Le visa LTR pour la Thaïlande : qui est éligible en 2026 et quel est son impact sur vos impôts

Révisé par ThaiLawOnline, un cabinet d'avocats thaïlandais agréé exerçant en Thaïlande depuis 2006. Avocate thaïlandaise en charge du dossier : Wichuda Atthamethakon, LL.M., licence du barreau thaïlandais 3149/2556.

Dernière mise à jour : 5 septembre 2026

Le Long-Term Resident visa gives ten years of stay, annual reporting instead of the rapport de 90 jours, and for some holders a tax position no other Thai visa offers. The criteria changed in February 2025 and most published guides still quote the old ones.

Last reviewed: 22 August 2026, against BOI Announcement No. Por. 3/2568, BOI Announcement No. Por. 4/2568 and Royal Decree No. 743, all read from the BOI’s own published texts.

What changed, and why it matters to you

The LTR launched in September 2022. On 13 January 2025 the Cabinet approved a relaxation of the programme, and on 4 February 2025 the Board of Investment gave effect to it in Announcement No. Por. 3/2568, which repealed the two announcements that had governed the visa until then (Por. 2/2565 of 30 June 2022 and Por. 6/2566 of 16 March 2023). A companion announcement, Por. 4/2568, replaced the application procedure.

One change matters more than the rest:

The Wealthy Global Citizen category no longer has an income requirement. The old rule asked for USD 80,000 of annual personal income over the two preceding years. Item 3.1 of Por. 3/2568 does not ask for income at all. What it asks for is investment and assets. A great deal of English-language material still lists the income test, and applicants who would qualify today are being told they do not.

The other changes made by the same package: the cap on dependants was removed, the work-experience requirement was dropped for the Work-from-Thailand and Highly Skilled tracks, and the criteria were restated in full rather than amended piecemeal.

The four categories, and the fifth thing that is not a category

Il y a four LTR categories. Dependants are not a fifth: they hold a visa linked to a principal holder’s, under item 3.5, and they qualify through that person rather than on their own criteria.

Catégorie	Money test	Other gates	Insurance or funds
Wealthy Global Citizen item 3.1	No income test. USD 500,000 invested in Thailand in the applicant’s own name, plus total assets of USD 1 million	The investment must be Thai government bonds with at least five years left to run, direct investment in a Thai limited or public company, a registered venture capital or private equity trust, or property. It must be held before the application date	Health cover of USD 50,000 with at least ten months left to run, or Thai social security, or USD 100,000 on deposit held at least twelve months
Wealthy Pensioner item 3.2	Pension or fixed income of USD 80,000 a year; or USD 40,000 to USD 80,000 a year plus USD 250,000 invested in Thailand	Must be 50 or over and retired at the time of application. The investment options are the same three as above	Identique à ci-dessus
Work-from-Thailand Professional item 3.3	Average personal income of USD 80,000 a year over the two preceding years; or USD 40,000 with a Master’s degree, owned intellectual property, or Series A funding of at least USD 1 million	The employer is the real gate. It must be a company listed on any stock exchange, or a private company trading at least three years with combined revenue of at least USD 50 million over those three years, or a wholly owned subsidiary of either	Identique à ci-dessus
Highly Skilled Professional item 3.4	Average personal income of USD 80,000 a year over two years; or USD 40,000 with a Master’s or higher in science and technology, or expertise in the field of work. Retired science and technology professionals may use their pre-retirement income	Work must be in one of fifteen targeted industries, and the BOI certifies that. Employment with a public university, public research agency or other public body waives the income test entirely	Identique à ci-dessus
Dependants item 3.5, not a category	None of their own	Lawful spouse, parents, children under 20, or legal dependants of the principal holder	Health cover as above, or an extra USD 25,000 on deposit per dependant, held at least twelve months

The fifteen targeted industries, for Highly Skilled Professionals

Item 3.4.1 lists them: automotive; electronics; affluent tourism; agriculture, food and biotechnology; transport and logistics; automation and robotics; aviation, aerospace and space; biofuels and biochemicals; petrochemicals and chemicals; digital; medical; national defence; direct and significant supporting industries for the circular economy; International Business Centres; and a fifteenth catch-all for applicants with special expertise in areas including research and development in targeted technologies, vocational or higher-education teaching, applied artificial intelligence and robotics, digital systems development, financial or marketing analysis and advisory, environmental and energy management, incubator and accelerator management, alternative dispute resolution, and trade and investment promotion through foreign chambers of commerce.

If your work does not sit in that list, the Highly Skilled route is closed to you however much you earn. That is the question to settle first.

The tax position, which is the real reason to hold this visa

The LTR’s tax treatment comes from Royal Decree No. 743 B.E. 2565, issued under the Revenue Code on the reduction of rates and exemption of taxes. It was given on 21 May 2022 and published in the Government Gazette on 23 May 2022, volume 139 part 32 Kor, page 29; by its section 2 it came into force the day after publication. Two separate benefits sit in it, and they go to different categories.

The 17 percent cap, and it is a cap

Section 3 reduces withholding tax to 17 percent on employment income received by a foreigner categorised as a Highly Skilled Professional holding an LTR visa, where the employer carries on a targeted industry under the national competitiveness enhancement law, the investment promotion law or the eastern special development zone law.

Three points that general summaries leave out:

• It applies to the Highly Skilled Professional category only. The other three categories do not get it.
• It is a ceiling, not a flat rate. Section 3 says that where the normal computation would withhold at less than 17 percent, the income is exempted from the ordinary computation instead. Nobody is pushed up to 17 percent.
• Section 4 makes the exclusion conditional. You leave the income out of your return only if you do not claim a refund or credit for the tax withheld, in whole or in part, and you must still file a return reporting the excluded income.

The exemption on foreign income brought into Thailand

This is the provision that matters most in 2026, and it is the one almost nobody connects to the remittance debate.

Section 5 exempts from personal income tax a foreigner categorised as a Wealthy Global Citizen, Wealthy Pensioner or Work-from-Thailand Professional who holds an LTR visa, on assessable income under section 40 of the Revenue Code derived in the previous tax year from employment, from a business carried on abroad, or from property situated abroad, and brought into Thailand.

Set that against the ordinary position. Since Por. 161/2566 the Revenue Department taxes foreign income remitted by a Thai résident fiscal who was resident in the year the income arose, which our page on Thailand’s foreign income remittance tax works through. For three of the four LTR categories, a Royal Decree says that charge does not apply to them. For a retiree remitting a pension, or an investor living on foreign income, that is the difference the visa buys.

Two cautions. Section 6 makes every benefit conditional on meeting the rules the Directeur-General of the Revenue Department prescribes, and section 7 suspends the benefit for any tax year in which you fall out of compliance. And a convention de double imposition is a separate question again: relief under a treaty is usually a credit for foreign tax paid rather than an exemption, so the treaty and the Royal Decree have to be read together for your own country and your own category, not assumed to point the same way.

How the application actually runs

Announcement Por. 4/2568 sets out the procedure, and it is a two-stage process that catches people out.

1. Qualification endorsement first. You apply to the BOI electronically or through another channel it specifies. This is not the visa.
2. The One Stop Service Centre routes your file. Depending on your case it goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (only for nationals of watch-listed countries or suspicious activity), the Bureau de l'immigration, the Department of Employment (only where it is unclear whether the role is a prohibited occupation), the Digital Economy Promotion Agency or NSTDA (only where a Highly Skilled applicant’s credentials do not state their expertise), and the BOI itself, which certifies whether the work is in a targeted industry. That last check applies to Highly Skilled applicants only.
3. Then you have 60 days. Once the endorsement letter is issued you must apply for the visa itself within 60 jours, at the One Stop Service Centre, a Royal Thai Embassy, a Thai Consulate abroad, or another agency the Immigration Bureau designates. Miss the window and the endorsement is wasted.

Dependants may apply for endorsement at the same time as the principal applicant or afterwards.

LTR against the alternatives

	LTR	DTV	Thailand Privilege
Validité	10 years, issued as 5 plus a 5-year renewal	5 ans, entrées multiples	By membership tier
Séjour par entrée	The full permit period, with annual reporting instead of the 90-day report	180 days, extendable once	By tier
Coût	Government fees, plus the investment or income you must evidence	THB 10,000 application fee	A membership fee, priced by tier
Work in Thailand	Digital work permit available to eligible categories	Pas de permis de travail	Pas de permis de travail
Tax treatment	17 percent cap for Highly Skilled Professionals; exemption on remitted foreign income for the other three categories under Royal Decree 743	No special treatment. Ordinary residence and remittance rules apply	No special treatment
Main gate	Investment, assets, income or targeted-industry employment, depending on category	THB 500,000 in savings, and you must apply from outside Thailand	Ability to pay the membership fee

The honest summary: the DTV is cheap, quick and gives you no permis de travail and no tax advantage, and our DTV guide sets out its own traps. Thailand Privilege buys convenience, and our Privilege visa page covers it. The LTR is the only one of the three that changes your tax position, and it is the only one with a qualification test you can fail.

Foire aux questions

Find out which category you actually fit

Serving foreigners in Thailand since 2006, ThaiLawOnline.com advises on LTR eligibility, prepares qualification endorsement applications, and tells clients plainly when a different visa is the better answer. The category you qualify under decides your tax position, so it is worth settling before you file.

Planifiez une consultation, or read our guides to the DTV, le Visa de privilège pour la Thaïlande ET foreign income remittance tax.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. It states the position as read on 22 August 2026 from BOI Announcements Por. 3/2568 and Por. 4/2568 and Royal Decree No. 743. How the rules apply turns on your category, your country’s treaty and your documents.