The step-by-step plan for Thailand

In this step you learn how your residence in Thailand is arranged. That decides how you approach the whole journey.

Here Thailand differs fundamentally from every EU destination on this site, and from most visa countries. You don't get a residence permit here that runs until you cancel it. You get permission to stay, for a fixed period. As a rule you apply for that permission anew every year at the immigration office of your province.

There's no route to permanent residence that's realistic for most pensioners. There's also no automatic build-up towards citizenship. Whoever has lived here for twenty years has applied for an extension twenty times.

That sounds heavier than it is in practice. The extension is routine if your papers are right. But it does decide how you approach this journey: not as a move with an end point, but as an annual cycle you have to keep up with.

In this step you choose your visa route. Do it before you do anything else: the route decides your whole planning.

Three routes matter for Dutch pensioners. They differ mainly in where you have to have the money and how often you have to go back to the counter.

• The O-A you apply for from the Netherlands, from age fifty.
• The O-X is the ten-year variant, with a much heavier money requirement. There too you report in person to Immigration every year, for a check of your papers.
• The Non-O with annual extension is the route most people end up taking. You arrange it within Thailand and it asks for fewer papers. But then the immigration office of your province decides, and those offices differ noticeably in what they demand.

Are you married to a Thai woman or man? Then you have a route of your own: the Non-O on the grounds of your marriage. You don't need to be fifty for it. The money requirement is half: 400,000 baht in the bank, or an income of 40,000 baht a month. Your marriage does have to be registered in Thailand. Choose the route "married to a Thai" in your plan: then you see the steps for that route, and not those of the pension visa.

If you're still working, the picture is different. Then you need an employer who applies for a work permit for you. Or you look at the LTR visa (Long Term Resident), for whoever meets the income or investment thresholds.

In this step you see what the journey is going to cost you. Life in Thailand is cheaper than in the Netherlands. That's true, and it's the reason people come.

But the costs of the journey sit in places you don't expect:

• The health insurance you from now on buy yourself. It rises steeply with your age.
• The 800,000 baht that is locked and so makes no return.
• The flights and the sea freight.
• The annual extension with everything around it.

Work it out with your own choices.

In this step you take an honest look at your healthcare. Of all the steps in this journey, this is the one people misjudge later. So it stands here at the front, and not with closing the Netherlands.

Within the EU you slide into the local healthcare system with an S1. An S1 is the European form that gets you into the healthcare system of your new country. To Thailand that route doesn't exist. Your Dutch basic insurance stops on deregistration, and there's no treaty. From now on you buy an international or Thai policy yourself.

Thai private healthcare is excellent and much cheaper than the Dutch. But you do need to know this:

• The premium rises with your age.
• Existing conditions are often excluded.
• Above a certain age, insurers simply no longer take you on as a new customer.

So request quotes now, also for ten and twenty years from now. Discuss honestly what you'll do if a policy is cancelled or becomes unaffordable. This is the question that decides whether Thailand is sustainable for you.

In this step you take the decision together. Besides healthcare, a few more things deserve an honest conversation.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you're leaving behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Set aside three evenings, a week apart. Talk with your partner, and depending on their age with your children too:

• Evening 1, why. Why do we want this? What do we hope to find in Thailand? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What needs to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to come back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4 sheet.

With Thailand these two belong on those evenings too:

• The status. You remain a guest, even after twenty years. You can't own land, you vote nowhere, and your residence hangs on an annual decision.
• The distance. It's eleven hours' flying. In the event of family circumstances in the Netherlands, you're not home tomorrow.

Also discuss what happens if one of the two of you wants to go back.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the visa papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Someone who lives in Thailand and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually stops building up AOW. AOW is the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB.

Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can matter for your partner's visa, for being insured together for healthcare and for inheritance. A spouse who moves along applies for a visa of their own, as a dependant of the main applicant. The legalised marriage certificate is then the proof of your bond. Check at the visa further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they'll stay in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

Children don't come along on the retirement visa. A school-age child usually gets a student visa of its own (Non-Immigrant ED) through the school. So choose the school early.

Who learns the language, and when? Thai has an alphabet of its own and is a tonal language: the pitch decides what a word means. Outside the expat towns and healthcare, English is limited. Start with the spoken part. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one with no colleagues to practise with. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

In this step you choose the date on which you want to be in Thailand. You do that below. The step-by-step plan works out whether that date is feasible. From that moment it guards the clocks of this journey:

• The months your money has to sit in a Thai account before an extension.
• The ninety days between two reports.
• The validity of your re-entry permit: the permission you need to enter the country again after a trip.
• The 180 days that make you a tax resident, so a resident for tax purposes.