Sixty-five thousand baht a month is what Thailand has asked a retiring foreigner to prove since 25 November 2008. The figure is in its eighteenth year and has never been restated. What it costs to produce has risen 21.3 per cent for a Canadian, 19.8 per cent for a Briton and 16.7 per cent for someone paid in euros, and has fallen 1.1 per cent for an Australian. Same rule, same year, five different bills.
The order, and the date on it
The document is Order of the Royal Thai Police No. 777/2551, and clause 2.22 covers retirement. The alien must be fifty or over, must hold a non-immigrant visa, and must have “evidence of having income of no less than Baht 65,000 per month”, or “funds deposited in a bank in Thailand of no less than Baht 800,000 for the past three months”.
Five and a half years later the Immigration Bureau reissued the criteria as Order No. 327/2557, dated 30 June 2014. Clause 2.22 comes across intact. Same age, same two routes, same two numbers, down to the phrasing. The repeal clause at the front of the 2014 order identifies its predecessor as “Order No.777/2551 dated 25 November 2008”, which is how the 2008 date is established from inside the record rather than from a secondary account of it. Established Thailand visa references were still publishing 800,000 and 65,000 as the operative test in August 2026.
The line does not stop at 2014, and the reason to follow it out is that the two numbers do not move along it. The 2014 order is a police one: the English copy in general circulation heads it as an Immigration Bureau order, while its own opening paragraph puts it out under the Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police. Its clause 2.22 was struck out and rewritten with effect from 31 October 2019 by Royal Thai Police Order No. 548/2562. The police order itself was then repealed on 26 September 2023 by Royal Thai Police Order No. 542/2566; the Immigration Bureau issued criteria of its own the next day as Order No. 242/2566, and replaced them with Order No. 12/2568 of 23 January 2025, whose annexed table is the one an office reads now. Three instruments after 2014, and clause 2.22 still asks 65,000 baht a month or 800,000 on deposit. What 2019 rewrote was the seasoning — two months before filing, three months after the grant, and a floor of 400,000 for the rest of the year. Not the sums.
So the number is fixed, and every guide in the market reports it in baht. Baht is the one currency in which it has not moved.
Priced in five passports
The frozen 65,000 divided by what a pound, a euro, an Australian dollar, a Canadian dollar and a US dollar were actually worth in baht, month by month, from the order’s own month to the most recent complete one. The rates are the Federal Reserve’s H.10 daily series, averaged within each month, with each cross rate built per trading day before averaging rather than after. Every figure below was then recomputed from the European Central Bank’s euro reference-rate history, a different fixing taken at a different hour on the same days. At the three dates the headline numbers rest on, the two panels agree to within 0.23 per cent on every currency, and to within 0.06 per cent at July 2026. The largest disagreement anywhere in the working is 0.49 per cent, on the Canadian leg in November 2007, and it comes from the two calendars covering slightly different trading days.
Source: Author computation from Federal Reserve H.10 daily rates via FRED (DEXTHUS, DEXUSUK, DEXUSEU, DEXUSAL, DEXCAUS), monthly means; cross-checked against ECB euro reference rates · checked 2026-08-12
There is no single answer to what the Thai threshold has done, because “what it has done” is not a property of the threshold. It is a property of the pair.
The same table, both thresholds, three dates
Both figures are priced below at the two orders’ own months and at July 2026. The percentage change is identical for the income test and the deposit, because both are the same baht quantity divided by the same rate. The interesting part is not the percentage. It is the size of the absolute numbers a reader has probably only ever seen expressed as “about twenty-two thousand dollars”.
| Currency | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 | 800k · Nov 2008 | 800k · Jul 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Currency US dollar | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 1,855 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 2,001 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 1,941 | 800k · Nov 2008 22,834 | 800k · Jul 2026 23,886 | Change +4.6% |
| Currency Pound sterling | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 1,211 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 1,183 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 1,450 | 800k · Nov 2008 14,899 | 800k · Jul 2026 17,847 | Change +19.8% |
| Currency Euro | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 1,456 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 1,472 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 1,699 | 800k · Nov 2008 17,917 | 800k · Jul 2026 20,911 | Change +16.7% |
| Currency Australian dollar | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 2,815 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 2,136 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 2,784 | 800k · Nov 2008 34,647 | 800k · Jul 2026 34,264 | Change −1.1% |
| Currency Canadian dollar | 65k/mo · Nov 2008 2,256 | 65k/mo · Jun 2014 2,167 | 65k/mo · Jul 2026 2,737 | 800k · Nov 2008 27,770 | 800k · Jul 2026 33,689 | Change +21.3% |
Monthly means of daily cross rates. Reference rates only: no retail transfer spread, no bank fee, no timing risk inside the month. Every figure here is therefore a floor.
Source: Author computation from Federal Reserve H.10 daily rates via FRED; thresholds from Order 777/2551 cl. 2.22, Order 327/2557 cl. 2.22 and the criteria annexed to Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 cl. 2.22 · checked 2026-08-12
Read the Australian row across. In November 2008 an Australian needed A$34,647 to place the deposit; in June 2014, A$26,293; in July 2026, A$34,264. Nothing in the rule changed across those three filings. The applicant’s exposure moved by a quarter and back again.
Which November you count from
Now the part that decides the headline, and it is not the data. November 2008 was the worst month of the global financial crisis. The dollar had spiked, sterling had collapsed, and the pound bought 53.7 baht against 70.5 baht two years earlier. Anchoring on the order’s own month therefore starts the sterling series near its trough, which makes the British rise look smaller than a longer view would make it, and it starts the Australian series near a panic low, which is the entire reason the Australian number comes out negative.
| Currency → anchor | from Sep 2006 | from Nov 2007 | from Nov 2008 | from Jun 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar | from Sep 2006 +11.7% | from Nov 2007 −6.4% | from Nov 2008 +4.6% | from Jun 2014 −3.0% |
| Pound sterling | from Sep 2006 +57.3% | from Nov 2007 +44.8% | from Nov 2008 +19.8% | from Jun 2014 +22.6% |
| Euro | from Sep 2006 +24.5% | from Nov 2007 +20.3% | from Nov 2008 +16.7% | from Jun 2014 +15.5% |
| Australian dollar | from Sep 2006 +21.0% | from Nov 2007 +20.3% | from Nov 2008 −1.1% | from Jun 2014 +30.3% |
| Canadian dollar | from Sep 2006 +41.2% | from Nov 2007 +36.6% | from Nov 2008 +21.3% | from Jun 2014 +26.3% |
Source: Author computation from Federal Reserve H.10 daily rates via FRED, monthly means · checked 2026-08-12
The Australian row changes sign. Measured from the order that sets the figures, the Australian is fractionally better off; measured from the order that repeats them six years later, thirty per cent worse. Both are true statements about an unchanged rule, and a page that quotes only one of them is selecting a number rather than reporting one. The figures used everywhere else here are the 2008 column, because that is the month the order carries, not the month that produces the largest headline. Anyone who prefers the earlier anchor gets a worse answer for four currencies out of five, not a better one.
The spread is the product
Across the 213 months from November 2008 to July 2026, the cheapest and dearest month to satisfy the same requirement, for the same applicant, differ by more than any single year’s figures suggest. In sterling: £1,156 in August 2009, £1,739 in August 2019. A fifty per cent range. For an Australian: A$1,974 in February 2012 against A$3,260 in March 2020, a spread of sixty-five per cent, the top of it landing in the month global markets seized. In Canadian dollars the dearest month of the entire period was January 2026, seven months before this was written.
Put the sterling extremes in money rather than percentages. The gap between the best and worst month is £583 a month of provable income, which is £6,996 across the twelve months an income-route applicant has to evidence. That is not a rounding difference in a retirement budget. It is roughly the whole of a modest occupational pension, and which side of it a given applicant lands on is decided by nothing he did.
A retiree does not experience a seventeen-year percentage. They experience the month they file in, once a year, every year, for as long as they intend to stay. That is what an annual solvency test means when the test is denominated in someone else’s money. Nobody is ever billed the average.
Two routes, opposite sides of one trade
Clause 2.22 offers a choice, and the choice is usually explained as capital versus income. It is more precise than that, and nobody selling the visa says it out loud.
The income route obliges a recurring purchase of baht. Sixty-five thousand of them, every month, for life. If the baht strengthens, that costs more of whatever the pension is paid in. The applicant is short baht, permanently, in a position they did not open deliberately and cannot close without leaving the country.
The deposit route converts home currency into baht once and holds it. If the baht strengthens, the locked capital is worth more on withdrawal. The applicant is long baht.
The two routes are therefore mirror images with respect to the same exchange rate, and the mirror is exact: every percentage point that raises the cost of the income test raises the recoverable value of the deposit by the same percentage. Run the deposit as a round trip and the symmetry shows up as money. Placed at the November 2008 monthly mean and withdrawn at the July 2026 one, before any interest either side and before inflation, 800,000 baht cost £14,899 and returned £17,847, a nominal gain of £2,948. In euros, €2,994. In Canadian dollars, C$5,919. For the Australian, A$34,647 in and A$34,264 out: a seventeen-year hold that came back A$383 short in nominal terms, and nominal is flattering, because the figure says nothing about what those dollars would have bought at either end.
That comparison is deliberately incomplete, and the missing piece is the interest. The 800,000 is recoverable capital, so its real cost is forgone return plus the currency round trip. No citable primary series for Thai retail deposit rates was obtainable during research, so the interest leg is named as excluded rather than estimated. It moves the deposit result in a known direction and an unknown amount.
Manila repriced in the open
Across the South China Sea the same solvency test is run on the opposite convention. The Philippine Retirement Authority’s Expanded SRRV Program sets the Classic deposit at US$15,000 for a pensioner aged fifty or over and US$30,000 for a non-pensioner, with US$25,000 and US$50,000 for applicants aged forty to forty-nine, plus a pension floor of US$800 a month for a single applicant. Those amounts took effect on 1 September 2025 as an announced, dated restructure (what the rewrite changed is documented elsewhere on this site).
| Threshold | Set in | Last restated | Who carries the currency risk | What a non-US, non-Thai applicant sees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thailand — 65,000 THB/mo or 800,000 THB | Set in Thai baht | Last restated 25 Nov 2008 | Who carries the currency risk The applicant, entirely. A baht that strengthens raises the bar for everyone who is not paid in baht, without any decision being taken by anyone. | What a non-US, non-Thai applicant sees A number that appears fixed and is not, repriced silently between one annual filing and the next. |
| Philippines — US$15,000 + US$800/mo (SRRV Classic, 50+) | Set in US dollars | Last restated 1 Sep 2025 | Who carries the currency risk The applicant, unless the pension is paid in dollars. The dollar peg is a peg to a currency four of these five passports do not earn. | What a non-US, non-Thai applicant sees A number that visibly changes when the regulator changes it, and quietly the rest of the time. |
The Philippine deposit is refundable capital; the Thai 800,000 is too. Neither is a fee. Both are positions.
Source: PRA Expanded SRRV Program; ACCRALAW, 22 Oct 2025; Orders 777/2551 and 327/2557 cl. 2.22 and the criteria annexed to Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 cl. 2.22 · checked 2026-08-12
Denominating a threshold in dollars looks like the safer design, and for one passport it is. At the July 2026 monthly means, the US$15,000 deposit was £11,208, €13,132, A$21,518 and C$21,157; the US$800 pension floor was £598, €700, A$1,148 and C$1,128. Only the American pays a fixed number. Over the same November 2008 to July 2026 window, a constant US$15,000 moved 14.5 per cent in sterling, 16.0 per cent in Canadian dollars and 11.6 per cent in euros — less than the baht threshold moved, and a long way from still.
Thailand runs a dollar-denominated route of its own, the long-term-resident track, whose income bar is set in US dollars and pitched far above this one. So the design choice was available and was not taken for the retirement extension. Choosing the denomination does not remove the exposure. It decides which applicants get handed it, and clause 2.22 hands it to everyone.
Two frozen numbers meet in one pensioner
One cohort has both halves of this frozen at once: anyone drawing the UK State Pension in Thailand. The DWP’s published list of countries where the annual increase is paid covers the EEA and Switzerland plus seventeen further countries and territories, among them Gibraltar, the United States and the Philippines. Thailand is not among them.
So put the two frozen numbers on the same axis. In April 2016, when the full new State Pension started at £155.65 a week, the 65,000-baht test cost £1,295 a month — 1.92 pensions. Ten years later the pension is £241.30 a week for anyone who kept the uprating, and the test costs £1,450.
Source: Author computation: 65,000 THB at Apr-2016 and Jul-2026 monthly means (FRED/H.10) against the full new State Pension, House of Commons Library CBP-7812 / CBP-10403 · checked 2026-08-12
Expressed the other way round: the full new State Pension covered 52 per cent of the Thai monthly test in 2016. By July 2026 it covered 72 per cent if it had been uprated, and 47 per cent if it had not. The triple lock outran sterling’s slide against the baht comfortably. The freeze removed that protection precisely from the people standing in front of the Thai counter, and it did so in the one country in the region where the visa test is denominated in the local currency rather than in dollars.
None of this is unique to a state pension. Any income that does not index — an occupational pension paid at a flat rate, an annuity bought level, a drawdown fixed in nominal terms — meets the same bar on the same terms. The state-pension case is simply the one where the freeze is written down and the arithmetic can be checked by anyone.
Where the written order stops
Three limits, stated rather than buried.
The orders bind what is required, not what is asked for. Individual immigration offices have diverged from the written criteria on documentation for years, and the evidentiary requirements around proving monthly income have tightened since 2008 even though the figures have not. No published measurement of office-level divergence exists, so it is acknowledged here and not quantified. The same monthly remittances that satisfy one arm of the Thai state can be assessable by another, since a stay long enough to need the extension is by definition long enough to cross the 180-day tax-residence line.
Every rate above is a reference rate. No retail transfer spread, no bank fee, no bad week inside a good month. A pensioner remitting through a high-street bank pays more than any figure printed here, which makes all of them floors.
And the deposit round trip is FX only. The interest forgone on 800,000 baht of locked capital is real, is not zero, and is not in the numbers, because no primary source for it could be verified in time.
What a fixed number actually fixes
An unchanged threshold reads as the one variable a retiree has been spared, which is the wrong way round. A nominal figure held constant by a state holds nothing constant for the person who has to satisfy it. It transfers the whole of the variance onto him and then stops mentioning it, and the regulator’s number stays stable for the ordinary reason that the regulator is paid in it.
Thailand has never raised the bar. It has never needed to. Since 2008 the currency market has been adjusting it upward for the Canadian, upward for the Briton, upward for the European and downward for the Australian, on no schedule, with no notice, with no appeal, and every twelve months the applicant presents himself and finds out what this year’s version of an unchanged rule costs. The number on the order is a fixed point. Everything he owns is what moves around it.