We were told when applying for DTV visa to include utility bills for the last three months as proof of residence in our home country. Our problem is that we moved out of that home over 5 months ago when we started traveling. Anyone else get approved with utility bills older than 3 months? Any suggestions for new nomads?

My german bank (DKB) does not issues bank statements in english haha. Any german who has that? How did you solve it?

I got my DTV (Soft Power - Muay Thai) approved today via embassy in Jakarta after beeing deported from Thailand 2 weeks ago😁😛😎

My story is for all the supporters, believers, phat kaphrao heads and everyone else that is in between!

Let me tell my story how it really was…

21th of March:

I entered Suvarnabhumi aiport after beeing away from Thailand for 1 month. I was on the ED Visa prior for 9 months and that’s why I had to leave.

I wanted to enter the kingdom on a regular tourist visa this time but they denied my entry and deported me back to Cambodia where I came from. (I spend 1 month there)

The reason they deported me was "wrong visa". Unfortunately the immigration officers weren’t very "talkative" so they let me wait 4 hours until they told me I’m getting deported. They put me and the other boys into detention room, made us pay for the room & forced us to buy a flight ticket back to the same airport via the same airline we came with.

My flight was the next day 8am so I only spend a few hours there.

22th of March:

Arriving in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the morning. After back and forward with the immigration officers there and answering the question "Why Thailand deported me?" several times they gave me back my passport and gave me the regular tourist visa for 30 days.

23th - 25th of March:

Staying in Phnom Penh and figuring out a plan how to enter the kingdom again.

26th of March:

Flying to Bali from Phnom Penh, layover was in Kuala Lumpur. The flight was fairly cheap.

27th of March:

Applying for the DTV E-Visa. I had all my documents and muay thai gym papers already ready.

My original plan was to do it in Cambodia when I was there for a month but because I heard they ask for a personal letter from

the administrator of sport or something like that I got scared to apply there😂

I didn’t want to throw the visa fees out of the window due to that.

Documents I applied with for Jakarta:

- Muay Thai Docs, Invitation letter, etc.

(I used Muay Thai Fever in Chiang Mai)

- Bank Statement 6 months

(Last 2 months were over 500’000 Thai Bath.. first few months the balance was sometimes minus😅)

- Passport Picture made in Cambodia

- First Page of Passport (Bio data)

- Hotel Booking in Bali (1 night)

- Plain Ticket to Bali

- Electronic Visa on Arrival (Sent to E-mail)

29th - 30th of March:

Staying inside the hotel for 24 hours because nobody on the island is allowed to leave the house. The whole island shuts down for 24 hours. It felt a bit like covid again😂

I used this time to think about my life, think about thailand and all my (potential) girlfriends waiting there for me.

1th of April:

So here comes the part where I messed up but I didn’t realize until that day.

This could be really interesting for the group‼️

I have an US Passport but when I filled out the form I put "Switzerland" in the field "Place of Issue" instead of "United States Department of State". The reason is simple because I’m a dual citizen and got my passport in Switzerland. I realized it when I was scrolling through the group that this is a mistake and that many people got rejected cause of it after all those days of not hearing anything.

I wrote them an e-mail right away when I realized it (it was before they reached out to me) and told them I messed up and that I’m aware of it. I apologized and translated the message also into thai. Don’t know if it made a difference but in my case maybe I just was lucky that they still approved me.

3th of April:

Finally they reached out to me and asked me for further documents. They asked for a bank statement where my name was clearly visible. So I provided the already sent bank statement and highlighted my name with color.. made it all neat and stuff. This time I only send them 2 months.

4th of April:

Status changed to Pending Approval

5th of April:

Got approved at 10:30am Bali Time.

Joined the DTV CLUB and super happy now!

Story to be continued…

Thanks for reading this far & big thanks to this group! I will still keep on reading comments in here because it’s so entertaining😂

Hello guys I wanna ask about this request documents

cause chamber of commerce is a dutch thing - my company is in dubai is that ok?

my bank statement i get paid to a thai bank account - is a thai bank account ok?

Thanks in advance

Hello!

My DTV was approved in Manila and I re-entered Thailand with no issues at all or questioning yesterday, 180 days stamped.

At my 90 day report do I need to present my TM 30? Is there any guidance on what you will need to bring on the 90 day report, and whether you'll be required to present all of your documentation again?

I live in a house, not a condo so I have to manage renewing my own TM30 at immigration myself.

Thank you very much ☺️

Hi all,

The Thai Embassy has returned with a request for more information:

A letter explaining how I will work remotely while in Thailand?

Does this mean I just need to make an "official" letter myself. Explaining I will work out of a co-working space from my laptop? Any more details needed?

Anyone on a soft power DTV visa for medical treatment was asked when reentering the country after the 6 months for any medical paperwork to justify you're still on treatment? I have the original treatment recommendation/ prescription but I don't have the future appointments proof.

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 🙏🏼

I just looked at the Thailand evisa website (UK )

My intention was to look at what types of documentation are required to be completed.

I was surprised that the 90 day non o retirement visa is no longer an option

Can someone advise further

Hello all! I wanted to follow up with the group and share what happened with my recent under 50 dependent on a retirement visa application… as a thank you to the people who replied and for the benefit of the people who follow behind me.

So, after my post on February 27th and reading the advice offered, my wife (over 50) and I (49) decided to try for the Non-Immigrant Type O visa with me as a dependent. We engaged a well known and advertised Thai legal firm (that was not Thai Visa Centre) to assist us with the e-visa application (and only the e-visa application, as we are moving to Hua Hin and not in their service areas for other assistance). To be clear, we didn’t realize Thai Visa Centre was a group admin otherwise we would have consulted with them! We paid a US$495 fee per person, as we figured that any assistance they could provide to “tip the scales” might work in our favor. That fee included our e-visa fees, so call it US$810 total for the service.

In our application, we provided all the necessary documents and the required proof of funds in our bank accounts (actual balances not investments, and well over the minimums, which I hope reinforced that we were not applying to avoid the minimum 2x800k baht deposits but solely on account of my age being not-quite-50).

Application was submitted on Monday, March 10th to the Los Angeles consulate. My wife’s retirement visa was approved 10 days later (March 20th), but the officer used their discretion to approve my visa as a Tourist visa. I inquired as to if it could be a multiple entry Tourist visa, but that would have required a new fee and a new application (and wait). We went back and fourth on that issue, but ultimately my visa (60 day Tourist, or the same thing as the current visa exemption policy) was approved on the 26th.

So, in short, we tried it and it didn’t work. The next officer at the same consulate may have exercised their discretion differently, but… I thought we had a pretty strong “application package” and still struck out. I share this with others to hopefully save them some time and money on their visa process.

I am coming to Thailand for medical services, so I will likely pursue the medical soft power DTV once I’m there and can make sufficient appointments (we tried DTV from the US, but couldn't make more than one appointment at a time until we see the doctors). I’m sure I’ll have questions on DTVs soon, but in the mean time I’m thankful for all the information and advice this great group has shared.