Why is the visa system such a hideous confusing mess. In Australia you can apply on the Canberra website, Sydney Website or the Thai website. All three have various conflicting different requirements for O, OA and OX. For example the Sydney website requires no bank deposit for an OA but the Canberra website does. The Canberra website does not stipulate whether funds need to be in a Thai account except for the OX. O and OA both just say "a bank statement in past three months..." The O visa requires minimum fund if only THB 20,000. Barely seems worthwhile requiring anything. The Canberra website requires health insurance for all 3 but Sydney doesn't. I honestly don't get how this can all be so convoluted and messed up. Been trying to understand what I need for a while and am still confused AF
Thai visa system is a mess
You are absolutely correct. As a US citizen, I found the same thing. Constantly getting conflicting information between the Thai website, the USA website, the local immigration office, and here on the forum.
In the end, I applied for an O visa via the E visa website and hoped. They asked me to prove a $30,000 US deposit. Never heard of such a requirement but I provided it and they issued me a 90 day visa. It was actually very simple but they did not follow their own requirements listed on the website.
The lesson learned is that absolutely nothing is accurate and you just need to jump in and apply and see what happens.
in a couple of weeks, we'll see how the one year extension goes while I'm in Thailand
@shenpa
mate the answer to your queston , is simply
Thats Thailand ,
@Paul_Adams
hi thanks for the reply. So you had to have 30,000 in US account or Thai?
Don't you have to apply to the consulate nearest to where you live?
Ignore what's on the website, just go ahead an apply and see what the real requirements are.
@shenpa in a us bank i was really surprised and happy about that
"in a us bank i was really surprised and happy about that"
It would be more surprising if they required $30K in a Thai bank for people applying for a retirement visa and living outside of the country!
They want to know you have the 800K baht to deposit when you get there and open an account.
@Paul_Adams but once you convert that 90days to 1 year you will have to have the money in a Thai bank as far as I know
@rbakker err the website is how you aooly
@shenpa
Standard procedure.
Pretty impossible to open thai bankaccount from outside of thailand
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