Can you hold a DTV2 temporarily and later apply for a DTV1 from within Thailand?

HappyCelery1441 which Thai Embassy are you applying from

HappyCelery1441 this may be a term that agency is using but officially no such term is used.

HappyCelery1441 there's no such thing. Officially. Which is, I guess, is you mean the difference between the workation and the soft power application. its not called DTV1 and DTV2

@Khun *****

you can no more legally work remotely on a soft power DTV than you can on a tourist visa or a retirement visa or a privilege visa or whatever. Why on earth do you think there are different options you can apply under?

HappyCelery1441 OR you apply for purpose workcation and be able to work and play around in your free time.

OR you apply for soft power and stop working while you are inside Thailand.

The visa is valid for 5 years and you can not change the rules, regulations and requirements, just because you think it does not fit you at the moment.

HappyCelery1441 At every entry in the country your purpose of visit should match the purpose of visit of the visa.

You can discuss if that has to be seen as a requirement, but fact is that the immigration officer can ask for it and can deny you entry.

When I checked for this at an immigration office they said this are just visa requirements and they would enforce when you apply for an extension, but that their collegues at the border were just free to decide what they wanted to check and what they don't want to check.

So most likely when you do a borderrun you will get an easy new 180 day stamp, but when you have bad luck and are choosen to check you might have a problem when you don't comply.

And discussing this is not explicitly mentioned in the law for DTV is useless to convince IO in such a case.

HappyCelery1441 My understanding is that if you apply for an extension, so you can stay in Thailand for more than 180 days consecutively then you have to show you meet one of the DTV requirements, either Work-cation or Soft Power. The best thing is to just fly to a neighbouring country for a week's holiday as that is more consistent with what the DTV is meant to be, for digital nomads. Also ensure that you have at least USD $1,000 cash or equivalent on you and a bank account where the balance has never dropped below THB 500,000 starting from about 3 months before you applied, when entering or re-entering Thailand. It appears that if you appear dodgy the immigration officer might be looking for a reason to cancel your DTV. It appears they don't care if you stop the Soft Power after 6 months as long as you meet the financial requirements and take regular trips out of Thailand. Also make sure your TM30 and 90-day reporting is done correctly. I think they are targeting scammers, criminals and people working locally, so if you behave like a digital nomad you are likely safe.

HappyCelery1441 no mandatory requirement but an IO can ask to see current enrollment but rarely do going by postings.

HappyCelery1441 not currently required if by Land or Air entries.

HappyCelery1441 currently there is no mandatory requirement to continue the course for 5 yrs. If you extend your stay at immigration you need to show current enrollment in a course. You are better off doing Workcation if you can.

@Greg *******

ok..but what is the point of "switching"..you can do SP activity on Workcation DTV and visa versa