Every other Thai retirement route on this site tests your age, your bank balance or pension, and for most of them your health cover. Thailand Privilege tests none of these. You pay for a membership, and the visa comes with it.
The seller is Thailand Privilege Card Co., Ltd., formerly marketed as Thailand Elite. Its about page says it was founded on 29 August 2003 “with TAT as its sole shareholder”, TAT being the Tourism Authority of Thailand, and calls itself “a state enterprise”. Everything below comes from the company’s membership pages, the signed agreements it publishes for each tier and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ e-Visa site, all read on 9 October 2026.
Five tiers, priced in baht
| Tier | Membership fee | Membership term | Privilege points a year | Family member fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | THB 650,000 | 5 years | 0 | None published |
| Gold | THB 900,000 | 5 years | 20 | None published |
| Platinum | THB 1,500,000 | 10 years | 35 | THB 1,000,000 each |
| Diamond | THB 2,500,000 | 15 years | 55 | THB 1,500,000 each |
| Reserve | THB 5,000,000 | 20 years | 120 | THB 2,000,000 each |
Every fee in each tier’s agreement is stated as “inclusive of value added tax”. Spread across the term, Bronze works out at 130,000 baht a year of membership and Platinum at 150,000. Reserve, at 250,000 a year, is the most expensive per year as well as in total.
On top of the membership there is a THB 50,000 application fee. The agreements say it is refundable if the company rejects you, “yet convertible into part of the Membership” if it approves you. Reserve is the exception: its application fee is “non-refundable” on rejection, and the tier is marked “Invitation only”.
The points are spent on the company’s own services, including having it file your 90-day report. The Gold agreement calls them “non-accumulative”, so whatever is unused at the end of a year is lost. Bronze earns none; its agreement lists unlimited airport assistance and lounge access operated by the company instead.
Reserve is the only tier whose agreement provides for renewal. The others offer upgrades to a higher tier. Reserve’s allows five more years at a time for 10% of the membership fee then in force, with a year’s notice, and the renewal carries the visa without the other privileges.
The membership pages also list three Non-Visa cards, sold through a separate Privilege Pass site. They carry no visa at all, so check for the word “Visa” on whichever tier you are offered. Packages sold before October 2023, with names such as Elite Ultimate Privilege, are marked “Discontinued” for new buyers.
One year per entry
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ e-Visa site lists the Privilege Entry Visa (PE) for members as multiple entry with a validity of 5 years. The Bronze agreement describes it as a five-year multiple entry visa “with extendable 1-year length of stay per each entry”.
The operator’s FAQ says the PE “gold sticker allows 1 year per entry”, and tells members to check the stamp every time they land, because a wrong stamp left uncorrected can become an overstay. Its living-in-Thailand page adds that PE holders “will be granted a 1-year extension with each application”.
If you stay in Thailand without leaving, you go once a year, in person, to the immigration office where you live for a one-year extension. The operator gives the fee as THB 1,900 (set by the Immigration Bureau and subject to change), payable in cash, and says you can apply up to 30 days before your permission runs out.
For the tiers longer than five years, Platinum, Diamond and Reserve, the agreements call it a “renewable 5-year multiple entry visa”. A fifteen-year Diamond membership therefore spans more than one visa.
What the agreement asks of you
Each tier’s agreement lists the same qualifications, which you must “have and maintain” for the whole membership:
- no prison sentence in any country, except for an offence of negligence
- not adjudicated bankrupt
- not declared of unsound mind or incompetent
- allowed to stay in Thailand under its immigration laws
- a foreign passport
- “All ages are eligible.”
Applicants under 20 sign through a legal guardian.
The signed declaration that comes with the application adds conditions the agreement leaves out. You must not have “more than one overstays record in Thailand in the past three years”, be on a watch list or under an arrest warrant, have been deported, or be involved in money laundering or financial crime. You consent to a background check against records held by the Royal Thai Police, the Immigration Bureau and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A single-nationality applicant needs no income test and no proof of funds. If you hold more than one passport, you must declare every one, and the declaration form then asks for “Documents verifying income and the source of funds used for the membership application”, plus proof of where you have lived for the past six months.
None of the five agreements mentions health insurance. The operator’s FAQ, asked about insurance, gives contact numbers for insurers rather than a requirement. Of the four Thai routes compared below, it is the only one with no cover requirement, so cover is your own decision. What retirement-visa health insurance has to cover across the region is worth reading before you decide.
Family members pay their own fee
Only Platinum, Diamond and Reserve publish terms for a family member, called a Next Member. Each Next Member pays the fee in the table above, shares the core member’s membership term and gets the same visa. Bronze and Gold come with a single-member agreement only.
A Next Member must be an Immediate Family Member, which the agreements define as “a biological parent, step-parent, married spouse, civil union partner” (with a certificate issued by the relevant authority), or a child or legally adopted child. A parent can join. An unmarried partner without a civil union certificate cannot.
A couple on Platinum pays THB 2,500,000 for ten years. If the core member dies, a surviving Next Member takes over as core member and the membership continues to the end of its term.
The fee does not come back
On Bronze, Gold, Platinum and Diamond the membership is not transferable, even within the family. Reserve alone allows one transfer to an immediate family member, with six months’ notice before the term ends.
The refund terms set your risk. If you stop meeting any of the qualifications, or the company finds that what you told it was untrue, the membership ends and “the Membership Fee shall also be forfeited”. If the member dies, there is “no refund of the Membership Fee” to the estate. The one case that returns money is a government order that stops the company operating as usual. Then it refunds “the remaining Membership Fee”, less any charges owed. The passport declaration in the application pack calls the fee “non-refundable under any circumstances”.
A five-year Bronze membership bought at 70 is THB 650,000 paid up front for a stay of up to five years, with nothing returned if plans change in year two. A conviction or bankruptcy in year three costs you the rest of the membership as well as the visa.
Applying and getting the visa affixed
The membership pages set out the sequence: submit the documents, “receive approval within 2 months”, pay, and the membership is “activated within 1 week”, after which the visa can be obtained. Payment is accepted by overseas or local bank transfer, Visa, MasterCard, Alipay, UnionPay or Thai QR. The documents are a colour copy of a passport with at least a year left on it, a photograph and the application form. The declaration form asks for at least three blank pages.
You can apply online with the company directly or “through authorized agents available worldwide, including in Thailand”. An agent is optional. The operator publishes its own list of authorised sales agents, so check anyone offering to sell you a membership against it before you pay.
Once you are approved, the visa is affixed in your passport at one of three places the FAQ names:
- on arrival at Suvarnabhumi, Phuket or Chiang Mai airport on a direct international flight
- at Chaeng Wattana Immigration in Bangkok
- at a Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate
The FAQ says no one can do this for you: “it is mandatory for member to physically visit immigration”. Applying abroad goes through thaievisa.go.th, where the Ministry asks for the company’s Certification Letter, valid “only 90 days from the date of issue”. The e-Visa can be applied for only from outside Thailand.
Two more details from the FAQ. You need a Thai mobile number for affixing, extensions and 90-day reports, because Chaeng Wattana enforces it. And a new passport means the visa must be affixed again.
Reporting and work
Membership does not remove the reporting duties every foreign resident has. The application’s declaration makes you acknowledge your “duty to conduct a 90-day report”, a separate “duty to present myself to the Immigration Bureau when I stay 365 days consecutively”, and your landlord’s TM30 residence notice, covered in the TM30 accommodation report. The operator’s page puts the fine for a missed 90-day report at THB 2,000.
Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Reserve members can have the company file 90-day reports by redeeming points, through its Bangkok head office and representative offices in Chonburi, Chiang Mai and Phuket. Bronze is not on that list.
On work, the FAQ answers “No”: the visa is “categorized under long term Tourist visa”, which “does not allow the holder to legally apply for a work permit”. If you want to work, the operator advises a separate Non-B visa applied for outside Thailand, with your membership running alongside it.
Against the O-A, O-X and LTR
The other columns come from this site’s pages on Thailand’s retirement visas and the LTR’s Wealthy Pensioner category.
| Thailand Privilege | O-A (long stay) | O-X (long stay) | LTR Wealthy Pensioner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run by | TAT-owned company | Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Board of Investment |
| Minimum age | None | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Nationality limit | None stated | None stated | 18 countries only | None stated |
| Money test | None; you pay the fee | 800,000 baht deposit, or 65,000 baht a month pension | 3 million baht in Thailand, or 1.8 million plus 1.2 million a year income | US$80,000 a year passive income |
| Health insurance | None in the terms | THB 3,000,000 per policy year | THB 3,000,000 per policy year | US$50,000, or an alternative |
| Stay | 1 year per entry, extended yearly | 1 year | 5 years, twice | 5 years, extendable by 5 |
| Work | No work permit | Prohibited | Prohibited | Work permit available, 3,000 baht a year |
| Price | THB 650,000 to 5,000,000 membership | US$200 at the Los Angeles consulate | Not on that page | 50,000 baht per 10 years, in Thailand |
Thailand Privilege asks for the fee and no balance or pension, and it is the only route here open to someone under 50.
None of its terms mention tax, so do not assume the LTR’s exemption on foreign income brought in comes with it. Thailand’s tax on the pension you bring in gives the general rule.