- I could get married to my girlfriend, this would give me a marriage visa.
- I can pay for a special type of visa with a certain duration (choices are 5, 10, 20 years). A 5-year visa would cost around 10.000 EUR or 8 EUR / day and gives some extra benefits, like yearly health check-ups at a major hospital, free limousine service near airport, preferred treatment at airport (not wait in long queues), legal help, etc...
- From 50+ years one can get a retirement visa (but I am only 36 years old, so this doesn't apply to me).
- I can work for a company inside the country and get a work visa. Easily do-able as a software developer, but obviously will earn a lot less compared to North Western Europe. But earning 2.500 EUR a month as software dev is still a lot, about 5x the average income.
- At least one company allows you to freelance and they handle taxes for you and give you a work permit. But all invoices should be handled through this company and they take a 30% cut.
There are some other ways as well, like an investor visa if you invest a large amount of money in the country.
I will go for the second option for now, pay for the 5-year visa. After 5 years I could extend this with a 10-year visa. And from then on I can use a retirement visa.
Having explored options for a variety of countries, as a software developer without a degree there aren't a lot of options outside marriage, investment, and ancestry.
By the way, after staying 5 or 10 year inside the country, one can apply for a Thai citizenship, which is something I will consider [3].
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[0]: https://thailandelite.org
[1]: https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/997836-4-year-professio...
[2]: https://iglu.net
[3]: https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/121353-story-of-my-thai...