✨✨ My DTV Soft Power Thai Cooking (Arun Thai Cooking Class) visa has been approved in Laos. Everything went super smoothly, and all the required documents were arranged within just one day.

My DTV visa journey (Thai Embassy in Laos):

Applied online → paid the fee at the Thai Embassy in Laos in Thai baht (cash only) → waited for my interview appointment → had the interview and received the result on the same day.

Total time: 11 days from application to approval.

Approved from Los Angeles in one week.

I triple checked all the information that was required, made sure of my passport info & number was correct that my photo is in the proper format with a clear background, centered, and recent. I wrote a letter of intention for my stay in Thailand, detailed the work that I do, and how I’ll be traveling in and out of the country over the next couple of years. I submitted a contract from a client who has interest in Southeast Asia to develop business opportunities along with some examples of my work in the digital landscape. Submitted three months of business bank statements showing the required funds, and a utility bill showing my current location.

This group has been very helpful. I was stressed out because I didn’t wanna lose $400 due to some silly error but it all worked out! Thanks for th advice and help!

🙂 

Thank you for all your helpful advice.

8/30- Applied

9/2 - Request for more documents, including my tax return,  business registration of the company I work for and the business portfolio of the company I work for.

 please note they also asked for all of the documents I submitted  in the email. However, when I went online to update  they only asked for the new documents.

9/3-  submitted “further” documents.

9/4 - APPROVED!!!

LAX office!

Roughly how many days does it normally take before most people are finding out if their DTV application has been approved or rejected?

Big thanks to everyone who answered my questions and shared their experiences — your advice really helped!

For anyone curious about the process:

I submitted my documents on August 20, and on August 21 they asked me to provide recommendation letters and my portfolio. I sent everything in, and just 15 minutes later I got an invitation for an interview scheduled on August 27.

The interview itself lasted maybe five minutes and had a super relaxed, friendly vibe more like chatting with a friend. They only asked me to show proof of funds at the bank and my portfolio on my phone.

Just two hours after the interview, I got the notification that my visa had been approved. The whole process took exactly 7 days from submission to final approval.

Once again, huge thanks to everyone for your help and support! 🙌

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 :)