Visa & insurance
Thai visa health insurance — which plans actually qualify
Two long-stay visas, two different insurance rules, and one number that is constantly attached to the wrong one. Everything below is taken from the Thai General Insurance Association's own guidelines.
Requirements checked against TGIA on 2026-08-18. Consulates and immigration offices apply these differently in practice, and some ask for more than the minimum. Confirm with the office handling your application before you buy.
The one thing most guides get wrong
You will see “40,000 baht out-patient and 400,000 baht in-patient” quoted everywhere as the Thai retirement visa insurance requirement. Those figures are real, but they belong to the O-X visa.
On TGIA’s O-A page the same numbers appear under a heading that is easy to miss: renewals before 1 September 2022. For an O-A applicant today the stated figure is USD 100,000, which TGIA accounts as 3 million baht. That is a difference of roughly 2.6 million baht in required cover, and it is the difference between a policy that is accepted and one that is not.
The two visas, side by side
Non-Immigrant O-A
The one-year long-stay visa, and the one most retirees apply for first.
- Minimum age
- 50
- Length of stay
- One year at a time
- Overseas insurer
- Accepted, with a form
Insurance required: Minimum cover of USD 100,000, which TGIA accounts as 3 million baht, including treatment for Covid-19. The insurance certificate must be presented to immigration.
Non-Immigrant O-X
The ten-year route, open to nationals of fourteen countries only, with stricter and continuous insurance conditions.
- Minimum age
- 50
- Length of stay
- Five years at a time, ten years in total
- Overseas insurer
- Not accepted
Insurance required: Not less than 400,000 baht per policy year for in-patient treatment, and not less than 40,000 baht per policy year for out-patient treatment.
Eight of the nine insurers we compare are on the certified list
TGIA publishes which companies participate in the long-stay scheme for the O-A visa. Fourteen insurers are listed. These are the ones that overlap with our own panel:
- AXA Insurance
- Allianz Ayudhya General Insurance
- Pacific Cross Health Insurance
- Viriyah Insurance
- Bangkok Insurance
- Thai Health Insurance
- Thaivivat Insurance
- Chubb Samaggi Insurance
April MyHEALTH does not appear on that list. That is a statement about the TGIA list and nothing more — it is not a judgement about the product, and you should check directly with the insurer rather than infer anything from its absence.
The full certified list, and what being on it does and does not mean
Getting a plan that qualifies
Meeting the limit is necessary but it is not the whole decision. A policy can satisfy the visa and still be poor cover — the limit that matters for the visa is the headline figure, while the limit that matters when you claim is whatever your policy applies to each line of treatment.
Run a quote for your age and you will see the insurer’s own premium, the structure each plan uses to limit what it pays, and the overall limit, so you can check both things at once.
Visa insurance — common questions
What health insurance do I need for a Thai retirement visa?
It depends which visa. For the Non-Immigrant O-A, TGIA states minimum cover of USD 100,000 — accounted as 3 million baht — including treatment for Covid-19, and a Thai or overseas insurer is acceptable. For the Non-Immigrant O-X, the requirement is not less than 400,000 baht per policy year for in-patient and 40,000 baht for out-patient, and the policy must be Thai.
Is the Thai visa insurance requirement 40,000 and 400,000 baht?
Those are the current figures for the O-X visa. For the O-A visa they are historic: TGIA's own O-A guideline lists them under renewals before 1 September 2022, and states USD 100,000 for first-year applicants. Many published guides still present the 40,000 / 400,000 figure as the current O-A requirement, which is where the confusion comes from.
Can I use my existing insurance from home for a Thai visa?
For the O-A, yes — an overseas policy is acceptable, but it needs TGIA's Foreign Insurance Certificate form signed by an authorised person at your insurer. For the O-X, no. The policy must be a Thai health insurance policy from an authorised company.
Which insurers are approved for Thai long-stay visas?
TGIA publishes the list of participating companies for the O-A scheme. Fourteen insurers appear on it, and eight of the nine insurers we compare are among them: AXA, Allianz Ayudhya, Pacific Cross, Viriyah, Bangkok Insurance, Thai Health Insurance, Thaivivat and Chubb Samaggi.
What happens if my insurance lapses during an O-X visa?
TGIA states that cover must be held throughout the granted period of stay, and that failing to meet this is treated as no longer meeting the requirement, with the visa withdrawn. It is not a condition checked only at application.
Sources
- TGIA — Non-Immigrant O-A guidelines
- TGIA — Non-Immigrant O-X guidelines
- TGIA — participating companies, O-A
TGIA operates the long-stay insurance scheme. Where this page and another source disagree, TGIA is the one to believe — and tell us, because we would want to fix it.