Once the visa is approved, does it matter if it's soft power or work cation? An agent told me today it's the same

I submitted my DTV under Workcation on 30th April and still “Pending Approval”. As of now, the status still shows “Pending Approval.” Meanwhile, my friends, who applied on the same date, already received their Visa approvals on May 10th. I am beginning to wonder if there might be an issue or delay specific to my application that I may have overlooked. I would greatly appreciate any insights from others who may have experienced a similar situation, or any advice on what steps I could take next.

I just turned 20 on May 14th and I’m planning to apply for the Thailand DTV visa under the Workcation category as soon as possible. I’m currently working as a freelance Graphic Designer. I understand that the minimum age requirement is 20 years old, but since my birthday just passed, I’m a bit concerned whether this might cause any issues during the application process. If anyone has experience or reliable information regarding this, I’d really appreciate your advice. Thank you in advance! Any insights would be truly appreciated 🙏✨

DTV (workcation) APPROVED IN 3 WORKING DAYS

(British Passport via the Sri Lankan Thai Embassy, Colombo)- currently on holiday here for 3 weeks with no flight booked to Thailand until my VISA was approved (hoping it will be within this next 3 weeks)

Before applying I have been living in Thailand for the past 2 and a half years on a NON O Visa, dependent on my British wife having a NON B Visa and work permit.

Date applied: 8th of May 2025 at 12:30 (Day 0)

Stage 1:

Passport/selfie uploaded

Confirmed personal details- it did throw me out when it said "Home address " (so I put my UK address) and then I said my current location wasn't my home address and it said to enter home address again? From reading advice on this page, I entered my hotel address in Colombo

I then confirmed workcation- I have a UK based buiness and I am the sole employee so clicked the buisness owner option

Stage 2: Evidence of sufficient financial assets

Documents uploaded were a contents page and then included a letter from "my employer" (me) supporting the DTV application, 3 months payslips (feb/mar/apr 25), my bank statements including the final balance showing over 500,000B- this bank account is brand new so could only show April/May therefore I also submitted a letter of support from my wife (she has just sold a buisness in Thailand and transferred me the money from her thai account to my thai account), 6 months bank statements from my wife's thai account, copy of our marriage certificate, a picture of her passport and her picture of her thai exit stamp.

Stage 3: Employment contract- remote working/certificate of incorporation

Again for this section I uploaded a contents page and submitted a cover letter from employer highlighting I can work remotely and I am willing to work within the constraints/in accompliance of the DTV, my employment contract- again highlighting/allowing me to work remotely and a certificate of incorporation for my UK based company registered with Companies House.

Tools used: I had some difficulty uploading so many documents and even some pictures (of my passport/selfie) as they were "too big". After reading advice from this page I used a website called "Tiny JPG" to compress the size of pictures and another website called "ilovepdf" to help merge and compress any other documents.

UPDATE: Request for further documents on 8th of May 2025 16:00 (Day 0)

"Kindly send a photocopy of ALL pages of your passport including both the visa and non visa pages"

UPDATE: 9th of May 2025 15:10 (Day 1)- Request for interview email. Interview scheduled for the 14th of May (the 10th/11th is weekend and 12th/13th are holidays). It was strange when I logged onto the Evisa website to "accept" the interview it came up as a document request and wanted me to upload something. For this I just wrote on a word document that I would like to accept the interview and would see them on the 14th.

UPDATE: 14th of May 10:30 (Day 2)- arrived at the Thai embassy having printed everything out. After a 20 minute wait or so, they took my documents, had a brief chat- confirming that my company was UK based, checked that I am infact IN Sri Lanka and I understood how the DTV worked (I can't earn money in Thailand). He checked that my non o and my wife's non b/work permit was cancelled (which is was) and asked if my wife would be applying for a dependent- I explained she was returning back to the UK and IF she was applying as a dependent, it wouldn’t be until later on in the year. There was no questions about my company, my job role and I wasn't asked to show my bank. No problems- out again in 5 minutes.

UPDATE: 14th of May 17:30 (Day 2)- I didn't have any email alerts or anything but though I would log on to the e visa website in the evening and it's updated to pending approval...

UPDATE: 15th of May 14:35 (Day 3) VISA APPROVED 😍

This page has been a massive help with my VISA application with certainly knowing what to (and what not to submit)! I feel lucky I sorted out a bank account using my Non O status before leaving Thailand! With anyone currently living in Thailand on ED VISAs I suggest you get a thai bank account before switching to the DTV.

Jakarta approval 😃

Workcation application as a business owner

Flew to Jakarta on 5th May and submitted application that day, despite it being a Thai public holiday.

Docs submitted:

Passport bio page

Business registration documents

company tax returns

Letter confirming I am the sole owner and shareholder

Letter confirming company approved me to work remotely in Thailand, high level scope of work

Personal bank statements for last 6 months

Flight booking, AirBnB booking, boarding pass and Indonesia 30 day visa confirmation

Not great timing as Thai PH on 5th, 9th and 12th May!

Refreshed the website every few hours every day until afternoon of 14th May when it changed to pending approval.

3 hours later received email with approval 😃

So all done in 4.5 working days 👍

DTV approved

* Consulate: New York

* Category: Workcation (remote employee of a company in the United States)

Documents submitted:

* Driver's license as proof of residence

* Bank statement for proof of funds of at least 500,000 THB

* Employment contract

The same day the visa application was submitted, I received a request from the consulate for additional documents:

(1) A bank statement with at least $16,000 USD - my balance in the statement was more than 500,000 THB, but it looks like each embassy has their own minimum in USD (I've seen someone mention Los Angeles requires $17,000), so I requested an updated statement from my bank and resubmitted one which was above their required amount.

(2) A detailed description of my job duties and a job description that states my position can be worked remotely - I was expecting this because the employment contract I submitted didn't make any mention of remote work. I resubmitted a document with my job description listing the duties, and since it also doesn't make any direct mention of remote work, I attached the approval from my employer to work remotely abroad.

Approval timeline: The initial visa application was submitted on 17 Mar, and the status changed to Pending Approval on 10 Apr. The status remained at Pending Approval until 5 May, so I emailed the consulate requesting an update since this is considerably longer than the other approval timelines I've seen. They responded the next day that it will be approved as soon as possible, and I received the visa today.

Another success story from Hanoi - after 2 years on ED visa I was a bit worried, but I got my DTV and entered succesfully through DMK in Bangkok - no question asked. This group helped me a lot applying for my DTV visa, so I too want to contribute. Below are all the details:

Embassy: Hanoi

Category: Workcation (sorry, I forgot which subcategory I picked, not sure if freelancer or company - but my company is registered in my country as Sole proprietorship = 1 person "company")

Time: 7 days = 5 working days

Timeline:

20th April (late night): Applied & paid

21st April: Pending document check

22nd April: Pending Approval

27th April (evening): Approved

> NOTE: I got approved on Sunday, and since there were numerous similar reports (some even mentioned they received visas on official holidays), it seems like the embassy is working also on weekends, and probably also during holidays in some limited mode. So don’t lose hope, you really can receive your visa anytime.

Documents:

1. Proof of current location: 3-page PDF:

- booking of hotel in Vietnam (for 5 nights)

- stamp from Viet immigration

- my Viet e-visa

2. Financial evidence: 10-page PDF:

- last 6 months of bank statements

- also added a screenshot from the current (unfinished) month of April, as I've applied ~ 20th

> NOTE1: I had ~ 600k on my bank account for around 3 months, not 6

> NOTE2: I did not translate stataments to English, as that would be an enormous amount of work (translating 20+ pages of PDF, without breaking layout is not fun…), but it didn’t matter. All I did was highlight the ENDING monthly balance + my monthly paycheck.

3. Portfolio: 16-page PDF:

- Portfolio: 3 pages, just screenshots from my (web) portfolio

- Payslips for the last 6 months: 6 pages

- Proof of my company/business registration: 2 pages

> NOTE: I did translate this one, as it’s quite important, and attached BOTH the original and translated versions.

- Letter to allow myself to work remotely from TH: 1 page

> NOTE: Since my company is a Sole proprietorship, I wrote myself a generic letter that I allow myself to work remotely, my role is this and that, and that if there are more questions, you can contact me any time at a@b.c. There are many examples, so just search this group

- CV: 2 pages

- Screenshots from LinkedIn: 2 pages

Summary:

I made sure all the documents looks nice + I also added a little table of content at the beginning of each document - I think it's quite useful, if you have 10+ pages. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. It was quite exhausting, and I’m glad it’s over, but it paid off ;)

Useful tools: Use smallpdf.com for merging and editing PDFs. It's not perfect, but I didn't find anything better.

IMPORTANT: Double, triple, quadruple-check your application with fresh eyes before submitting! It’s a lot of documents, a lot of work, mistakes can happen. For instance, I discovered a tiny mistake on my 3rd and final check, so just to be sure, I made a 4th one again lol.

FOR NON-ENGLISH SPEAKERS: Looks like you don’t need to translate everything to English. I only translated my business license, and that was enough. I’d go crazy if I had to translate, let alone notarize, all 30+ pages of financial evidence and portfolio!

Good luck to everybody!

Approved DTV (Workcation) in Jakarta

Applied: 16 Apr

Approved: 23 Apr

Documents provided:

1. Certificate of employment (signed by me)

2. Employment contract (contract between me as company owner and me as Director)

3. My resume (with screenshot from LinkedIn)

4. Motivation letter

5. My company certificate of incorporation and Original application to register a company

6. The most recent Company Information from Company House

7. Company profile

8. Stripe payment activity from my clients for the last 2 months (just a screenshot)

9. Stripe transaction history to my business account

10. Recent invoices to my client

11. Another recent invoice to my client

12. Business bank account statement (for the last 3 months)

13. Personal bank account statement for the last 8 months with payslips from my company to me

1st Home address (permanent): From my original country

2nd Home address (current): hotel in Jakarta

No extra document was asked for.

Passport holder: Eastern Europe (not EU zone)

Flight to DMK on 24 Apr - no questions.

Thank you, everyone, for sharing valuable information!

Two DTV approvals:

* 1 soft power muay Thai through Chicago consulate.

* 1 freelance/workcation through NYC consulate

Muay thai soft power visa:

* *Total processing time: 9 business days from Chicago consulate

* Documentation sent by Tiger Eye (Bangkok) for 1 month of unlimited classes

* License (proof of address)

* 3 months of bank account statements showing 500,000 baht

* Passport photo

* Airbnb accommodations

* Flight confirmation

* Photo for Visa, taken against a white wall and background deleted in Photoshop Express

Workcation visa:

* *Total processing time: 15 business days from NYC Consulate

* Utility bill (proof of address)

* 1 month of bank account transactions showing 500,000 baht, which was deposited 2 days before, printed by the bank. "Statement of funds" printed by my bank, and a picture of the ATM showing my deposit.

* Passport photo

* Airbnb accommodations

* Flight confirmation

* Photo for Visa, taken against a white wall and background deleted in Photoshop Express

* Proof of business below

Proof of business documents submitted:

Cover letter/list and explanation of documents submitted

1- Letter of Intent example (thank you to whoever posted it in this group- [members only])

Legal Formation Docs

3- Certificate of LLC formation

4- Employer EIN registration

5- Employment verification letter example (thank you to whoever posted it in this group- [members only])

6- Screenshots of my website

7- Most recent tax return

Client 1-

8- website screenshot with my name showing as a contractor

9- recent payments and invoices from Bill.com showing money being deposited into my account

10- 1099 from 2024



Client 2-

11- Website screenshot

12- recent payments and invoices from Bill.com showing money being deposited into my account

13- 1099 from 2024

Client 3- Fiverr profile

14- Fiverr profile screenshot

15- Payoneer invoices showing deposits into my account

16- 1099 from 2024

Bank statements

17- 3 months of business bank account statements



Things people said might not work and did (ymmv):

* 500,000 baht was deposited into my account 2 days before applying. The funds were not in my account for 30 days.

* Partner signed up for 1 month of muay thai to start. He does plan to continue doing muay thai after that.

* NY Consulate told me that if my visa was not approved in time, I could enter the country on a regular tourist visa and reenter the country after my application was approved.

Hey Everyone!

My wife and I are both freelance online teachers and are considering applying for the DTV Visa in the Workcation category. However, we can’t find accurate information regarding applying separately for the Workcation visa vs having one of us apply for that type and the other apply for the spousal visa.

Does anyone know if you are legally allowed to work (online, not in Thailand) if approved for the spousal visa? I searched the group first, but haven’t seen anything.

Thank you. 🙏