Hanoi DTV visa (soft power with Arun Thai Cooking School) – approved.

No additional document requests. The school prepared all the documents within 1 day. The whole visa process took 6 working days in total.

I submitted my application late in the evening on August 8. On August 11, the status changed to pending approval, and on August 19 the visa was approved.

Documents provided:

• Bank statements showing more than 500,000 THB on my accounts.

• Bank account activity for the last 3 months.

• Currency exchange rate of my local currency to Thai Baht.

• Photo ID from my home country linked to the bank account.

• All documents submitted by the school (I only checked the spelling of my personal details).

• Proof of stay in Hanoi: Vietnamese visa, entry stamp, hotel booking, and a payment receipt from the hotel made with my card.

Big thanks to everyone in this group – your advice really helped me understand the process! 🙏

Approved my dtv today and will apply for a dependent dtv tomorrow for my wife. The question is will she also got an interview? We are at Vientiane.

Just had my DTV visa approved, applied last week, they got back to me within 24 hours requesting more information, I had to wait for my latest bank statement which was available yesterday and woke up to approval in my inbox this morning. This was London embassy so all in all their side took less than 48 hours to process and receive. The bad news is don't fly for another month lol.

I applied in Jakarta, it took 3 working days only!

Submitted all the documents on 17th July (Morning) and got the approval on 21st July (Morning).

I did it with the soft power Muay Thai class.

For the occupation section, my muay thai school said to fill it unemployed. But i submitted already with student and income under 20,000 baht / year. And still got approved! If you need any questions, i would love to help and answer it!

Ill be returning to Thailand by tomorrow 🫶🏾

Good luck all! 🍀

DTV Approved at HCM Vietnam

via Issa Compass under Soft Power @ Arun Thai Cooking School, Bangkok.

I would like to thank the School and the Agency for their highly efficient coordination and solid reliability. And a big thanks to the wonderful people of this community whose posts helped me make up my mind on how to do this, and kept me informed on what is to be expected.

I had previously held Non-IB visa for ~1yr, and two visa-exempt entries + 2 extensions. One of those was a border bounce. Also have a Thai bank account and condo rental for 1 year from my time working for a Thai company previously under the non-IB.

Timeline of the process (8 Working Days since application) -

Reached Da Nang 5th July

Document Setup 7th July

Applied 8th July to HCM

* Thai Bank Account 6-month statement with balance maintained > 500k THB, significant activity.

* Condo Rental Agreement

* Cooking school papers provided by Arun Thai School, Bangkok

* All Passport Stamps for Thailand

* Passport Bio Page

* Da Nang entry stamp

* Hotel Booking in Da Nang (Agoda)

Document Request 9th July

* All pages of passport including blanks - For this I took photograph side-by-side with my phone showing Vietnamese phone service and current date & time as proof. Additionally I took a photo of myself holding my passport bio page open in front of the hotel's signboard - after reading in the community that someone else did the same.

* Means to sustain yourself during stay - I read that you could resubmit the same 500k account statement for this, but I chose to include my bank account from my home country which also had 500k+ THB equivalent. However I did not share 6-months statement for this bank, only the last statement showing balance. Both bank accounts are in my name, and are savings accounts.

Pending Approval 10th July.

Approved on 17th July.

Questions are welcome :)

How many days did it take for your DTV visa application to be accepted after submission? Also, on what day did you typically have to submit any additional documents, if required? Thank you in advance.

Got my DTV approved today. It went as follows:

-Applied 9th of july to Thai embassy (Sweden) as a remote worker (workcation category)

-I filled in all the information they asked, but I also added my latest payslip + a written explanation that my work is 100 % remote, and what I do at my job.

-My application changed status to "Pending approval" on the 15th of july

-Approved on the 16th of July 2025. In total the process took 7 days, including the weekend.

Feels absolutely amazing!

We were approved in Washington, DC for the Discover Thai Nature seminars!

June 11- submitted my husband's application

June 26 - Husband approved

June 27 - submitted a spouse application for me

July 10 - Mine approved

Thanks for all information everyone has shared!

Approved in Hanoi for Workcation (4 Business Days)

I applied for the Workcation category on Saturday 5 July 2025. My status changed to “Pending Approval” on Monday 7 July, and I was officially approved on Thursday 11 July.

No additional documents were requested during the process.

Before applying, I had been living in Thailand on ED visas for four years.

Here is exactly what I submitted, grouped into three sections.

⸻

1. Work Documents

I am a teacher on italki.

Submitted:

• italki Statement of Activity (The statement includes a clear disclaimer stating that italki is not my employer, that I work independently, and that they do not control my work or clients.)

• Previous 6 months of calendar screenshots (completed lessons)

• Screenshot of upcoming booked lessons

• Screenshot of active packages (pre-paid, ongoing lessons)

• Screenshot of my italki profile and reviews

• TEFL certificate

Cover Letter 1: Portfolio Letter

Explains each document, confirms I do not teach Thai students, and shows I have consistent work and returning students.

⸻

2. Financial Documents

Savings (Revolut):

• 6 months of bank statements showing over 500,000 THB

• A current balance screenshot from the Revolut app

Freelance Income (italki to Payoneer):

• 6 months of italki payout screenshots

• 6 months of Payoneer receipts

Cover Letter 2: Financial Letter

Explains how I receive my income, how withdrawals are made, and clarifies the fee deductions and payout timeline. It also confirms my income and savings are separate and meet visa requirements.

⸻

3. Location Documents

To prove I was outside Thailand at the time of applying:

Submitted:

• Full passport scan (all pages), taken before entering Vietnam

• Photo of Vietnam entry stamp (since it was not visible in the scan)

• Photo of visa cancellation stamp showing cancellation of my ED visa

• Boarding pass from my flight to Vietnam

• Two photos taken of myself on 5 July 2025:

• Holding cancelled Thai visa, Vietnam stamp, and boarding pass

• Holding passport photo page and boarding pass

• Photo of myself with a white background

Cover Letter 3: Location Letter

Explains what each image shows and confirms I am currently in Vietnam.

I used ChatGPT to stitch all of my pdfs together and pdf24 to compress them to 3MB or lower.

Thanks to everyone in this group for the advice and for sharing your experiences, it really helped.

Update : I received Approval email on 8 July( today )

I applied for a DTV visa on 30 June in Hanoi and received "pending approval" status on 1 July. I haven’t received any updates since then.

My question is:

has anyone received DTV visa approval in Hanoi today (7 July 2025)? How long will it take?