Finish out your corporate career in Thailand

Imagine this…

You've been at your company 22 years. You're a Director. VP. Senior manager.

Whatever the title may be… you're one of the people that the company or divison leans on.

And you're increasingly done with winter. Or the same four walls. Or both.

But you're not ready to retire…

You've still got 3 to 5 good years left in you. Plus walking away now would leave money on the table you want to stash away for your life after work.

But what if you didn't have to walk away at all?

What if you just… finished it out from Thailand?

Kept the job. Kept the salary. Kept the title. Just did it from a place where January doesn't mean scraping ice off a windshield or where your view isn't the same four walls you've been staring at for the last five years.

Turns out that's not a hypothetical.

There's an actual Thai visa built for exactly this scenario. And most people who could qualify for it have never even heard of it.

So what is this visa, exactly?

It's called Thailand's Long Term Resident Visa. The Work From Thailand Professional category to be specific.

Most people just call it the 'LTR Work From Thailand visa' for short.

It's a 10-year visa issued in two 5-year chunks.

And once you have the visa, you can stay in Thailand for as little as you like or as long as you like (up to the initial 5-year issuance period) and can establish a proper home-base here.

You can bring your spouse along. You can even bring your kids under 20 too.

It's a very family-friendly program and it was designed for the exact kind of person we just described in the opening of this email.

Who this is actually built for

The vast majority of applicants for this visa fall into one of two camps.

a) Camp 1: The full-career remote professional.

Typically somewhere between 30 and 50 years old. Employed by a large global company. Their role is fully remote, either by design or as a leftover from COVID.

They're not looking to retire anywhere quite yet. They just want to do the career they'd be doing anyway… but from a country they actually want to live in.

We worked with a Singaporean a few months back who was exactly this profile.

They were employed by a big financial services company on a fully remote basis but wanted to be based here in Thailand.

Her boss agreed and this specific LTR visa allowed her to do it.

She’s now in Bangkok and couldn't be happier.

b) Camp 2: The soon-to-be retiree.

Usually somewhere between 50 and 60 years old. 

Two or three decades at the same company. A Director. Senior VP. Group manager. The kind of role where relationships are half the job at this point.

Not ready to retire. But more ready than ever to work from somewhere that isn't 20 degrees below freezing five months of the year.

We worked with a Dutch guy who was exactly this profile. He and his wife wanted to finish things out from Thailand, so he got permssion from his boss and did it.

They’re now in Hua Hin and loving life over here.

That's the person from the opening. This person exists. And we work with them a lot.

The four things that decide whether you qualify

There are four key things that determine whether you match the profile for this visa.

i) The size of your employer.

ii) Your personal income.

iii) Your employment documentation.

iv) And your medical coverage.

Let's go over each of them...

1. Your employer must be big enough

This is the biggest filter of the four. And it's where most otherwise-qualified applicants get cut before they even really get started.

Thailand's Board of Investment (the ones who architected this program out) want to see one of three things about your employer:

i) That they're listed on a public stock exchange (any public exchange) OR:

ii) That they have cumulative revenue of at least USD $50 million across the past three years combined OR:

iii) That they're a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary of a company that meets either (i) or (ii).

No other employer counts.

This LTR Work From Thailand Professional Visa is meant for those working for relatively big companies.

To make this clear, let's run an example…

Let's say there's a sales director working fully remotely for a privately-owned telehealth company.

Let's then assume that the company isn't publicly listed, and that the audited financials of this telehealth company are as follows:

i) USD $18M in revenue in 2025

ii) USD $12M in revenue in 2024

iii) USD $9M in revenue in 2023

That's a total of USD $39M cumulative revenue over the past three years.

Now, because this company isn't publicly listed and the cumulative 3-year revenue falls short of the $50M threshold… 

The applicant employed by this specific company is unfortunately denied.

And the rejection has nothing to do with the applicant themselves. In fact, they may qualify in every other way.

It's just that the employer isn't big enough for this LTR visa category.

Meanwhile… someone at a publicly-listed employer (Fortune 500, mid-cap, doesn't matter) clears the employer test the moment they upload the stock ticker screenshot.

Same goes for those who work for private companies that exceed the cumulative USD $50M three-year revenue benchmark.

Point is… check your employer first before you check anything else.

Because if they don't clear one of those three bars, this isn't your visa.

Now, just a quick note before we keep going here…

If you're reading this thinking "okay, my employer clears that bar and I probably clear the rest too"… that's usually where a real conversation with our team starts saving you weeks of research.

We've handled a lot of these applications over the years, so if you'd like us to walk through your specific situation, our team runs free eligibility assessments for exactly that if you're within 5-months of potentially applying.

→ Book Your Eligibility Assessment

No pressure either way. Back to the breakdown.

2. Your personal income needs to hit the threshold

There are two pathways when it comes to hitting the income requirement.

Option 1: Your average total income over the past two years is at least USD $80,000 per year.

Note the words average and two years. Both matter.

To illustrate… if your income was $75K in 2024 and $95K in 2025, your two-year average is $85K. That clears the $80K 'average' threshold. 

The income-test is officially met under Option 1. 

But… if your income was $60K in 2024 and $85K in 2025, your two-year average is $72.5K.

That's below the threshold and you wouldn't qualify under Option 1.

Option 2: Your two-year average income is between $40K and $79,999 per year… AND you have one additional qualification.

Those extra qualifications are as follows:

i) Evidence of having gotten a Masters Degree or Higher

ii) Ownership of qualifying intellectual property (ie. patent, trademark, etc.)

iii) Evidence of having previously raised at least USD $1,000,000 in a Series A funding round

Now… qualifications 2 and 3 there are a little bit strange and because of that… the additional qualification is almost always a master's degree or beyond.

This is by far the most common way of qualifying under Option 2 where you've earned an average of less than USD $80,000 (but more than USD $40,000) over the past two-years.

3. Your employment relationship and documentation

There's two required documents here and both need to be right.

And this is also where most applicants get confused…

a) The Employment Contract

This document proves you're actually a proper employee of the qualifying company.

That means that the contract has to be directly between you and the qualifying employer.

Not through your own consulting LLC.

Not through an EOR (Employer of Record).

Not through a subsidiary that isn't 100% wholly-owned by the qualifying parent company.

And not as an independent contractor or freelancer of the qualifying company.

If your setup involves any of those, this visa likely doesn't fit… even if the underlying arrangement functions like employment in every practical sense.

Beyond that… the contract itself must clearly state your position, your income, and your start date.

b) The Employment Letter

This is a tricky one and here's why…

Most people applying for this visa have great relationships with their bosses or managers.

So when they ask for a letter confirming their employment and remote work permission... the manager often just fires back a casual email covering the key points and giving the permission.

The applicant then screenshots the email and submits it.

That doesn't work.

The Employment Letter needs to be a formal, professional letter on company letterhead, signed by authorized personnel within the company. And it must state, explicitly:

i) Your current position

ii) Your start date of employment

iii) Explicit permission for you to work remotely from Thailand

iv) Explicit confirmation that you will NOT be conducting business activities in Thailand or providing services in Thailand on behalf of the employer 

v) Dated within the past three months

That fourth point is the one that gets missed most often.

It's the sentence that draws the line between "remote worker who happens to live in Thailand" (which this visa allows) and "someone doing local Thai business" (which this visa doesn't).

Without it, the letter is incomplete regardless of how professionally formatted the rest of it is.

4. Your proof of medical coverage

Last one. And it's usually the easiest of the four qualifiers to satisfy for most applicants because it’s 100% in the hands of the applicant. 

So, as part of getting this Visa… you’ll need to prove to Thai Authorities that you've got adequate medical coverage in place. 

Your options for this are as follows: 

i) Valid health insurance covering at least USD $50,000 for hospitalization in Thailand, with at least 10 months of remaining validity OR:

ii) Valid state (government) coverage from your home country that also covers medical treatment while in Thailand OR:

iii) Bank statements showing at least USD $100,000 maintained monthly across the trailing 12 months at the time of application

The health insurance route is by far the most common of the three. 

And that’s because it's the simplest option for most applicants and there are plenty of providers offering LTR-compliant minimum policies at somewhat reasonable rates.

The state (government) coverage option is very niche. It really only applies to a handful of nationalities whose government health systems specifically cover treatment abroad. Though Military Insurance can sometimes be used here to satisfy this requirement... 

And then the $100K cash-in-bank option is available too… but it requires you to lock up a real chunk of capital in your personal bank account and maintain it across the full 12 months ahead of your application. 

At the end of the day… most people just go with the health insurance route because it doesn't tie up your liquidity.

What life on this visa actually looks like

Assuming everything above lines up for you, here's what you actually get...

i) You get up to a full 10 years of Thailand. Again, that's 5 years upfront with a further 5-year extension designed-in (though the BOI has yet to announce the framework of what this extension will look like) 

ii) You can leave and re-enter Thailand as many times as you want across that period without any re-entry permit hassles. 

iii) Your spouse and children under 20 can be added as dependants under the LTR Dependant category. 

iv) And you only report to Immigration once a year, not every 90 days. And even then… if you leave and re-enter Thailand at all within that year… the clock resets on the annual report. Because of this, a huge chunk of LTR holders never actually have to do any reporting since they travel in-and-out at least once a year. 

Is this actually right for you?

Here's the clean check.

The LTR Work From Thailand is right for you if:

• You're employed as a proper employee (not a contractor or freelancer) directly by a company that either is publicly listed, has cumulative revenue of $50M+ across the past 3 years, or is a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary of one of those AND:
• Your two-year average personal income is at least $80,000 (or between $40K and $80K if you have a master's degree) AND:
• Your role can be done remotely and you have permission from your employer to do it from Thailand

It's not right for you if:

• Your employer doesn't clear the size threshold OR:
• Your income doesn't hit the thresholds even under the lower pathway OR:
• You're not a formal employee (you consult, freelance, or work through your own entity).

If none of those apply, other Thai visa pathways may fit better depending on your specific situation.

Anyways… that's the breakdown of the LTR Work From Thailand Professional Visa.

For the right type of applicant, it’s an amazing option.

We've serviced a lot of people through this program over the years so if any of this sounds like it might apply to your situation and you’d be within 5-months of wanting to apply for it...

We'd love to walk you through how it really works and get your specific questions answered. That's exactly what our free eligibility assessment is for.

→ Book Your Eligibility Assessment Here

If you're further out than 5 months, no rush at all. Just hit reply on this email and feel free to ask anything you’d like. We read and reply to everyone. 

On top of that, our free resources page has plenty of good material to keep you sharp.

→ Browse Our Free Resources Page

Talk soon,

- The Thailand Blueprint Team 🇹🇭

P.S. If you want to see how the LTR Work From Thailand stacks up against Thailand's other long-stay visa options (Non-O, Non-OA, DTV, LTR Wealthy Pensioner, Thailand Privilege Card), grab our Visa Cheat Sheet here.