Service guide
What Thailand's LTR visa costs: a 50,000 baht visa fee, free BOI endorsement, the four qualifying categories, and the strict 60-day deadline after approval.
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The LTR visa in Thailand costs 50,000 baht per person, paid once at issuance, for a visa granted as a five-year stay that is extendable for a further five, for up to ten years total. The Board of Investment charges nothing to assess whether you qualify: its own brochure states that it "provides free qualification endorsement processing".
That makes the government side of an LTR unusually cheap for what it delivers. The real cost sits in the qualifying conditions rather than the fees, because every category asks you to hold assets, income or insurance at a set level and to prove it.
The 50,000 baht is per person, so dependents are charged too. Collecting the visa at an embassy or consulate instead of in Thailand puts you on the E-Visa route, where the brochure says only that the fee varies with exchange rates.
What the government charges
Board of Investment figures for the LTR visa, from its 2025 programme brochure.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| BOI qualification endorsement | Free |
| Visa fee, collected in Thailand | 50,000 baht per person |
| Visa fee, collected at an embassy or consulate | Varies with exchange rates |
| Digital work permit | Charged under the Ministry of Labour fee schedule |
| Health insurance covering Thailand | At least USD 50,000 of cover |
| Deposit, if used instead of insurance | USD 100,000 for the main applicant, USD 25,000 per dependent |
Source: Board of Investment, 2025 LTR brochure
Checked August 2026
Note: The endorsement is free, and the fee is not annual
Two points worth being clear about, because published guides differ on both.
The 50,000 baht is a one-off visa fee at issuance, not a yearly charge. It buys the initial five-year stay, which the programme allows you to extend for a further five. And the BOI's assessment of your qualifications carries no government fee at all. Some guides list a separate endorsement charge of tens of thousands of baht and add it to a government total; the BOI's own brochure says the endorsement processing is free. Anything charged on top of the 50,000 baht is a professional fee for preparing the application, which is a real cost but not a government one.
The LTR is four separate visas sharing one name, and the category decides the whole application. Getting this choice wrong is the expensive mistake, because the evidence you gather for one category rarely transfers to another.
The criteria below come from the BOI announcement in force since 4 February 2025. That announcement repealed the 2022 and 2023 versions outright, so a guide describing the older thresholds is describing rules that no longer exist.
The four LTR categories
Criteria as written in BOI Announcement No. Por. 3/2568, in force since 4 February 2025.
| Requirement | Wealthy global citizen | Wealthy pensioner | Work-from-Thailand professional | Highly skilled professional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal income | None required | USD 80,000 a year in pension or fixed income, or USD 40,000 to 80,000 with an investment | USD 80,000 a year averaged over two years, or USD 40,000 with a Master's, owned intellectual property, or Series A funding | USD 80,000 a year over two years, or USD 40,000 with a science or technology Master's or proven expertise |
| Investment in Thailand | At least USD 500,000 | USD 250,000, only if income is USD 40,000 to 80,000 | None required | None required |
| Assets test | USD 1 million in domestic and foreign assets | None | None | None |
| Who you work for | Not applicable | Must be retired | A foreign employer that is listed on any stock exchange, or a private company trading 3 years with USD 50 million combined revenue, or a wholly owned subsidiary of either | An employer in one of 15 targeted industries, or a Thai public university, research agency or public body |
| Age | No limit | 50 or over | No limit | No limit |
| Insurance or deposit | USD 50,000 cover, Thai social security, or a USD 100,000 deposit | Same | Same | Same |
Source: BOI Announcement No. Por. 3/2568
Checked August 2026
Warning: The endorsement letter expires in 60 days
Qualifying is not the same as holding the visa. Once the BOI approves your qualifications and issues the endorsement letter, you "must proceed to apply for visa issuance within 60 days of receiving the endorsement letter".
That clock is easy to miss, because the hard part feels finished when the endorsement arrives. Plan the visa-issuance appointment before the endorsement lands rather than after, particularly if you intend to collect at an embassy abroad, where the E-Visa route adds its own scheduling. The brochure states the deadline without stating a remedy for missing it.
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The February 2025 announcement loosened several conditions, and two changes matter enough to reopen the question for people who were turned away before.
Wealthy global citizens no longer face any personal income requirement. Work-from-Thailand professionals gained a lower employer-revenue bar, USD 50 million over three years, and wholly owned subsidiaries of a qualifying parent now count, which brings in staff of local subsidiaries that previously failed the test. Both categories also dropped the work-experience requirement.
One provision deserves singling out. A highly skilled professional employed by a Thai public university, a public research agency, a public specialist training institute or another public agency is waived the minimum personal income requirement entirely. An academic on a Thai public-sector salary can hold a ten-year visa without meeting any income floor.
Register and submit onlineSame day
Applications and supporting documents go through the BOI's own platform at visa.boi.go.th.
BOI verifies your qualifications20 working days
The clock starts when every document, including anything requested later, is fully submitted.
Apply for visa issuanceWithin 60 days of the endorsement
At the Immigration Bureau at TIESC in Bangkok for a passport stamp, or at a Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate for an E-Visa.
Request the digital work permit
Applied for online and collected at the Department of Employment at TIESC. Only needed if you will work.
The BOI puts qualification endorsement at 20 working days, counted from the date every required document is in, not from the date you first apply. Requests for further documents reset that starting point, which is why document quality drives the timeline more than processing speed does.
After that the 60-day clock to apply for visa issuance is the binding constraint, so a well-prepared application is a matter of weeks rather than months. The variable is not the government's speed but how many rounds of document requests it takes to satisfy the category you chose.
Evidence matched to one category, not several
Income, assets and investment are tested differently in each category, so the evidence pack follows the category you commit to.
Insurance with at least 10 months left when the endorsement issues
The 10-month test is measured against the endorsement letter date, not the application date, so a policy that is fine on submission can fail on approval.
Any deposit held for a full 12 months
Where a deposit replaces insurance, it must have been retained for at least 12 months as of the application date. A recently funded account does not qualify.
Investments already held before you apply
Bonds, company investments or property counted toward a category must be owned before the application date, and government bonds need at least five years left to maturity.
Two years of income history for the income-based categories
The tests are averages over the two years before application, so a single strong year does not carry the application.
A visa-issuance appointment planned in advance
The endorsement gives you 60 days, and an embassy E-Visa slot may not be available on demand.
Required: The insurance clause is identical in all four categories
Every category asks for the same thing, in one of three forms: health insurance covering medical expenses in Thailand of at least USD 50,000, with at least 10 months of cover remaining as of the date the endorsement letter issues; or evidence of social security benefits covering medical expenses in Thailand; or a deposit of at least USD 100,000 in a bank account in Thailand or abroad, retained for at least 12 months as of the application date.
Dependents are held to the same insurance standard, but the deposit alternative is set at USD 25,000 per person rather than USD 100,000.
The programme's published benefits are substantial: a ten-year renewable visa, a multiple re-entry permit, the 90-day report extended to a one-year report, fast-track service at Thai international airports, exemption from the four-Thais-to-one-foreigner employment ratio, tax exemption on overseas income, permission to work through a digital work permit, and a 17 percent personal income tax rate for highly skilled professionals.
What it does not do is exempt you from work permit law. The LTR route uses a digital work permit rather than providing a shortcut around one, and Thailand's reserved-occupation rules still apply to what that permit may cover. If your intended work sits on the absolutely prohibited list, the LTR does not open it up, so read what a work permit in Thailand allows before assuming a category fits your job.
The benefits are published as a table with a column per category, so not every line applies to everyone. For a general view of the visa routes and who handles them, see immigration lawyers in Thailand.
The ten years arrive in two pieces. On entry you are granted a five-year stay, or a period ending at your passport's expiry, and that is extended for a further five years later. A passport that expires in two years therefore shortens your first grant, which is a good reason to renew it before applying.
Reporting gets lighter rather than disappearing. The 90-day report that other long-stay visas require becomes an annual report, and the re-entry permit requirement is lifted.
Dependents changed in 2025 too. The LTR now covers a legitimate spouse, parents, children under 20 and legal dependents, with no limit on how many. Readers weighing this against the older long-stay routes should compare it with retirement visa services and the guide to Thailand's retirement visa, since a wealthy pensioner aged 50 or over may qualify under either and the tests are not the same.
The BOI assesses qualifications for free, so nobody needs paying to submit the form. What a firm earns its fee on is the category decision and the evidence pack: choosing the track your circumstances actually satisfy, assembling two years of income evidence in a form the BOI accepts, and getting the insurance and deposit dates right, since those are measured against different reference dates.
Document requests are what stretch a 20-working-day assessment into months, and each round restarts the clock. A professional who tells you that your intended category does not fit, before you spend three months proving it, has done the valuable part of the work.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Criteria, fees and processing times change; for a specific case, speak with a qualified professional.
Sources: Where these figures come from
Qualifying criteria: Announcement of the Office of the Board of Investment No. Por. 3/2568, announced 4 February 2025, which repealed Announcement No. Por 2/2565 of 30 June 2022 and No. Por 6/2566 of 16 March 2023.
Fees, benefits, the four-step process, the 20-working-day assessment, the 60-day deadline and the five-plus-five stay: the Board of Investment's 2025 LTR programme brochure and the LTR programme site.
All figures checked on 17 August 2026. Amounts set in US dollars are quoted as the announcement sets them, in dollars.
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฿7,000–12,000 / hour
Experts assisting clients in conducting their businesses and protecting their rights and investments in Thailand across a wide range of legal matters.
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International boutique law firm in Bangkok and Phuket, providing legal and tax services to investors, businesses, and private clients across Thailand
฿7,000–12,000 / hour
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