# Asia Visa Guide > Verified, dated requirements for long-stay and remote-work visas in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines — including the rules that changed recently and the advice that is now wrong. Every figure below carries the date it was last checked against a source. Where this file disagrees with older material, this file is newer. Generated 16 September 2026. ## Visas tracked - [Destination Thailand Visa (DTV)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/dtv) — The DTV is a five-year multiple-entry Thai visa allowing 180 days per entry, aimed at remote workers and at people enrolled in approved Thai cultural activities. It requires 500,000 THB in liquid savings and, since 31 August 2026, a criminal record certificate. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [Non-Immigrant O-A (Long Stay) (Thai retirement visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/retirement-o-a) — Thailand's O-A retirement visa is open from age 50 and carries the strictest insurance rule in Southeast Asia: health cover of at least USD 100,000 (3,000,000 THB), from a Thai insurer on the TGIA long-stay list or a foreign insurer able to issue the official certificate. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [Long-Term Resident Visa (LTR)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/ltr) — Thailand's LTR is a ten-year residence track for high earners, pensioners and skilled professionals. Its health insurance floor is USD 50,000, materially lower than the retirement visa's, and a USD 100,000 deposit can be substituted for cover entirely. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [DE Rantau Nomad Pass (Malaysia digital nomad visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/malaysia/de-rantau) — Malaysia's DE Rantau Nomad Pass grants 12 months, renewable to 24, to remote workers earning at least USD 24,000 a year in tech and digital roles, or USD 60,000 in other remote professions. The insurance policy must name Malaysia explicitly. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [E33G Remote Worker KITAS (Bali digital nomad visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/indonesia/e33g) — Indonesia's E33G is a one-year renewable remote work permit requiring USD 60,000 in annual foreign income. Its distinguishing feature is fiscal: foreign income is exempt from Indonesian tax for four years from first residency. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [Vietnam E-visa (90 days, multiple entry) (Vietnam 90-day e-visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/vietnam/e-visa-90-day) — Vietnam has no digital nomad visa. The 90-day multiple-entry e-visa, open to citizens of every country at USD 25 and issued in about three working days, is what remote workers in Vietnam actually use. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [Special Resident Retiree's Visa (SRRV)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/philippines/srrv) — The Philippines restructured the SRRV in September 2025, dropping the minimum age from 50 to 40 and reducing the programme to two categories. Deposits run from USD 15,000 to USD 50,000 depending on age and pension status, and the visa permits indefinite residence. Last verified 10 September 2026. - [Non-Immigrant Visa Category "ED" (Education) (ED visa / Thai language school visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/non-immigrant-ed) — The Thai Non-Immigrant ED visa is what you now use to study Thai at a language school, because the DTV soft-power category has never covered general language instruction. The visa itself is small: a single-entry sticker valid 90 days from issue, giving a 90-day permit to stay on arrival, costing 70 Euro at the Royal Thai Embassy in Vienna (fees are set per mission — the Kuala Lumpur checklist charges RM 320). The year people talk about is built inside Thailand from extensions at 1,900 baht each, and language students are commonly granted 60 days at a time rather than twelve months. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Non-Immigrant Visa Category "O" (spouse of a Thai national), with one-year extension of stay under clause 2.18 of Immigration Bureau Order 327/2557 (Thai marriage visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/non-o-marriage) — The "marriage visa" is really two things: a 90-day single-entry Non-Immigrant O issued by a Thai embassy, then a one-year extension of stay granted inside Thailand by the Immigration Bureau. The money test for the extension is set by clause 2.18(6) of Order 327/2557: an average income of no less than THB 40,000 per month, or no less than THB 400,000 sitting in a Thai bank account for the two months before you apply. The extension application costs THB 1,900, is granted for no more than one year at a time, and can be renewed indefinitely while the marriage is genuine "de jure and de facto". Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Non-Immigrant Visa Category "B" (Business and Work) (Non-B visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/thailand/non-immigrant-b) — The Thailand Non-Immigrant B is the visa you enter on to take a salaried job or run a business, and it costs 2,000 Baht for a single entry valid three months or 5,000 Baht for a one-year multiple-entry; a three-year version costs 10,000 Baht. It is not a residence permit and not work authorisation: each entry gives you a maximum of 90 days, and you must be granted a work permit before you start work. The company sponsoring you carries the real burden — to get your stay extended to a year, Immigration requires the employer to hold paid-up registered capital of no less than 2 million Baht and a ratio of one foreign employee per four permanent Thai employees, and you must earn at least the figure set for your nationality (50,000 Baht a month for nationals of European countries, Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States). Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Temporary Residence Card (Thẻ tạm trú) (TRC)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/vietnam/temporary-residence-card) — Vietnam's Temporary Residence Card is not a visa you apply for from abroad — it is an upgrade granted after you are already in Vietnam on a qualifying visa, and only a sponsoring company, investment or family member can file it for you. Validity is capped by the card's symbol: ĐT1 investor cards run up to 10 years, NG3/LV1/LV2/LS/ĐT2/DH up to 5 years, NN1/NN2/ĐT3/TT up to 3 years, and the LĐ1/LĐ2 employment cards most foreign workers actually hold up to 2 years, always at least 30 days shorter than your passport. The state fee is USD 145 per card up to 2 years, USD 155 for over 2 to 5 years and USD 165 for over 5 to 10 years, with a 5-working-day statutory decision window. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) (MM2H)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/malaysia/mm2h) — MM2H now runs as four categories with fixed deposits set in US dollars: Silver USD 150,000 (5-year pass), Gold USD 500,000 (15 years), Platinum USD 1,000,000 (20 years), and a Forest City-only SEZ/SFZ tier at USD 65,000 for ages 21-49 or USD 32,000 for ages 50 and over (10 years). Every mainland tier now forces a property purchase you cannot sell for 10 years — RM600,000 minimum on Silver, RM1,000,000 on Gold, RM2,000,000 on Platinum — on top of a one-off participating fee of RM1,000 (Silver), RM3,000 (Gold) or RM200,000 (Platinum) and a processing fee of RM5,000 for the principal plus RM2,500 per dependant. Minimum age is 25 for Silver, Gold and Platinum; participants under 50 must be in Malaysia 90 cumulative days a year, while those 50 and over have no minimum stay. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Sarawak-Malaysia My Second Home (S-MM2H) Social Visit Pass (Sarawak MM2H)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/malaysia/sarawak-mm2h) — Sarawak-Malaysia My Second Home (S-MM2H) is the Sarawak state government's own long-stay pass, run by the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts (MTCP) in Kuching rather than by federal MOTAC, and valid for residence in Sarawak only. Since 1 January 2025 it requires a RM500,000 fixed deposit at a Sarawak panel bank in the main applicant's name plus proof of RM10,000 a month in pension or offshore income (RM15,000 with a dependent), or RM100,000/RM200,000 in savings if you have neither, with a one-time non-refundable RM5,000 processing fee, a minimum age of 30, and Malaysian-valid medical insurance. The pass runs 5 + 5 years, obliges you to spend at least 30 days a year in Sarawak, and requires RM250,000 to stay in the fixed deposit for as long as you hold it. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Visa Kunjungan Wisata Index C1 (Tourist Visit Visa, single entry) (C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A"))](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/indonesia/c1-tourist-visit-visa) — Indonesia's index C1 tourist visit visa is the code that replaced the old B211A: it costs Rp 1.000.000 in government fees, allows one entry, and gives a stay of maximum 60 days counted from arrival, extendable inside Indonesia up to a maximum of 180 days. Immigration requires a three-month personal bank statement showing at least USD 2,000, the visa must be used within 90 days of issue, and processing is quoted as five working days after the visa payment is received. Since Circular IMI-417.GR.01.01 took effect on 29 May 2025, every stay-permit extension requires the foreigner to appear at an immigration office in person for a photo and interview, so the fully-online extension agents used to sell no longer exists. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Section 13(a) Non-Quota Immigrant Visa by Marriage (13A visa / Philippines marriage visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/philippines/13a-marriage-visa) — The Philippines 13(a) is the residence visa for the foreign spouse of a Filipino citizen, granted first as a one-year probationary status and only then amended to permanent. The Bureau of Immigration lists Php 8,620.00 for the principal applicant plus US $50 for the ACR I-Card at the probationary stage, and the same Php 8,620.00 plus US $50 on its Permanent Resident Visa page for the amendment to permanent. BI's own 2025 Citizen's Charter budgets 15 days, 1 hour and 40 minutes for the probationary conversion, with Board of Commissioners approval taking a maximum of 14 working days. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Pre-arranged Employment Visa under Section 9(g) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940, as amended (9G work visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/philippines/9g-pre-arranged-employment) — The 9(G) is the Philippines' employer-sponsored work visa, granted to foreign nationals "proceeding to Philippines to engage in any lawful occupation, whether for wages or salary or other forms of compensation." It runs for a maximum of three years or co-terminus with the DOLE Alien Employment Permit, whichever is shorter, and the AEP itself defaults to one year, so most people hold a one-year visa in practice. The Bureau of Immigration's published conversion fee for a principal at a non-Top 1,000 corporation is Php 10,130.00 for one year, Php 17,170.00 for two and Php 24,210.00 for three, plus US$50 to US$150 for the ACR I-Card, on top of the separate DOLE AEP fee the employer pays first. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Ordinary (Class E) Visa with EB / EG Extension of Stay (Cambodia business visa / EB visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/cambodia/e-class-eb-eg-extension) — Cambodia's ordinary Class-E visa costs $35 from an embassy or as an e-Visa, gives a single entry and 30 days on arrival, and is the gateway to the only genuinely open-ended long-stay route in Southeast Asia: once inside, you convert it to an extension of stay (EOS) of one, three, six or twelve months, repeatable indefinitely. The twelve-month EB (business) extension is the one almost every foreign resident uses — employees, business owners, freelancers and their spouses and children — and it is multiple-entry, while one- and three-month extensions are single-entry only. Expect roughly $285–$300 through an agent against a quoted official Immigration Department fee of about $180 for the 12-month multiple-entry extension; the EB does not by itself let you work legally, and since 2024 immigration checks for a work permit before granting 6- and 12-month EB renewals. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Employment Gold Card (Foreign Special Professional) (Taiwan Gold Card)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/taiwan/employment-gold-card) — The Taiwan Employment Gold Card bundles a resident visa, open work permit, ARC and re-entry permit into one card valid for 1, 2 or 3 years, with no employer sponsorship and no job offer needed. The best-known route is salary: several fields accept applicants who have held a position with "a most recent monthly salary of at least NT$160,000" — a figure fixed in NT dollars, so the US-dollar equivalent quoted in guides drifts with the exchange rate. Government fees run NT$3,700 / NT$4,700 / NT$5,700 for one, two and three years on a non-US foreign passport, and holders who then earn over NT$3,000,000 in salary and stay 183 days get half the excess above NT$3,000,000 excluded from income tax for five years. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Designated Activities (Public Notice No. 53) — Digital Nomad (Japan Digital Nomad Visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/japan/digital-nomad-designated-activities-53) — Japan's digital nomad route grants "Designated Activities (6 months)" under Public Notice No. 53 and cannot be extended — the Immigration Services Agency Q&A states the stay is "最長６か月間であり、在留期間の更新は認められません", after which you must spend six months outside Japan before applying again. You need personal annual income of at least 10,000,000 yen at the time of application and private medical insurance whose treatment-cost cover for injury and illness is at least 10,000,000 yen, plus cover for death. Only nationals of the 51 countries and regions on the ISA's Notice 53 list (visa-exempt and with a tax treaty with Japan) qualify, and since 1 July 2026 the single-entry visa fee is 15,000 yen rather than the long-quoted 3,000 yen. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [F-1-D Workation Visa (Korea digital nomad visa)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/south-korea/f-1-d-workation) — South Korea's F-1-D "Workation" visa stopped being a pilot on 30 June 2026 and now allows up to 3 years of residence instead of 2, granted 1 year at a time from the date of entry. The income test is no longer a flat double-GNI bar: the Ministry of Justice applies 1x to 2x of per-capita GNI (about KRW 52.41 million for 2025) depending on your age and where in Korea you live, so 18-34 year olds settling outside the Seoul capital region or in a population-decline area qualify at roughly KRW 52.41 million a year while the top tier is about KRW 104.82 million. Everyone must hold private medical insurance covering at least KRW 100 million for hospital treatment and repatriation to their home country, and working for a Korean employer while on F-1-D is prohibited. Last verified 11 September 2026. - [Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass (ONE Pass)](https://asiavisaguide.com/visa/singapore/one-pass) — The Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass is Singapore's top-tier work pass: it requires a fixed monthly salary of at least S$30,000 from one employer for the 12 consecutive months before you apply, or a prospective role at that salary with an established Singapore company, and it runs up to 5 years and is renewable for 5 years each time. Fees are S$105 to apply and S$225 on issuance, with most cases decided within 4 weeks. The ordinary Employment Pass alternative is far cheaper on salary - S$5,600 a month for general sectors and S$6,200 for financial services through 2026, rising to S$6,000 and S$6,600 for new applications from 1 January 2027 - but it is employer-tied and requires 40 points under COMPASS unless the candidate earns at least S$22,500 a month. Last verified 11 September 2026. ## Corrections to commonly-stated facts - **DTV** — Commonly stated: "You can apply for the DTV while you're already in Thailand on a tourist stamp." Actually: The Thai e-Visa system now flags IP and GPS location, and 2026 applicants increasingly face a Location Verification step requiring a utility bill or driver's licence matching the country of the embassy they applied to. Applying from inside Thailand is a rejection. (changed 1 January 2026) - **DTV** — Commonly stated: "The DTV requires no documents beyond a bank statement." Actually: Effective 31 August 2026, all DTV applicants must submit a certificate of criminal record clearance issued by the relevant authority in their home country, plus proof of permanent residence. This is a recent addition and most guides written before mid-2026 omit it. (changed 31 August 2026) - **DTV** — Commonly stated: "Enrolling in a Thai language course qualifies you under the Soft Power category." Actually: Sources disagree as of September 2026. Several report that Thai language schools were removed from the eligible Soft Power list, pushing language students to the Non-Immigrant ED visa; others still list language study as qualifying. Treat language study as unreliable grounds and confirm with your specific embassy before paying course fees. [sources disagree] - **DTV** — Commonly stated: "You must hold the 500,000 THB in a Thai bank account, in baht." Actually: Foreign currency in a personal account in your home country is accepted, valued at the equivalent on the date of the statement. You do not need a Thai bank account to apply. - **Thai retirement visa** — Commonly stated: "Thai retirement visa insurance is 400,000 THB inpatient and 40,000 THB outpatient." Actually: That figure is obsolete for the O-A and has been since 2021. The current requirement is at least USD 100,000 / 3,000,000 THB of cover including all medical benefits. The old numbers still circulate widely in guides and in AI-generated answers, and a policy bought to meet them will be rejected at the counter. (changed 1 October 2021) - **Thai retirement visa** — Commonly stated: "Every Thai retirement visa requires health insurance, so if you can't get covered you can't retire in Thailand." Actually: Insurance is mandatory on two of the three retirement routes, not all of them. The O-A and O-X require qualifying cover. The Non-Immigrant O, applied for and extended annually inside Thailand, carries no legal insurance requirement at all. This is the single most useful distinction for anyone who is uninsurable on age or pre-existing conditions, and it is the reason sources appear to contradict each other on whether insurance is required. - **Thai retirement visa** — Commonly stated: "Any international health policy with a $100,000 limit satisfies the requirement." Actually: The limit is necessary but not sufficient. The insurer must be on the Thai General Insurance Association long-stay list, or must issue the Foreign Insurance Certificate in Thailand's prescribed format. Several popular nomad policies meet the number and cannot produce the certificate. - **LTR** — Commonly stated: "Every Thai long-stay visa demands USD 100,000 of health cover." Actually: The LTR floor is USD 50,000, not 100,000, and it can be substituted with a USD 100,000 deposit. Applicants who assume the retirement visa's rule applies here often over-insure by a wide margin. - **Malaysia digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "The DE Rantau income requirement is USD 24,000 for everyone." Actually: USD 24,000 applies to tech and digital professionals. Other remote professions face USD 60,000 — two and a half times higher. Guides routinely quote the lower figure without the qualification, which is the difference between eligible and not. - **Malaysia digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "A worldwide travel insurance policy satisfies the health cover requirement." Actually: Malaysia requires the policy to state coverage of Malaysia explicitly. A policy described as covering 'worldwide' or 'Asia' without naming Malaysia is commonly rejected, and this is a documentation problem rather than a coverage problem — the same insurer can often reissue the certificate correctly. - **Bali digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "You can pick up freelance work from Indonesian clients while on the E33G." Actually: The permit explicitly prohibits selling goods or services in Indonesia and receiving any payment from Indonesian entities. It authorises remote work performed for an overseas company only, and a single Indonesian invoice puts the permit at risk. - **Bali digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "The E33G can be converted from a tourist visa once you are in Bali." Actually: Application must be made from your home country or another country outside Indonesia, before entry. Arriving first and converting is not available on this route. - **Vietnam 90-day e-visa** — Commonly stated: "Vietnam launched a digital nomad visa." Actually: As of September 2026 it has not. Sites advertising a 'Vietnam digital nomad visa' are describing the ordinary 90-day e-visa under a name the government has never used, and some sell paid assistance for a USD 25 online form. Re-checked 11 September 2026 against a source last updated 18 February 2026. - **Vietnam 90-day e-visa** — Commonly stated: "Vietnam's ten-year Golden Visa is now available, so long stays are solved." Actually: The Golden Visa was proposed in April 2025 and is still at proposal stage, with no published mechanism for how remote workers would qualify. What did come out of those discussions is a separate five-year Talent Visa, which has officially launched. That distinction matters because the two are routinely conflated: one exists and is narrow, the other is widely written about and does not yet exist. (changed 18 February 2026) - **SRRV** — Commonly stated: "You must be 50 to qualify for the SRRV." Actually: The September 2025 restructure lowered the minimum age to 40. Applicants aged 40–49 without a pension face the highest deposit tier at USD 50,000, but they are eligible, which older guidance says they are not. (changed 1 September 2025) - **ED visa / Thai language school visa** — Commonly stated: "Thai language schools were removed from the DTV soft-power list in 2025, so there was a cut-off date." Actually: There is no published removal date, because general language study was never on the published list. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs DTV checklist describes the category as "Thai soft power related activities e.g. Muaythai, Thai culinary training and medical treatment" and has never named language courses. What changed across 2025 and into 2026 was adjudication: consulates that once accepted a Thai course letter stopped accepting it. Either way the practical answer today is the same — study Thai on a Non-Immigrant ED visa, not a DTV. [sources disagree] - **ED visa / Thai language school visa** — Commonly stated: "The ED visa is a one-year visa for language students." Actually: The sticker in your passport is single entry, valid 90 days from issue, and buys a 90-day permit to stay on arrival. Everything after that is an extension of stay bought inside Thailand at 1,900 baht a time from the Immigration Bureau. Language students are typically granted 60 days per extension, dropping to 30 days or as little as 7 days to leave if the officer is not satisfied you have been studying — so a "one-year ED visa" is really four to six separate immigration appointments and roughly 7,600 to 11,400 baht in extension fees. - **ED visa / Thai language school visa** — Commonly stated: "Once I have the ED visa I can pop over to Vietnam or Laos for a weekend like any other long-stay foreigner." Actually: The ED visa is single entry. The Royal Thai Embassy in Vienna states that if you leave without a re-entry permit "the current stay permit shall be considered void" — your extension is dead and you start over. A re-entry permit costs 1,000 baht single or 3,800 baht multiple at the Immigration Bureau and must be bought before you fly; it lasts only as long as the extension stamp it attaches to, so you also have to be back in the country before your next extension date. - **ED visa / Thai language school visa** — Commonly stated: "The school's enrolment letter is the only document that matters." Actually: Mission checklists ask for paperwork most school-written guides skip. The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur requires a "Certified criminal record in the applicant’s country of origin" plus the provider's registration and a Ministry of Education service area office approval letter; the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Chennai requires a "Payment slip for at least first semester’s tuition" and school licence documents in Thai. Fees differ too — 70 Euro in Vienna, RM 320 in Kuala Lumpur, Rs 4000 in Chennai. Read the checklist of the exact mission you are applying to. - **ED visa / Thai language school visa** — Commonly stated: "You can keep renewing an ED visa at the same language school indefinitely." Actually: Officers stop extending a student who stays at the same level; after about a year on one language course you are expected to move to a different language or programme. The extension appointment is itself a test — the officer asks simple questions in Thai and grants 60, 30 or 7 days on the strength of your answer. Reports of a large 2026 sweep against ghost enrolment circulate widely, one industry site putting it at "roughly 10,000 student visas" revoked, but that number traces to no named Immigration Bureau announcement: treat the figure as unverified while taking the enforcement direction seriously. [sources disagree] - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "Order 327/2557 was replaced years ago, so the 400,000 baht figure I read in it might be out of date." Actually: 327/2557 is still the operative text for the marriage extension. Order of the Royal Thai Police No. 161/2563, effective 30 April 2020, repealed and replaced only articles 2.11, 2.20 and 2.27 of the 327/2557 attachment. Clause 2.18, which covers family members of a Thai national and carries the 40,000/month and 400,000 baht test, was untouched and still reads exactly as written in 2014. (changed 30 April 2020) - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "The 400,000 baht has to be seasoned for two months, full stop." Actually: Two different seasoning rules apply at two different stages, and people prepare for the wrong one. The Immigration Bureau's clause 2.18(6) asks for 400,000 baht in a bank account in Thailand "for the past two months" before the extension application. But the embassies that issue the initial 90-day Non-O ask for a balance maintained for the last 3 months — Pretoria and Singapore both say 3 months, and the embassy version can be an account abroad, while Immigration's must be a Thai bank account in your own name. Some Thai Immigration offices also apply three months in practice. - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "The marriage visa is only for a foreign husband with a Thai wife — that is what the regulation says." Actually: The published English text of clause 2.18(6) is indeed written as "In the case of marriage to a Thai woman, the alien husband must earn...", and that wording has never been amended. It no longer describes who can use the route. Thailand's Marriage Equality Act came into force on 23 January 2025, and by March 2025 immigration pathways for same-sex foreign spouses of Thai nationals had been implemented. Foreign wives of Thai husbands have long been granted the same extension in practice. Do not let the gendered wording in an old PDF talk you out of applying, and do not expect the PDF to be your authority at the counter either. (changed 23 January 2025) - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "You can top up a smaller bank balance with your monthly income to reach the 400,000 baht, the way retirees combine funds." Actually: Genuinely contested. The regulation is written as a straight either/or: clause 2.18(6) says the applicant "must earn an average annual income of no less than Baht 40,000 per month or must have no less than Baht 400,000 in a bank account" — there is no combination method in the text, unlike the retirement clause where a mixed calculation is well established. Some Thai law firms nevertheless tell clients that "Bank deposit plus annual income (12x monthly income) must equal at least 400,000 THB combined", reflecting what certain offices accept. Treat the combination route as office-specific and confirm with your own Immigration office before relying on it; the safe file is 400,000 baht seasoned, or 40,000/month documented, not a blend. [sources disagree] - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "Once the one-year extension is stamped, I can fly in and out as I please." Actually: The extension is single-entry by default. "If you leave without a re-entry permit, your visa or extension is canceled" — you come back as a fresh arrival and lose the year you paid for. A re-entry permit costs 1,000 THB single or 3,800 THB multiple and must be bought before you leave. Two further things most guides skip: the extension is usually not granted on the spot, since offices commonly stamp an "under consideration" period of roughly 30 days first, and "Immigration officers may conduct an unannounced home visit to verify you live together at the registered address" during it. - **Thai marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "The 400,000 and 40,000 baht figures are the health insurance minimums for this visa." Actually: Those two numbers used to be the O-A retirement visa's inpatient/outpatient insurance minimums, which is why they get crossed with the marriage figures. For the marriage route, 400,000 baht is a bank balance and 40,000 baht is monthly income; no health insurance is required at all. The O-A, a different visa, now demands "health insurance policy with coverage of not less than 100,000 USD (or not less than 3,000,000 Baht)" alongside a balance "of not less than 800,000 Baht". - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "I should apply for a Non-B B-A, IB or IM visa — those are the codes for investment and business." Actually: Those codes no longer exist as separate application categories. On 31 August 2025 Thailand's Department of Consular Affairs collapsed 17 non-immigrant codes into seven, and B, B-A, IM, IB and EX were all merged into a single B (Business) category. Fragomen's note on the change says "this adjustment does not alter eligibility criteria or applicants' rights" — it is an administrative relabelling, so nothing about what you must prove changed, but any guide or checklist still telling you to pick "Non-B-A" on the application form is describing a dropdown option that is gone. (changed 31 August 2025) - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "A one-year Non-B visa lets me live in Thailand for a year." Actually: It does not. The 5,000 Baht one-year Non-B is a multiple-entry visa: the visa is valid for a year but the MFA states that the "Holder of this type of visa is entitled to stay in Thailand for a maximum period of 90 days" per entry. To stay past 90 days you either leave and re-enter for a fresh 90 days, or file a separate extension-of-stay application inside Thailand, which "may be granted such extension for a period of one year from the date of first entry into Thailand." The same trap applies to the 10,000 Baht three-year Non-B, which permits "stay in Thailand for a period of not exceeding 90 days during each visit." People book flights on the assumption the visa validity is the stay length and get caught at the 90-day mark. - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "My employer needs 2 million baht in capital and four Thai staff to get me the visa, so if the embassy issues it I'm fine." Actually: The capital and staffing tests are not embassy tests at all — they are Immigration Bureau tests applied later, when you ask to convert your 90 days into a year. Order 327/2557 puts them under the extension criteria: "The business must have a paid-up registered capital of no less than Baht 2 million" and "Said business must have a ratio of one alien employee per four permanent Thai employees." A thinly capitalised employer can get you a Non-B from a consulate abroad and then fail you at month three, and refusal means you "must depart from the Kingdom within seven days from the date on which the permitted period has lapsed." Ask the employer for its DBD affidavit and headcount before you accept the job, not after you land. Three structures escape this: the order exempts international trade (representative office), regional office and overseas branch office employers from the capital and financial-statement criteria and relaxes the ratio to "one alien employee per one permanent Thai employee." - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "My work permit is the blue book I collect at the Labour Department." Actually: The blue book stopped being issued in October 2025. Clark Hill's summary of the change states that "As of Oct. 13, 2025, it has replaced the previous 'Blue Book' with a fully digital platform known as the e-Work Permit System," with applications filed online and a card-format permit issued after a biometric appointment at one of the Foreign Work Permit Service Centers. The practical consequence is that the WP3 and work permit steps now run through an employer account on the Department of Employment platform, so an employer that has never registered on it will stall your start date. Existing paper permits remain usable until they expire, after which renewals must be filed digitally. (changed 13 October 2025) - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "The minimum salary for a Non-B extension is 50,000 baht a month for everyone." Actually: It is banded by nationality under Annex A of Order 327/2557. The 50,000 Baht figure applies to "Countries in Europe (except Russia) and Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States of America." Most of Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, Central America, Mexico, Russia and South Africa sit at 35,000 Baht a month, and Africa plus Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam at 25,000. The band covering South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong is genuinely contested: the widely circulated English translation of the order prints "54,000 baht/month" for that group, while most Thai law firms and practitioners quote 45,000 Baht. The translation itself carries the disclaimer "The translation of this document is for information purposes only" and contains at least one other clear typo in the same table ("25,0000 baht/month"), so treat 54,000 as a probable transposition of 45,000 — but confirm with the immigration office handling your file rather than budgeting on either number. [sources disagree] - **Non-B visa** — Commonly stated: "Order 327/2557 is the rulebook for Non-B extensions." Actually: That is what almost every guide cites, and its substance is still what officers apply — but at least one Thai advisory firm writing in August 2026 says the operative instrument is now Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 (2025), pointing to clause 2.1 (6) of that order as the source of the representative-office, regional-office and branch-office exemption and of the relaxed one-Thai-per-foreigner ratio. That is the same substance and effectively the same clause numbering as 327/2557's 2.1(7), which suggests a renumbered successor rather than a policy change. The Immigration Bureau's own site blocked verification, and no other source consulted named Order 12/2568, so both positions are recorded here: cite 327/2557 for the requirements, but do not assume a document from 2014 is the version an officer is reading from in 2026. [sources disagree] - **TRC** — Commonly stated: "I work remotely for a company back home, so I'll just get a temporary residence card and settle in Vietnam long-term." Actually: There is no TRC category a remote worker can use. Article 36 as amended by Law 51/2019 lists exactly which visa holders may be granted a card — LV1, LV2, LS, DT1, DT2, DT3, NN1, NN2, DH, PV1, LD1, LD2 and TT — and the DN1 and DN2 business visas are deliberately absent, as are tourist visas and e-visas. Every eligible route requires a Vietnamese sponsor: an employer with a work permit, a licensed investment, an NGO or rep office posting, a university, or a Vietnamese/TRC-holding family member. Remote workers in Vietnam in 2026 are cycling e-visas and DN visas, not holding TRCs. Law 118/2025/QH15, effective 1 July 2026, added UĐ1 and UĐ2 for high-quality digital technology personnel, but those are employer- and incentive-tied, not a self-sponsored nomad permit. - **TRC** — Commonly stated: "A Vietnamese temporary residence card lasts up to 5 years." Actually: That was the ceiling under the original Law 47/2014, whose Article 38 read "The duration of a NG3, LV1, LV2, ĐT or DH temporary residence card shall not exceed 05 years." Law 51/2019/QH14 rewrote Article 38 effective 1 July 2020 and split the investor categories: ĐT1 cards now run up to 10 years, ĐT2/DH/LV1/LV2/LS/NG3 up to 5, NN1/NN2/ĐT3/TT up to 3, and LĐ1/LĐ2/PV1 up to 2. Since 1 July 2026 the new UĐ1 and UĐ2 cards also reach 10 years. Guides still reciting the old symbol list "LV1, LV2, ĐT, NN1, NN2, DH, PV1, LĐ, TT" are quoting pre-2020 law — the undifferentiated ĐT and LĐ symbols no longer exist. (changed 1 July 2020) - **TRC** — Commonly stated: "Set up a small company in Vietnam and the investor route gets you residence." Actually: Below VND 3 billion of contributed capital you get an ĐT4 visa, and ĐT4 is not on the Article 36 list of TRC-eligible categories at all — a small company buys you a visa you must keep renewing, not a card. The thresholds set by Law 51/2019 are: under VND 3bn is ĐT4 and no TRC; VND 3bn to under 50bn is ĐT3, capped at a 3-year card; VND 50bn to under 100bn is ĐT2, 5 years; VND 100bn or more, or investment in a government-designated incentivised sector or locality, is ĐT1 and the 10-year card. The incentivised-sector clause is the part most guides omit, and it is the only way to reach ĐT1 without VND 100 billion. (changed 1 July 2020) - **TRC** — Commonly stated: "When my TRC expires I just renew or extend it." Actually: Law 47/2014 said "Expired temporary residence cards may be extended." Law 51/2019 deleted that and substituted "An expired temporary resident card shall be considered for issuance anew," effective 1 July 2020. The practical consequence is that there is no lightweight renewal: each cycle needs a current sponsor, a fresh work permit or work permit exemption confirmation, a new dossier and the fee again. If your employer has not started the work permit renewal in time, you cannot stretch the card to cover the gap — you drop back to a visa. (changed 1 July 2020) - **TRC** — Commonly stated: "The TRC and the work permit are two ways of getting the same thing, so I can pick whichever is easier." Actually: They are sequential, not alternative. The LĐ2 visa is defined as "Issued to foreigners working in Vietnam requiring work permit," and LĐ1 as issued to those "certified of eligibility for work permit exemption" — so you need the work permit or the exemption confirmation in hand before the LĐ visa, and the LĐ visa before the card. The card's life is then bounded by the permit's: practitioners report the TRC "must not exceed two years and is generally aligned with the validity period of the underlying Work Permit or Work Permit Exemption Confirmation." Because Vietnamese work permits themselves max out at 2 years, the LĐ1/LĐ2 card can never reach the 5- or 10-year numbers people quote from investor categories. A separate trap: the card must also end at least 30 days before your passport does, so renewing a near-expiry passport first is worth doing. - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "MM2H needs a RM1 million ringgit fixed deposit, and you can withdraw half of it to buy a house." Actually: Deposits are no longer set in ringgit at all. MOTAC's category tables state them in US dollars: USD 150,000 (Silver), USD 500,000 (Gold), USD 1,000,000 (Platinum), USD 65,000 or USD 32,000 for the Forest City SEZ/SFZ tier depending on age. The announcement PDF adds that the deposit is encouraged to be placed in ringgit at the equivalent of the USD figure — meaning the ringgit sum you must fund tracks the exchange rate rather than being fixed. The 50% withdrawal survived, but it is now a withdrawal against a much bigger principal, and the property is compulsory rather than an optional use of the money. Figures confirmed on the official MOTAC pages on 11 September 2026. - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "You can rent in Malaysia on MM2H and buy property later if you feel like it." Actually: Buying is compulsory on every mainland tier — RM600,000 minimum on Silver, RM1,000,000 on Gold, RM2,000,000 on Platinum — and MOTAC's announcement gives participants one year from the date of MM2H pass endorsement to complete the purchase. You then cannot sell for 10 years unless you are trading up to a higher-value property, and the guidelines say failure to comply results in the pass being revoked. The SEZ/SFZ tier is stricter still: the property must be owned or bought before pass endorsement, must be in Forest City, Johor only, and must be bought from a Forest City developer rather than a third-party seller. - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "The Immigration Department website is the authoritative source for MM2H rules." Actually: The Immigration Department's own MM2H page still describes the pre-restructure programme — partial fixed-deposit withdrawals from the second year of RM50,000 or RM150,000 by age, a maintained FD balance of RM100,000 or RM150,000, and proof of offshore income of RM10,000 a month for renewal — none of which appear anywhere in MOTAC's current Silver, Gold, Platinum or SEZ/SFZ criteria. MOTAC runs the programme and its One Stop Centre processes applications; Immigration holds only the final approval and appeals. Where the two pages disagree, use mm2h.gov.my and expect an agent to tell you the same. Both pages were live and contradictory on 11 September 2026. [sources disagree] - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "MM2H lets you live in Malaysia and run a business or take a job there." Actually: Only Platinum does. MOTAC's Silver and Gold category pages mark both Business/Investment Activities and Career Opportunities as "Not allowed", and the SEZ/SFZ page says the same. Platinum marks both "Permissible" — and Platinum means a USD 1,000,000 deposit, an RM200,000 one-off participating fee and an RM2,000,000 property. Anyone budgeting Silver at USD 150,000 while planning to work is building on the wrong tier. - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "The physical presence rule is 60 days a year, as announced when the programme was revamped." Actually: The 60-day figure comes from the December 2023 announcement and was superseded. MOTAC's current guidelines state that participants aged below 50 must be present in Malaysia 90 cumulative days in one year, and the category pages add that for ages 25-49 those days can be made up between the principal and/or spouse and dependants. Participants aged 50 and over have no minimum stay requirement — the official table row reads "NO MINIMUM REQUIREMENT TO STAY". So the rule is both stricter than commonly quoted for younger applicants and non-existent for retirees. - **MM2H** — Commonly stated: "Your adult children can stay on your MM2H until 34 — or is it 35?" Actually: Two official MOTAC documents disagree. The Silver, Gold, Platinum and SEZ category pages on mm2h.gov.my say children below 21 qualify and "those between the age of 21 to 34, must be unemployed and single while in Malaysia". The ministry's own Insights on The Categories PDF, linked from the same site's references page, says "MAXIMUM AGE OF CHILD 35 & SINGLE". There is also a second live conflict on withdrawals: the guidelines page allows the 50% fixed-deposit withdrawal "after the approval as MM2H participant has been obtained", while the PDF table says "FIXED DEPOSIT WITHDRAWAL ALLOWED AFTER 1 YEAR". Get either point confirmed in writing by your licensed operator before you plan around it. [sources disagree] - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "Sarawak MM2H only needs about RM150,000 in the bank and RM7,000 a month in income — it's the cheap one." Actually: Those are pre-2025 numbers and they no longer exist. From 1 January 2025 the fixed deposit is RM500,000 at a Sarawak panel bank, the old RM84,000-a-year (RM7,000/month) income test was scrapped and replaced with RM10,000/month for an individual or RM15,000/month with a dependent, and a RM5,000 non-refundable processing fee was added. S-MM2H is still cheaper than federal MM2H, but it is no longer a cheap programme in absolute terms. (changed 1 January 2025) - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "You choose one: park RM500,000 in a fixed deposit, or show the monthly income. It's an either/or financial test." Actually: The official MTCP application guide lays the financial proof out as fixed deposit AND one of the income options. The deposit table reads 'RM500,000 (main applicant) FD placement mandatory' followed by 'AND', then pension income RM10,000/RM15,000 monthly OR offshore income RM10,000/RM15,000 monthly OR savings RM100,000/RM200,000. The savings route is additionally marked 'Subject on Panel Approval' and is only open to applicants with no offshore income or pension, so it is a discretionary fallback rather than a third equal path. Budget for the deposit plus a documented income or savings position, not one or the other. - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "After a year you can take half the fixed deposit back out, so the RM500,000 isn't really tied up." Actually: The withdrawal is capped at 50% and is purpose-bound: a house in Sarawak, a car in Sarawak, medical expenses in Sarawak, or children's education in Sarawak — each needing a letter of intent and proof of payment filed with MTCP. Separately, the terms for successful applicants require you to 'maintain a minimum balance of RM250,000.00 in the S-MM2H fixed deposit account in panel banks only'. So RM250,000 is locked for as long as you hold the pass, and the other RM250,000 can only leave the account by being spent inside Sarawak. - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "S-MM2H is just the Sarawak branch of MM2H — same visa, same rules, and it lets you live anywhere in Malaysia." Actually: They are separately administered programmes with different regulators, and S-MM2H residence is tied to Sarawak. Sarawak runs its own immigration control and the pass is issued by MTCP Sarawak, not MOTAC federally. Practical differences: minimum age 30 for S-MM2H versus 25 for the federal tiers; 30 days a year in Sarawak versus 90 cumulative days in Malaysia; no compulsory property purchase under S-MM2H, while federal Silver/Gold/Platinum require buying property of at least RM600,000 / RM1,000,000 / RM2,000,000; federal deposits run USD 150,000 / 500,000 / 1,000,000 against Sarawak's flat RM500,000. Property purchase in Sarawak is optional and, if you do buy, the foreign-acquisition floor is RM600,000 in Kuching Division and RM500,000 elsewhere. - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "Any friend or business contact in Sarawak can sponsor your application, so you can skip the agent fees." Actually: From 16 May 2025 MTCP limits personal sponsors to immediate family — spouse, parents or step-parents, children or siblings — and the application guide states that a 'Personal sponsor can only sponsor one applicant for a lifetime'. Unless you have close family resident in Sarawak, the only remaining route is a licensed S-MM2H agent registered in Sarawak, whose fees sit on top of the RM5,000 government processing fee. This is a common reason applications stall before they are ever acknowledged. (changed 16 May 2025) - **Sarawak MM2H** — Commonly stated: "Medical insurance is a formality and you can show a policy from home." Actually: The document checklist calls for a 'Certified copy of Local Medical Insurance Purchase' — a Malaysian-valid policy — and the main-applicant list qualifies it as required 'For applicants below 60 years old'. The dependent checklists carry no age qualifier. The bigger trap sits next to it: the medical report (RB II Form) must be done at a registered facility in Sarawak and endorsed by a Sarawak government doctor. If you had the medical done overseas, the guide states you must redo it in Sarawak before you are allowed to claim the pass. MTCP publishes no minimum coverage figure, so agents' quoted sums are their own. - **C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A")** — Commonly stated: "I need a B211A for Bali." Actually: There is no B211A on Indonesia's official visa list any more. The Directorate General of Immigration publishes the tourism single-entry visit visa as index C1 at Rp 1.000.000, with business visits under C2. Agents and older guides keep using the B211A label because customers search for it, so ask which index code is actually being applied for before you pay; the paperwork, fee and permitted activities differ between C1 and C2. - **C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A")** — Commonly stated: "Remote work for my employer back home is fine on a C1, everyone in Canggu does it." Actually: The two official texts do not say the same thing. The Indonesian-language C1 page bans selling goods or services and taking pay from any person or company in Indonesia, which on its face targets local income. The English eVisa FAQ for the same visit visa says flatly that you are prohibited from carrying out any profit-making activities in any form. Immigration's own answer to remote work is the E33G remote worker visa, which requires an employment contract with a company established outside Indonesia and income of US$60.000 per tahun. Treat working remotely on a C1 as tolerated in practice but not authorised in writing, and remember the ambiguity gets resolved by whichever officer reads your file. [sources disagree] - **C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A")** — Commonly stated: "My agent extends the visa online, I never have to show up anywhere." Actually: Circular IMI-417.GR.01.01 of 2025 took effect on 29 May 2025 and requires foreigners in Indonesia to have a photo taken and be interviewed at the immigration office when applying to extend a stay permit. The application and payment still start online at evisa.imigrasi.go.id, but you appear in person afterwards, and Yogyakarta immigration's own guidance says the photo is taken one working day after payment. Plan each extension around a trip to the office that holds your registered address, not just a WhatsApp message to an agent. (changed 29 May 2025) - **C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A")** — Commonly stated: "The visa on arrival and the 60-day visa are basically the same thing, just different lengths." Actually: They behave differently at the point it matters. The visa on arrival costs IDR 500.000,00, gives 30 days from arrival, and the official FAQ states you cannot convert it to another visa or stay permit. The C1 costs Rp 1.000.000, gives 60 days from arrival, and the eVisa FAQ says you can extend it or convert it into another visa or stay permit. Anyone who might want to move onto a KITAS without flying out should enter on the C1, because arriving on the visa on arrival forces an exit first. - **C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A")** — Commonly stated: "It is 60 days plus exactly two 60-day extensions." Actually: That arithmetic lands on the right total but describes a rule immigration does not state. The official C1 page says the stay permit can be extended several times up to a maximum of 180 days. The binding limit is the 180-day total counted from arrival, so a short first extension does not buy you extra time later, and there is no discretionary day 181. Time the last extension so the permit expires before you fly, because overstaying carries a daily fine. - **13A visa / Philippines marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "The 13A makes you a permanent resident as soon as it's approved." Actually: Approval gets you a probationary status only. BI's own Permanent Resident Visa page defines the applicant for permanent status as "A foreign national who has an existing Probationary Non-Quota Immigrant Visa status that is valid for one (1) year" — so there is a second, separately-paid application a year later, with its own hearing, biometrics and ACR I-Card fee. Budget two rounds of Php 8,620.00 plus US $50, not one. - **13A visa / Philippines marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "If you're legally married to a Filipino citizen, you qualify for the 13A." Actually: Eligibility is capped by a reciprocity list of nationalities, and BI's 2025 Citizen's Charter prints it. Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Vietnamese nationals are not on it; mainland Chinese spouses are handled separately under Memorandum Order No. MCL-07-021. Several countries appear on the list for women only — Algeria (Female), Indonesia (Female), Libya (Female), Malaysia (Female), Nigeria (Female), Oman (Female), Saudi Arabia (Female) — so a male national of those countries married to a Filipina is not covered. Malta is footnoted "**Provided that the marriage took place before 24 April 2001 or the couple has been married for at least five years". The usual fallback is the Temporary Resident Visa, but the charter restricts even that to a "Foreign national who is NOT QUALIFIED under Section 13(a) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 and is not an Indian, Egyptian or Bangladeshi national." - **13A visa / Philippines marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "You can file the 13A conversion right up to the day your current stay expires, and you can start it from overseas while your paperwork is in order." Actually: Neither is true at the BI counter. The 2025 Citizen's Charter states "IMPORTANT: Applicant should be INSIDE the country at the time of filing of application", and the checklist demands a passport showing "valid authorized stay of at least twenty (20) days at the time of assessment of fees". Arriving with a week left on a tourist extension gets the folder bounced before it is ever assessed. The same 20-day rule appears in the checklist for the amendment to permanent, so it bites twice. - **13A visa / Philippines marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "The fee to convert from probationary to permanent 13A is Php 8,620." Actually: Two official BI publications disagree. The Permanent Resident Visa page lists "PRINCIPAL: Php 8,620.00" for the Amendment to Permanent Non-Quota Immigrant Visa by Marriage, while the fee table under "AMENDMENT TO SECTION 13(A) NON-QUOTA IMMIGRANT VISA (PERMANENT)" in the BI Citizen's Charter 2025, 1st Edition shows a visa fee of PHP 6,710.00 for principal and dependents alike. Both add US $50 for the ACR I-Card. The website fees also carry the note "*Fees are updated as of 06 March 2014 and may change without prior notice." Get the Order of Payment Slip before budgeting, and expect the district office's assessment to be the operative number. [sources disagree] - **13A visa / Philippines marriage visa** — Commonly stated: "Once you hold a 13A, the yearly annual report is a quick online form." Actually: Online registration only produces a number you bring with you. The 2025 Citizen's Charter lists the annual report requirements as "1. Original ACR I-Card and/or ACR Paper-based", "2. Original Passport" and "3. Reference number from online registration.", with a step "2. For biometrics capturing." and payment at the cashier window: "Annual Report Fee - PHP 300" plus a Legal Research Fee of PHP 10. Miss the window and the charter warns of an "Admin fine of 200/month but not exceeding of PHP 2,000 per year for failure to pay the annual report for the first 60 days of every calendar year pursuant to RA 562". Secondary guides that call it an online-only formality are describing the registration step, not the transaction. - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "The AEP is issued within 24 hours once you've paid and published." Actually: That was the rule under D.O. 146-15, Sec. 7, and it is still the most-repeated line in guides written before 2025. Under the 2025 rules the DOLE Regional Office acts on a new or renewal AEP application within fifteen (15) working days from payment of the required fee. Plan an AEP-to-visa timeline in months, not days. (changed 10 February 2025) - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "The AEP application fee is a settled number you can budget from any guide." Actually: It is not, and this is the single figure most likely to be wrong on any page you read. The last fee schedule published in a text anyone can verify is D.O. 146-15, Sec. 5: P9,000.00 for a one-year AEP, an extra P4,000.00 per additional year, P4,000.00 per year on renewal. Secondary write-ups about the 2025 rules variously state P6,000 + P5,000, P9,000 + P4,000, and P10,000 + P5,000. DOLE's own PDF of D.O. 248, s. 2025 blocks automated retrieval, so we could not confirm which, if any, of those figures the new order carries. Ask the DOLE Regional Office for the current order of payment before budgeting, and treat the P10,000 figure with particular suspicion — that is the per-year fine for working without a valid AEP under Sec. 15, which several guides appear to have mistaken for a fee. [sources disagree] - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "The BI fee page tells you what the 9G will cost." Actually: The Bureau of Immigration's own 9G page prints Php 10,130.00 for a one-year conversion and then footnotes the whole table with "*Fees are updated as of 06 March 2014 and may change without prior notice." The older BI circular that governs the same transaction, MC AFF-05-001 Sec. 7, sets the conversion fee at P2,500 per authorized year for a principal — a number nobody actually pays. Two official BI documents therefore disagree, and neither reflects the express lane fees, legal research fee and ACR I-Card charges a cashier will add. The published Php 10,130.00 is a floor, not a total. [sources disagree] - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "A three-year 9G means three years of settled status." Actually: The visa is capped by the permit. BOI MC AFF-05-001 Sec. 6: valid for three (3) years "or for a period co-terminus with the AEP issued by the DOLE, whichever is shorter." And the AEP under D.O. 146-15 Sec. 9 defaults to one (1) year unless the contract says otherwise. If your employer files a one-year AEP, you have a one-year visa no matter what you paid BI, and you repeat the newspaper publication, the DOLE filing and the BI hearing every year. - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "Once the AEP is in hand you can start work, and you can move to a better offer later on the same visa." Actually: Two separate traps. First, the AEP is not work authorization: D.O. 146-15's Policy Declaration says outright that it "is not an exclusive authority for a foreign national to work in the Philippines" — you also need the BI's Provisional Permit to Work while the 9G is pending, which BI grants on proof of AEP application and which is valid for a maximum of one (1) year. Second, the AEP is tied to one position at one company: "A change of position or employer shall require an application for new AEP," and only one AEP exists per person at a time. Switching jobs restarts the entire cycle, publication included, and the old employer can cancel the AEP on termination, which collapses the visa with it. - **9G work visa** — Commonly stated: "The employer just files the AEP paperwork whenever it's ready." Actually: Since the 2025 rules there is a window that closes. The vacancy ad has to run in a newspaper, on PhilJobNet and at the PESO/JPO; the AEP application can be filed 15 calendar days after publication, and the published ads are only valid for 45 days, so the filing has to land inside that period or the publication is redone. Covered employers must also submit an Understudy Training Program or Skills Development Program plan with the application or within sixty (60) days of the start of employment, then file progress reports semi-annually on a one-year AEP. (changed 10 February 2025) - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "EG is just the multiple-entry version of the 12-month extension — pay about $30 more and you get one." Actually: EG is a general/job-seeking extension. Acclime states it is "intended for foreigners who are residing in Cambodia while seeking employment", and Move to Cambodia gives it as 1, 3 or 6 months only, generally not renewed beyond that. Multiple entry is not a separate letter code: it is a property of the 6- and 12-month extensions in whichever class you hold. Guides define EG three incompatible ways — job-seeker (Acclime, Move to Cambodia), "Government/Diplomat" (RetireFinder), and a multiple-entry ER variant (Varsovia Estate) — so treat any EG claim you read as unverified until immigration or your agent confirms it. If you intend to stay long term, the category you want is EB, not EG. [sources disagree] - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "The 12-month EB extension costs $285 — that's the government fee." Actually: $285 is the all-in price agents charge, not a published government rate. CambodiaGo puts the official Immigration Department fee for a 12-month multiple-entry extension at about $180 and says agents typically charge $250–$300 for the same thing. RetireFinder repeats the $285 figure as the fee itself, and Cambodia Expats Online quotes $285–$350 via agent. The Immigration Department publishes no clear English price list, so the spread is real: budget $285–$300 if you use an agent and treat any single quoted "official" number as unconfirmed. [sources disagree] - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "The EB is a business visa, so holding one means you can legally work or run a business in Cambodia." Actually: It does not. Acclime: "Even though the foreigner has obtained the EB visa extension, it does not guarantee that the foreigner can work in Cambodia. Work permits and foreign employment cards must also be secured to work in Cambodia legally." Since 2024 this bites at renewal, not just in theory — Cambodia Expats Online lists a valid work permit as required for 6-month and 12-month renewals where you work. The permit is a separate Ministry of Labour process with its own annual fee and its own deadline, and the old practice of buying a 12-month EB and ignoring the labour side is what now gets renewals refused. (changed 1 January 2024) - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "Once you've extended your stay you can come and go from Cambodia freely." Actually: Only the 6- and 12-month extensions are multiple-entry. Move to Cambodia: "only the 6- and 12-month visa extension allow multiple entries", and Realestate.com.kh: "Only 6-month and 12-month EB visas are allowed multiple times." A 1- or 3-month extension dies the moment you leave the country — a weekend in Bangkok on a three-month EB means buying a fresh $35 E visa and starting the extension cycle again. People taking the cheap three-month option to spread the cost routinely lose it this way. - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "The business E visa costs $42 and the tourist visa $36." Actually: Those were the old e-Visa prices. CambodiaGo: "Tourist and business e-visa fees were reduced from $36 / $42 to $30 / $35 on 1 January 2025." The $35 figure matches what the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Washington D.C. charges for a Type-E visa. Older guides and any figure you get from a model trained before 2025 will still quote $42. (changed 1 January 2025) - **Cambodia business visa / EB visa** — Commonly stated: "You arrive on the E visa and simply pay for a year — no sponsor involved." Actually: Every route to a 6- or 12-month EB runs through a sponsor. In practice that is a stamped employment letter from a Cambodian company, your own registered Cambodian entity, or an agent's umbrella company, and Varsovia Estate notes that sponsor verification is what stretches the annual extension to 5–10 days. Dependent spouses and children ride on the principal's employer letter. Turning up at immigration with only a passport and cash is the most common reason a 12-month application is bounced down to a one-month extension. - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "Earn about NT$160,000 a month and you're in — the Gold Card is basically a high-salary visa." Actually: The salary route is one qualification category inside some fields, not a standalone track. The official finance-field criterion reads "Has previously held or currently holds a position in a foreign state or in the R.O.C. with a most recent monthly salary of at least NT$160,000", and the community FAQ is blunt that "Some industries have a category where applicants with a salary greater than NT$160,000 qualify. However, this is only one category." Several fields have no salary route at all, and the figure is assessed before tax from an official annual tax document divided by 12 — not from a contract or offer letter. - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "The threshold is about USD 5,700 a month." Actually: The requirement is denominated in NT dollars at NT$160,000 per month and has not been restated in US dollars. Any USD figure in a guide is that writer's conversion at whatever rate applied when they wrote it, and the USD equivalent has moved by hundreds of dollars a month as TWD/USD has swung. Check your own tax documents against NT$160,000, not against a dollar figure you read somewhere. - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "Gold Card holders get three years of tax breaks, starting the year they arrive." Actually: It is five years, not three, and the clock starts from the tax year in which you first meet every condition — not the year you land or the year the card is issued. The official wording: "for five years counting from the tax year in which they first meet the conditions, half of the part of their salary income above three million NT dollars in each such tax year in which they reside in the State for 183 full days will be excluded from the assessment of individual income tax." If your first two years in Taiwan are under NT$3,000,000 in salary, those years do not burn clock. The benefit also requires that you "has no household registration in the R.O.C. and has for the first time been approved to reside in the R.O.C. for the purpose of work or has obtained an Employment Gold Card", which rules out returnees with past Taiwan residency. - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "Permanent residency takes five years, your spouse needs an employer to sponsor her, and there are eight Gold Card fields." Actually: Amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals passed the Legislative Yuan on 29 August 2025 and took effect 1 January 2026. They allow "foreigners who earn at least NT$6 million (US$196,046) annually to apply after just one year of residence"; they let "Spouses of special foreign professionals and foreign senior professionals (holders of EGC, ASP-type WP, ARC or Plum Blossom Card)... apply for an individual work permit directly, without requiring employer sponsorship"; they widen the degree shortcut to "graduates from the world's top 1,500 universities — up from the current top 500"; and the field list has grown past the old eight — the official qualification pages now also list Architecture, Biotechnology, Digital, Environment and National Defense. Guides written before late 2025 are describing the previous regime. (changed 1 January 2026) - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "If you make a mistake on the form they'll just ask you to fix it." Actually: One specific error kills applications outright: people entering Taiwan visa-free see a 90-day stamp and tick "I entered R.O.C. with a visa of which the duration of stay is more than 60 days". The community FAQ describes exactly this — "You entered Taiwan 'visa-exempt', but when applying you selected the wrong visa/identity category, application refused" — and adds that "Unfortunately, this mistake cannot be fixed, you will have to make a new application and may not get a refund." The official site confirms "The application fee is nonrefundable regardless of the results of your application", so the mistake costs you the full fee and a second 60-business-day wait. - **Taiwan Gold Card** — Commonly stated: "The US-passport overseas fee is a single settled number." Actually: Two pages on the official Gold Card site give different figures for U.S. passport holders applying from abroad. The Application Information page lists "one-year validity, NT$7,605; two-year validity, NT$8,605; three-year validity, NT$9,605", while the payment page in the application flow lists NT$7,790 / NT$8,790 / NT$9,790 for the same category. The surcharge comes from U.S. visa reciprocity and moves; budget the higher number and confirm the exact amount on the payment screen before you pay, since the fee is non-refundable. Non-US foreign passports are consistent at NT$3,700 / NT$4,700 / NT$5,700 on both pages. [sources disagree] - **Japan Digital Nomad Visa** — Commonly stated: "It's open to citizens of 49 countries." Actually: The 49 figure comes from the February 2024 proposal. The list the Immigration Services Agency actually publishes alongside the status page names 51 countries and regions for the nomad under Notice No. 53 — and a separate, longer list of 73 for a spouse or child under Notice No. 54, because family members only have to come from a visa-exempt country, not one with a tax treaty. Counted from the ISA's own 対象国・地域一覧 PDF. India, mainland China, the Philippines and Vietnam appear on neither list. - **Japan Digital Nomad Visa** — Commonly stated: "The visa costs about 3,000 yen." Actually: Japan raised consular visa fees for the first time since 1978. For applications submitted on or after 1 July 2026, a single-entry visa costs 15,000 yen and a multiple-entry visa 30,000 yen, up from 3,000 and 6,000. Almost every digital-nomad guide written before mid-2026 still quotes the old figure. (changed 1 July 2026) - **Japan Digital Nomad Visa** — Commonly stated: "On this visa you owe Japan no income tax, because six months keeps you under 183 days." Actually: The ISA Q&A is narrower than that. It says remuneration is exempt where the applicable tax treaty's conditions are met, including that the stay totals 183 days or fewer in the tax year or in any continuous 12-month period, and adds that the conditions differ by treaty. EY's Japan tax alert notes that the short-stay exemption also carries payment and cost-bearing conditions beyond the day count. A stay granted for a full six months can run past 183 days, and the clock in many treaties is any rolling 12 months, not the calendar year — so the exemption is a treaty test to check against your own dates, not an automatic feature of the visa. - **Japan Digital Nomad Visa** — Commonly stated: "You'll get a residence card and can sign up for national health insurance once you arrive." Actually: Holders are not "mid-to-long-term residents", so no residence card is issued — stated twice on the ISA's own status page and again in its Q&A. The Q&A spells out the consequence: you cannot enrol in Japan's public health insurance, which is precisely why private cover with at least 10,000,000 yen of injury and illness treatment cover is a condition of entry. Without a residence card you are also outside resident registration, which is what most banks and mobile carriers ask to see. - **Japan Digital Nomad Visa** — Commonly stated: "Get a Certificate of Eligibility first, then take it to the consulate — it speeds things up." Actually: There is no CoE route for this status if you are abroad. The ISA Q&A says that unlike sponsored work visas there is nobody in Japan who can act as your proxy to file a Certificate of Eligibility application, so an applicant outside Japan applies for the visa directly at the embassy or consulate covering where they live. Guides that list a CoE as an optional accelerator are describing a document you cannot obtain. - **Korea digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "You need about USD 66,000 a year, or 85 million won - that's the number every guide gives." Actually: That figure is two GNI cycles out of date and is not a single number any more. From 30 June 2026 the Ministry of Justice applies a sliding 1x-2x of per-capita GNI depending on age and where you live in Korea. On the 2025 GNI of KRW 52.41 million the top tier is about KRW 104.82 million and the floor - ages 18-34 living outside the capital region or in a population-decline area - is about KRW 52.41 million. Several Korean consulate pages in the United States still publish the old USD 66,000 and 85-million-won wording, so an official page is not proof the number is current. (changed 30 June 2026) [sources disagree] - **Korea digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "The workation visa caps you at two years - one year plus one extension - so it's not worth it for a real relocation." Actually: The two-year cap ended on 30 June 2026, when the programme stopped being a pilot and became permanent. The Ministry of Justice now allows residence up to three years, still granted a year at a time. The catch is that the exact renewal mechanics inside that three-year window - how many extensions and of what length - have not been set out in any updated primary government document, so plan the third year as probable rather than guaranteed. (changed 30 June 2026) - **Korea digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "Any travel medical policy worth 100 million won will satisfy the insurance requirement." Actually: The wording matters more than the number. The requirement is coverage above KRW 100 million for hospital treatment and evacuation to your home country - 본국후송 in the Korean text. Applications get refused when the certificate mentions medical evacuation but says nothing about return to the home country, and consular practice reads the repatriation clause as covering repatriation of remains. Read your certificate for that exact clause before you file, and if you are bringing a spouse or child, make sure the policy names each person with the full coverage amount. - **Korea digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "If you're in the reduced-income band you just need to be young - the location part is a formality." Actually: Both conditions have to hold together. The Ministry of Justice example is a foreigner aged 18-34 doing their workation in a non-capital-region (비수도권) or population-decline area, and only then does 1x GNI apply. Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi are the capital region, so basing yourself in Seoul pushes you up the scale regardless of age. The government published the 1x-2x band without publishing the intermediate breakpoints, so anyone who is young in Seoul, or older outside it, has to ask the consulate or immigration office what their actual number is rather than calculate it. (changed 30 June 2026) - **Korea digital nomad visa** — Commonly stated: "F-1-D is a work visa, so you can pick up Korean clients or a part-time local job on the side." Actually: F-1 is a visiting/residence status, not a work status. Korean consular guidance states that employment activities inside Korea are strictly restricted while on F-1-D; the income that qualifies you must come from an overseas employer or your own foreign-registered company, and you need at least a year of that employment behind you before applying. Separately, staying 183 days or more in a tax year - including a 183-day stretch that straddles two tax years - makes you a Korean tax resident, which most guides skip entirely. - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "If I earn S$30,000 a month I qualify for the ONE Pass." Actually: The S$30,000 has to be fixed monthly salary from one single employer across 12 consecutive months immediately before you apply. MOM's own FAQ allows a change of employer during that window, but the qualifying S$30,000 must still come from one of them, not from two salaries added together. Variable pay, bonuses and allowances do not count toward fixed monthly salary. - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "A job offer from any Singapore company at S$30,000 a month gets me the ONE Pass." Actually: If you are applying on the strength of a prospective Singapore role rather than past salary, MOM requires the employer to be an established company, and publishes a size test for it: market capitalisation of at least US$500 million or annual revenue of at least US$200 million. A well-funded Singapore startup offering S$30,000 does not clear that bar. Most guides quote the salary figure and omit the company test entirely. - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "The Employment Pass minimum salary goes up in 2026." Actually: It does not. The floor stays at S$5,600 for general sectors and S$6,200 for financial services through 2026, rising with age to S$10,700 and S$11,800 at 45 and above. The increase to S$6,000 / S$6,600 (up to S$11,500 / S$12,700 at 45+) applies to new applications from 1 Jan 2027 and to renewals of passes expiring from 1 Jan 2028. Budget on 2026 figures for a 2026 hire, and on the higher numbers for anyone starting in 2027. (changed 1 January 2027) - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "Nothing about the EP changed in 2026, so a COMPASS score calculated last year still holds." Actually: The salary floor is unchanged but COMPASS itself was recalibrated. Revised sector-specific salary benchmarks for the C1 criterion apply to new EP applications filed from 1 January 2026 through 31 December 2026, and to renewals of passes expiring from 1 July 2026. The same round updated the recognised-qualification lists and the Shortage Occupation List. A candidate who scored 10 or 20 C1 points on last year's benchmark can score fewer points on the same salary this year. (changed 1 January 2026) - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "Every Employment Pass applicant has to score 40 points on COMPASS." Actually: Forty points is the pass mark, but MOM exempts several categories outright. A candidate with a fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500 is exempt, as is an overseas intra-corporate transferee and anyone filling a role for 1 month or less. That S$22,500 exemption is the practical middle rung between an ordinary EP and the S$30,000 ONE Pass, and it is left out of most COMPASS explainers. - **ONE Pass** — Commonly stated: "The ONE Pass renews automatically every 5 years." Actually: Renewal is tested again. You must show a fixed monthly salary averaging at least S$30,000 over the past 5 years in Singapore, or have started and be operating a Singapore-based company employing at least 5 locals, each on a gross monthly salary at or above the prevailing EP minimum qualifying salary. The second route is indexed to a number that moves - it rises to S$6,000 for general sectors for applications from 1 Jan 2027 - so the payroll cost of the entrepreneur route increases over time. ## Corrections to our own previously-published figures These are errors this site published and has since fixed. Listed separately from the corrections above, which concern the world rather than us. - 11 September 2026 — **Thai retirement visa** `governmentFee.amount`: was "5,000 THB." — now "No government fee published." (This figure had no source at all — it was written from prior knowledge and survived because the audit only checked that the record had citations, not that those citations contained the numbers. Caught when evidence coverage was made mandatory.) - 11 September 2026 — **Thai retirement visa** `savingsRequirement.qualifier`: was "Or a combination of deposit and pension reaching 800,000 THB annually." — now "Combined route not published." (The Royal Thai Consulate-General's own page states the combined deposit-plus-pension route as 80,000 Baht, which contradicts every secondary source's 800,000. Rather than pick the convenient reading of an official page, the route is omitted and the two unambiguous options are published instead.) - 11 September 2026 — **Bali digital nomad visa** `governmentFee.amount`: was "USD 500 application fee." — now "No government fee published." (The USD 500 figure is widely repeated for this visa but is not stated anywhere on the source page we hold. An absent figure is better than a plausible one.) - 11 September 2026 — **SRRV** `depositRequirement.qualifier`: was "Two deposit tiers: USD 15,000 for 50+ with a pension, rising to USD 50,000 for applicants aged 40-49 without one." — now "Four tiers: 50+ with pension USD 15,000; 50+ without USD 30,000; aged 40-49 with pension USD 25,000; aged 40-49 without USD 50,000." (The original figures came from a search-result summary rather than the source page, and collapsed four tiers into the two extremes. The eligibility tool consequently told a 50-plus applicant without a pension they needed USD 50,000 against an actual USD 30,000 — a USD 20,000 error on the precise question the tool exists to answer. Caught by fetching the live page during source verification.) - 11 September 2026 — **SRRV** `governmentFee.qualifier`: was "USD 1,500 application fee, plus USD 360 annually." — now "USD 1,500 one-time application fee for the principal applicant. The annual PRA fee is described by the source only as a few hundred dollars per year, so no figure is published." (The USD 360 annual figure could not be found on any page we fetched. Removed rather than kept on plausibility.) ## Rule changes, most recent first - 1 January 2027 — ONE Pass: It does not. The floor stays at S$5,600 for general sectors and S$6,200 for financial services through 2026, rising with age to S$10,700 and S$11,800 at 45 and above. The increase to S$6,000 / S$6,600 (up to S$11,500 / S$12,700 at 45+) applies to new applications from 1 Jan 2027 and to renewals of passes expiring from 1 Jan 2028. Budget on 2026 figures for a 2026 hire, and on the higher numbers for anyone starting in 2027. - 31 August 2026 — DTV: Effective 31 August 2026, all DTV applicants must submit a certificate of criminal record clearance issued by the relevant authority in their home country, plus proof of permanent residence. This is a recent addition and most guides written before mid-2026 omit it. - 1 July 2026 — Japan Digital Nomad Visa: Japan raised consular visa fees for the first time since 1978. For applications submitted on or after 1 July 2026, a single-entry visa costs 15,000 yen and a multiple-entry visa 30,000 yen, up from 3,000 and 6,000. Almost every digital-nomad guide written before mid-2026 still quotes the old figure. - 30 June 2026 — Korea digital nomad visa: That figure is two GNI cycles out of date and is not a single number any more. From 30 June 2026 the Ministry of Justice applies a sliding 1x-2x of per-capita GNI depending on age and where you live in Korea. On the 2025 GNI of KRW 52.41 million the top tier is about KRW 104.82 million and the floor - ages 18-34 living outside the capital region or in a population-decline area - is about KRW 52.41 million. Several Korean consulate pages in the United States still publish the old USD 66,000 and 85-million-won wording, so an official page is not proof the number is current. - 30 June 2026 — Korea digital nomad visa: The two-year cap ended on 30 June 2026, when the programme stopped being a pilot and became permanent. The Ministry of Justice now allows residence up to three years, still granted a year at a time. The catch is that the exact renewal mechanics inside that three-year window - how many extensions and of what length - have not been set out in any updated primary government document, so plan the third year as probable rather than guaranteed. - 30 June 2026 — Korea digital nomad visa: Both conditions have to hold together. The Ministry of Justice example is a foreigner aged 18-34 doing their workation in a non-capital-region (비수도권) or population-decline area, and only then does 1x GNI apply. Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi are the capital region, so basing yourself in Seoul pushes you up the scale regardless of age. The government published the 1x-2x band without publishing the intermediate breakpoints, so anyone who is young in Seoul, or older outside it, has to ask the consulate or immigration office what their actual number is rather than calculate it. - 18 February 2026 — Vietnam 90-day e-visa: The Golden Visa was proposed in April 2025 and is still at proposal stage, with no published mechanism for how remote workers would qualify. What did come out of those discussions is a separate five-year Talent Visa, which has officially launched. That distinction matters because the two are routinely conflated: one exists and is narrow, the other is widely written about and does not yet exist. - 1 January 2026 — DTV: The Thai e-Visa system now flags IP and GPS location, and 2026 applicants increasingly face a Location Verification step requiring a utility bill or driver's licence matching the country of the embassy they applied to. Applying from inside Thailand is a rejection. - 1 January 2026 — Taiwan Gold Card: Amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals passed the Legislative Yuan on 29 August 2025 and took effect 1 January 2026. They allow "foreigners who earn at least NT$6 million (US$196,046) annually to apply after just one year of residence"; they let "Spouses of special foreign professionals and foreign senior professionals (holders of EGC, ASP-type WP, ARC or Plum Blossom Card)... apply for an individual work permit directly, without requiring employer sponsorship"; they widen the degree shortcut to "graduates from the world's top 1,500 universities — up from the current top 500"; and the field list has grown past the old eight — the official qualification pages now also list Architecture, Biotechnology, Digital, Environment and National Defense. Guides written before late 2025 are describing the previous regime. - 1 January 2026 — ONE Pass: The salary floor is unchanged but COMPASS itself was recalibrated. Revised sector-specific salary benchmarks for the C1 criterion apply to new EP applications filed from 1 January 2026 through 31 December 2026, and to renewals of passes expiring from 1 July 2026. The same round updated the recognised-qualification lists and the Shortage Occupation List. A candidate who scored 10 or 20 C1 points on last year's benchmark can score fewer points on the same salary this year. - 13 October 2025 — Non-B visa: The blue book stopped being issued in October 2025. Clark Hill's summary of the change states that "As of Oct. 13, 2025, it has replaced the previous 'Blue Book' with a fully digital platform known as the e-Work Permit System," with applications filed online and a card-format permit issued after a biometric appointment at one of the Foreign Work Permit Service Centers. The practical consequence is that the WP3 and work permit steps now run through an employer account on the Department of Employment platform, so an employer that has never registered on it will stall your start date. Existing paper permits remain usable until they expire, after which renewals must be filed digitally. - 1 September 2025 — SRRV: The September 2025 restructure lowered the minimum age to 40. Applicants aged 40–49 without a pension face the highest deposit tier at USD 50,000, but they are eligible, which older guidance says they are not. - 31 August 2025 — Non-B visa: Those codes no longer exist as separate application categories. On 31 August 2025 Thailand's Department of Consular Affairs collapsed 17 non-immigrant codes into seven, and B, B-A, IM, IB and EX were all merged into a single B (Business) category. Fragomen's note on the change says "this adjustment does not alter eligibility criteria or applicants' rights" — it is an administrative relabelling, so nothing about what you must prove changed, but any guide or checklist still telling you to pick "Non-B-A" on the application form is describing a dropdown option that is gone. - 29 May 2025 — C1 visa (still widely sold as "B211A"): Circular IMI-417.GR.01.01 of 2025 took effect on 29 May 2025 and requires foreigners in Indonesia to have a photo taken and be interviewed at the immigration office when applying to extend a stay permit. The application and payment still start online at evisa.imigrasi.go.id, but you appear in person afterwards, and Yogyakarta immigration's own guidance says the photo is taken one working day after payment. Plan each extension around a trip to the office that holds your registered address, not just a WhatsApp message to an agent. - 16 May 2025 — Sarawak MM2H: From 16 May 2025 MTCP limits personal sponsors to immediate family — spouse, parents or step-parents, children or siblings — and the application guide states that a 'Personal sponsor can only sponsor one applicant for a lifetime'. Unless you have close family resident in Sarawak, the only remaining route is a licensed S-MM2H agent registered in Sarawak, whose fees sit on top of the RM5,000 government processing fee. This is a common reason applications stall before they are ever acknowledged. - 10 February 2025 — 9G work visa: That was the rule under D.O. 146-15, Sec. 7, and it is still the most-repeated line in guides written before 2025. Under the 2025 rules the DOLE Regional Office acts on a new or renewal AEP application within fifteen (15) working days from payment of the required fee. Plan an AEP-to-visa timeline in months, not days. - 10 February 2025 — 9G work visa: Since the 2025 rules there is a window that closes. The vacancy ad has to run in a newspaper, on PhilJobNet and at the PESO/JPO; the AEP application can be filed 15 calendar days after publication, and the published ads are only valid for 45 days, so the filing has to land inside that period or the publication is redone. Covered employers must also submit an Understudy Training Program or Skills Development Program plan with the application or within sixty (60) days of the start of employment, then file progress reports semi-annually on a one-year AEP. - 23 January 2025 — Thai marriage visa: The published English text of clause 2.18(6) is indeed written as "In the case of marriage to a Thai woman, the alien husband must earn...", and that wording has never been amended. It no longer describes who can use the route. Thailand's Marriage Equality Act came into force on 23 January 2025, and by March 2025 immigration pathways for same-sex foreign spouses of Thai nationals had been implemented. Foreign wives of Thai husbands have long been granted the same extension in practice. Do not let the gendered wording in an old PDF talk you out of applying, and do not expect the PDF to be your authority at the counter either. - 1 January 2025 — Sarawak MM2H: Those are pre-2025 numbers and they no longer exist. From 1 January 2025 the fixed deposit is RM500,000 at a Sarawak panel bank, the old RM84,000-a-year (RM7,000/month) income test was scrapped and replaced with RM10,000/month for an individual or RM15,000/month with a dependent, and a RM5,000 non-refundable processing fee was added. S-MM2H is still cheaper than federal MM2H, but it is no longer a cheap programme in absolute terms. - 1 January 2025 — Cambodia business visa / EB visa: Those were the old e-Visa prices. CambodiaGo: "Tourist and business e-visa fees were reduced from $36 / $42 to $30 / $35 on 1 January 2025." The $35 figure matches what the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Washington D.C. charges for a Type-E visa. Older guides and any figure you get from a model trained before 2025 will still quote $42. - 1 January 2024 — Cambodia business visa / EB visa: It does not. Acclime: "Even though the foreigner has obtained the EB visa extension, it does not guarantee that the foreigner can work in Cambodia. Work permits and foreign employment cards must also be secured to work in Cambodia legally." Since 2024 this bites at renewal, not just in theory — Cambodia Expats Online lists a valid work permit as required for 6-month and 12-month renewals where you work. The permit is a separate Ministry of Labour process with its own annual fee and its own deadline, and the old practice of buying a 12-month EB and ignoring the labour side is what now gets renewals refused. - 1 October 2021 — Thai retirement visa: That figure is obsolete for the O-A and has been since 2021. The current requirement is at least USD 100,000 / 3,000,000 THB of cover including all medical benefits. The old numbers still circulate widely in guides and in AI-generated answers, and a policy bought to meet them will be rejected at the counter. - 1 July 2020 — TRC: That was the ceiling under the original Law 47/2014, whose Article 38 read "The duration of a NG3, LV1, LV2, ĐT or DH temporary residence card shall not exceed 05 years." Law 51/2019/QH14 rewrote Article 38 effective 1 July 2020 and split the investor categories: ĐT1 cards now run up to 10 years, ĐT2/DH/LV1/LV2/LS/NG3 up to 5, NN1/NN2/ĐT3/TT up to 3, and LĐ1/LĐ2/PV1 up to 2. Since 1 July 2026 the new UĐ1 and UĐ2 cards also reach 10 years. Guides still reciting the old symbol list "LV1, LV2, ĐT, NN1, NN2, DH, PV1, LĐ, TT" are quoting pre-2020 law — the undifferentiated ĐT and LĐ symbols no longer exist. - 1 July 2020 — TRC: Below VND 3 billion of contributed capital you get an ĐT4 visa, and ĐT4 is not on the Article 36 list of TRC-eligible categories at all — a small company buys you a visa you must keep renewing, not a card. The thresholds set by Law 51/2019 are: under VND 3bn is ĐT4 and no TRC; VND 3bn to under 50bn is ĐT3, capped at a 3-year card; VND 50bn to under 100bn is ĐT2, 5 years; VND 100bn or more, or investment in a government-designated incentivised sector or locality, is ĐT1 and the 10-year card. The incentivised-sector clause is the part most guides omit, and it is the only way to reach ĐT1 without VND 100 billion. - 1 July 2020 — TRC: Law 47/2014 said "Expired temporary residence cards may be extended." Law 51/2019 deleted that and substituted "An expired temporary resident card shall be considered for issuance anew," effective 1 July 2020. The practical consequence is that there is no lightweight renewal: each cycle needs a current sponsor, a fresh work permit or work permit exemption confirmation, a new dossier and the fee again. If your employer has not started the work permit renewal in time, you cannot stretch the card to cover the gap — you drop back to a visa. - 30 April 2020 — Thai marriage visa: 327/2557 is still the operative text for the marriage extension. Order of the Royal Thai Police No. 161/2563, effective 30 April 2020, repealed and replaced only articles 2.11, 2.20 and 2.27 of the 327/2557 attachment. Clause 2.18, which covers family members of a Thai national and carries the 40,000/month and 400,000 baht test, was untouched and still reads exactly as written in 2014. ## Tools - [Visa eligibility finder](https://asiavisaguide.com/tools/visa-finder) — checks age, income and savings against every published threshold. - [Rule change timeline](https://asiavisaguide.com/changes) — dated record of what changed. ## Notes - Immigration rules are applied at embassy discretion and change without notice. - This site carries affiliate links, disclosed at https://asiavisaguide.com/disclosure.