The visa will be valid initially for five years and could be renewed for another five, Col Apisit Chaiyanuwat, Deputy Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, said.
The visa fee was set at B10,000, he added.
In addition to the age requirement, the visa requires eligible foreigners to have a monthly income of at least B100,000 or a bank deposit of at least B3 million, to be maintained for at least one year after receiving the visa.
Eligible applicants must also have health insurance coverage for at least US$1,000 (about B35,590) for outpatient care and $10,000 (about B 355,900) or more for inpatient care per policy per year.
They must also report to immigration police every 90 days.
The revised rule aimed to promote medical and wellness tourism in line with the government’s policy.
The target groups for the visa are long-stay visitors from Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Taiwan and the United States, Col Apisit said.
It was not made clear whether the “10-year long-stay visa” would replace existing visa options or become a new visa option for people wanting to stay in the country long-term.
Also on Tuesday, to lure more tourists to the Kingdom the Cabinet resolved to temporarily waive for three months the B1,000 fee for tourist single entry visas and to halve the B2,000 visa-upon-arrival fee for tourists from 19 countries from Dec 1 to Feb 28.
The 19 countries are: Andorra, Bulgaria, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Ethiopia, India, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Tourism authorities said the three-month tourism promotion measure was aimed at boosting the number of visitors by 350,000 and generating income of B28 billion.
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