How can I expedite my Digital Nomad visa (DTV) application for Thailand?

I got my DTV in 3,5 hours!

Yes you read that right. 3 hours and 23 minutes to honor my German friends here.

So I’m gonna share my story to contribute to this amazing group that helped me a lot in the past days 🙏🏼

I arrived in Manila yesterday night, checked in at my hotel and went straight to bed. Today I finished my documents and at 11:57am I submitted my documents online - already mentally and emotionally prepared for two long weeks of waiting.

So I went out for lunch, had coffee, contemplated what to do with my life in a concrete jungle… and when boredom kicked in I checked my emails. 15:20h … Mail from the embassy … You’re visa is approved.

Wtf.

Straight back time travel to the feeling when I caught Mewtu for the first time in Gameboy Pokémon Blue Edition.

So here‘s exactly what to do:

Preparation is everything (life lesson in here)

- If you’re a business owner, get your documents ready:

1)Certificate of active Status of your company

2) Document proving you’re the owner of the company

- Prepare your employment contract, indicating you employed yourself as a managing director for your company. You must add the following benefit: 100% remote work

- Write yourself a „letter of authorization“ that you authorize yourself 100% remote work. You will find templates and tutorials for this document on YouTube as I did

- Make a nice presentation (I did it with Canva) in which you explain in detail (!) what you do:

1) Add your website and your LinkedIn Profile

2) Explain your services/products and proof your successful business with data/pictures/numbers/metrics // if you are a freelancer show 3 of your projects/clients and explain exactly what you do for them

3) Add invoices, then add the bank statement where this money came into your business bank account and finally add another bank statement from your private account which shows you actually received this money

—> Remember: The better you prepare this presentation, the faster you will be. My presentation was around 18 pages long and took me 4 hours of focused work.

- Have your private bank statements of your last 3 months ready. The front page should indicate the current balance of at least 500.000,- Baht.

- Merge the following documents into 1 PDF (you can use a free tool like „ilovepdf“ for merging pdfs - just google it):

1) Proof of your location: Use the receipt of your hotel booking

2) Picture of your Philippines visa stamp in your passport

3) Passport sized picture (should be exactly measured based on the given size on the Thai website)

4) Booking confirmation of your flight to the Philippines

What else do you need to know?

- eTravel Visa for the Philippines: When you enter the country you are required to show the eTravel document. Be careful: there are services online that charge more than a 100€ while on the official website it is for free I assume. Why I know that some charge over 100€? Don’t ask… 😂🤦🏻‍♂️

- When entering the Philippines you must present a return flight ticket. So have that in mind.

- Don’t book your hotel for too long in advance - you might not need it.

Remember:

- Preparation is everything. The better you prepare, the faster the process will be.

- Make it easy for those who are reading the documents.

- Be kind and friendly in your words, they are still humans.

3 hours 23 minutes - I hereby require my official entry in the Guiness book.

See you in paradise 🏝️

PS: If someone of the honorable team of the royal Thai embassy is reading this post - thank you! You did an amazing job 🙏🏼