What is the process and timeline for obtaining a DTV (Soft Power - Muay Thai) visa in Thailand?

My DTV (Soft Power - Muay Thai) was approved last Friday in Vientiane Laos! This group was very helpful so I would also like to share my experience for anyone going through the same process.

Worth noting I engaged the services of Siam Legal in Bangkok for the process. This is a personal preference and I wanted to make sure my application was flawless. They helped me gathering all the necessary documents, checking format and they also provided very useful advice along the way.

I enrolled in a 6 months course at Tiger Eye BKK. I have seen quite a lot of comments mentioning the course needs to be 9 months or longer but my visa was approved with a 6 month enrolment last week. Again this is my personal experience and other consulates might have different requirements.

My timeline:

* July 13 : Agency submitted the online application

* July 14: Paid for the visa fee at 11am in Vientiane

* July 22: Got an email in the morning where they were requesting a screenshot of my banking app with my name, current balance and my ATM card. Submitted the screenshots the same day.

* July 22: At around 5:00pm, I received an email inviting me for the interview on July 31 at 10:30am

Interview Day on July 31

I arrived at the embassy at 10am and got a queue number, there were 6 people in front of me.

Interview was conducted at 10:45am in a super friendly manner.

Questions:

Why Thailand and why Muay Thai? What do you do for a living?

Where are you gonna live?

The officer requested to see the school documentation and proof of how I paid for the course.

She also requested to see my bank app on my phone, she went though some transactions and asked me very simple questions to clarify some movements in my back account.

Final request was to show proof that I have attended Muay Thai classes before (in my cover letter I explained I have some experience and I am looking to improve my skills) so I showed her pictures of me at a Muay Thai school a few months ago.

Interview lasted 10 minutes and they told me I was getting the results on the same day.

I got the visa approval by email at 9pm on Friday 31st - I was initially nervous as I saw some people getting the results very quick, so don't panic, sometimes it just takes longer :)

The process took 3 weeks, no need to stay in the capital for all of it, use your time wisely, travel, hop on the train and visit Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, enjoy Laos, its beautiful scenery and have some fun adventures :)

I flew to Bangkok on Sunday August 2nd, arriving at DMK, I printed my visa, handed this to the officer, no questions asked and passport stamped for 6 months, super smooth and no queues.

Hope this helps and happy to clarify or answer any questions!