 other options available also : Wealthy Pensioners, Work-from-Thailand professionals and Highly-Skilled Professionals.

Criteria

You have to fulfill 4 different criteria to apply for the Global Wealthy Citizen LTR visa. Namely you must have;

• At least US$1million in global assets
• Personal income of at least US$80,000 per annum for at least the past 2 years
• Investment of at least US$500,000 in Thailand in the form of Government Bonds*, Foreign Direct Investment or Thai property
• Health insurance with at least US$500,000 coverage or at least US$100,000 deposit

What isn’t mentioned is that all of the above need to apply individually. This means that if you hold a property jointly with your spouse, they will allocate the value 50/50. Which means you need to meet twice the amount for each criteria. This is the case for us as most of what we hold is in joint names.

Also, if you wish to hold Government bonds as a qualifying criteria, they must have at least 5 years left until maturity otherwise they won’t count.

What we also fond out after months of backwards and forwards is that even if you have an income in your sole name (in my case rental income from a property owned solely) and it is paid into a joint bank account, you must still half the income. However, if it’s the other way (joint income paid into a sole account) then they still half it. The criteria really is flawed.

Application Process for Thailand’s LTR Visa

If you believe that you qualify for Thailand’s LTR visa, you will an online application form which can be found here. You will need to first create an account. If you have a spouse that you would like to include to the application you can include their details here. Then you will need to fill in the following;

• Education Background
• Personal Income for the last 2 years and to date;
  • Annuity
  • Dividends
  • Interest on a bond deposit
  • Rental income from property
  • Salary/wages
• Your Thailand investments;
  • Thai Government Bonds issued by Ministry of Finance
  • Direct Investment as an individual investor in company
  • Real Estate (condominium)
• Personal Global Assets. You will need to confirm the country held and the type of asset;
  • Deposits
  • Real Estate & Land
  • Publicly traded stocks and mutual funds
  • Gold
  • There is a section for other where you can detail and other assets you may hold
• Means of medical expense;
  • Insurance policy of at least US$500,000 with remaining term of at least 10 months
  • Social security benefits which cover hospitalisation in Thailand
  • Deposit of at least US$100,000 which must have been held for at least 12 months

You will then be asked if you would like to collect your visa in Thailand or at an overseas Embassy. If you will require a work permit there is also a section to complete around that. However, we didn’t complete this section.

You will then be required to upload all of the documents that you will rely on as evidence of your income and assets. This section is split into Personal Documents, Evidence of Investment, Evidence of Income and Evidence of Global Assets. There’s also a section for work permit and other if you have additional documents you wish to upload.

Contact Details

In terms of getting updates, I’d say you need to be proactive in following up. It’s rare to get a response by e-mail. If you haven’t heard anything after 2 weeks, try giving them a call. There are different numbers depending on which visa you applied for;

• Wealthy Global Citizen – Khun Auttapol (022091141)
• Wealthy Pensioner – Khun Mumtaz (022091143)
• Work – From Thailand Professional – Khun Poothip (022091146) and Khun Suchawadee (0220091142)
• Highly Skilled Professional – Khun Intuch (022091144) and Khun Jakkrawan (022091149)

Even when calling it often took numerous attempts to get through. But when you do they are usually very helpful.

Our Experience

We uploaded all of our documents on 12th September. On 20th September they wrote to tell us that as all our assets were held jointly, we had to prove that we met all the criteria individually. We had only uploaded documents up to the criteria. Therefore, we had to submit more documents to add up to the required amounts. Our assets and income are made up primarily from multiple properties around the world. Therefore, it took quite a bit of gathering all of the required documents.

For the properties, they will only accept the value of the property when you bought it. They don’t take into consideration any appreciation or depreciation in value. So they really are quite strict. This is because they want to see what you actually invested and that you physically invested the money into Thailand. Not that you are relying on investment gains for accumulating your wealth.

For income, we had to submit all tenancy contracts from the past few years provide bank statements to show the income going into our bank account. It was quite an arduous process due to the fact we have multiple income sources. Had we simply had a salary or income from fewer properties it would have been a lot easier!

Thailand Property

To complicate things further, we were in the process of transferring one of our Thailand villas into our name from the developer. So they wouldn’t entertain including that until it was firmly transferred. The criteria does state condo under Thai property. However, on their website they clearly show that they accept freehold houses. As well as buildings on leased land as long as there is a minimum of 10 years remaining on the lease. You therefore need to provide your title deed showing your name on the deed AND the sales and purchase agreement showing the amount it’s registered for. You also need to show the land lease registration and the building transfer documents from the Land Office showing the price paid on transfer.

The seller of one of our villas under declared the value on sale in order to avoid paying higher SBT. We didn’t know this and hadn’t agreed to that and only realised when the LTR staff pointed it out to us. This was very annoying as on the amount of the under declared villa, it meant we wouldn’t qualify. Therefore, we sent in the proof of each payment to the seller to prove we paid the full amount as per the S&P agreement. However, they would not accept this at all, they will only accept the official government documents with the Garuda. This meant we didn’t qualify by around US$40,000.

Approval Process for Thailand’s LTR Visa

We submitted our final documentation on the evening of 1st November. I uploaded to the website as well as sending an e-mail with the documents on. This was followed up with a phone call on 3rd November to make sure it had been received. I was told that if there were any issues they’d call me back. Then it was the waiting game! I had a few more calls with the staff about my application asking various questions. On 28th November I got an e-mail to say that because my situation was complex with numerous documents they had no option but to reject the application. However, they requested that I resubmit the documents in a more easy to understand manner rather than just bombarding with them all and expecting the staff to piece together. They said once resubmitted they’d check through the documents quickly.

Making It Easier

I spent a whole day working on this. I got all my bank statements for 2 years from my UK, Dubai and Thai banks. Then I highlighted every rental payment with the name of the payee. As well as then highlighting the names on the tenancy contracts. For each property I scanned the title deed, S&P agreement and transfer documents from the Land Office. All highlighted in the areas showing name and the figures.

I then did an Excel spreadsheet with different sheets for assets and income. On the assets sheet I broke down each property into sole or joint status. Then by land value and building value. Then into US$. For my income I broke down by each property. For each month how much was paid into my bank account. Each property income was highlighted in a different colour so it was easy to verify. I also had an overview sheet which showed the full breakdown of my assets and income so it was easy to see that I did qualify. The documents were re submitted this on the 28th November at 20:19. I e-mailed them to let them know I’d re submitted so they’d look at the documents quickly. I also tried calling multiple times but struggled to get through.

Meeting at LTR offices

I got a further call about a week later saying my case was just too complicated and quite honestly they just couldn’t be bothered to work through all the papers. I ended up driving up to Bangkok and meeting the staff in the office to go through everything. They were really friendly and polite. After a few hours together, it seemed we had made good headway and that I would soon receive an approval. I was told that as my property didn’t qualify (due to the undervaluation from the seller of one of the villas) that I could simply make up the difference by purchasing Government Bonds.

I got a call a few days later (after spending hours trying to find a bank that would sell a foreigner Government Bonds) that the maturity had to be at least 5 years from application. The longest maturity on an available KTB bond was 4 years and 6 months. So they wouldn’t accept this either.

The final straw was when I was told that as one of my income sources from a property I own solely was paid into a joint account, it therefore had to be halved. This is just ridiculous as I also have property owned jointly where rental income is paid into my sole account. I argued that the same rule should apply and that whole income should be treat as my own. Of course that wasn’t the case. It therefore just became too ridiculous to qualify and I asked them to cancel my application.

Conclusion

For us, it was a no brainer to apply for Thailand’s LTR visa if you qualify. It’s a lot cheaper than the Elite visa route and gives you other certain perks such as fast track immigration and is valid for 10 years (as long as you continue to meet the criteria at the 5 year stage). Immigration report is only needed to be done once a year instead of every 90 days. It also allows you the option for a work permit which is not possible with the Elite. If you have a company in Thailand too it also negates the need for the 3:1 Thai vs foreigner rule.

However, the changing criteria was honestly just ridiculous. When you got through one hoop another appeared that seemed to have just been made up. It really doesn’t feel like they are serious about wanting thousands of people applying for this visa.

I feel that Thailand’s LTR visa is currently suitable only for those with very straightforward financials.

As with everything, it’s a step in the right direction. There are a lot of haters around this visa at the moment. Usually, these are the people that don’t qualify and are annoyed at the system. For sure it’s not perfect, not much, if anything in Thailand is. Hopefully when they realise that there are few people applying and being approved for this visa they will re visit the criteria. Until then, we decided to leave Thailand for the time being until Thailand’s LTR visa becomes a bit easier to apply for.

Hope this information helps and let me know your experience if you have applied x

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