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expat experience
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This page displays all the results for the Expat experience tag, sorted by the most recent activity. There are a total of 239 questions that have been tagged with Expat experience. Explore the questions to find discussions and information relevant to this topic.
Hi there! I've been asking some questions here a few times, read loads of posts, and that was helpful. I just had the great new : got approved! So I thought I would share my experience. I'm talking about the french embassy here.
I applied on the 21st of July from Paris embassy for the soft power Muay Thai.
Got asked extra documents on the 18th of August.
Send it to them on the 19th and got approved about 1 hour later.
On their website it says they can take up to a month, which was exactly the time they took for me. Another person on the group applied there on the same date as me and also got approved today. So yes be patient. They are easy to reach over email, they respond quickly... I tried multiple times to get them through the phone and never had any chance, but then I saw on one of their email they said if you wanna call them it's only on tuesdays from 2 to 4pm.
The documents I had to send were the basics : picture of my passeport, picture of me, invitation letter from the gym, bank statements for 3 months.
The extra documents they asked were : License from the gym (I was the 1st one from there applying in Paris so maybe that's why), a proof of payment for the courses and my bank statement again.
For those who wonders because its different from one embassy to another, so i'm talking only about Paris :
- 6 months course is enough. I had a letter saying that I booked for 6 months, and the receipt for the payment I made which was not for the whole 6 months.
- they asked my bank statement again because I sent them only a paper signed from my bank saying how much money I have in my account, without saying for how long I've had it. What they want is 15000k each months for 3 months.
- I read in the group a lot of confusion about what to put in "place of issue of your passeport". I put FRANCE instead of the city written on my passeport. I contacted the embassy who said both are fine.
Like many people said in the group already : DOUBLE CHECK YOUR INFORMATION before submitting. I put all the info by myself and then when I uploaded the picture of my passeport, it automatically changed some dates... so BE CAREFULL!
I used the website ilovepdf to merged all the documents together and compressed, super easy and free.
I'm really bad with paperwork and I hate it, however I found it really easy to apply, the documents they ask are pretty basic... so I do not think paying a tierce person to do it for you is necessary.
I did book my flight ticket before applying because I thought I had to since they ask for it... but I read in the group that you can put any flight number, which I think is better because it was really stressful to not get the visa on time even tho I gave it some extra time. But I did see here that some people has been ask for the actual flight.
Now I'm flying on sunday and if i'm correct I just need to print my VISA and do my TDAC.
Hello! I received my DTV visa by enrolling at House of Taste Thai Cooking School as a soft power! The school was super friendly and helpful in providing me everything I needed from their end quickly. Approved first time with NO ISSUES!!
I am currently applying for a DTV visa in Taiwan. However, my application was cancelled for the following reason:
"Your visa application has been cancelled. Wrong Personal Info: Country/Territory of Passport / TD does not match with passport."
I suspect this is because I entered “Consulate-General of Japan in Detroit” as the place of issue. My passport is Japanese, but it was issued in Detroit. I believe this might have caused the error. I am thinking of reapplying, but do you think it would be approved if I set the place of issue to “Japan” instead? Has anyone experienced a similar situation?
Recently came back on my DTV at BKK airport. No issues, I gave my DTV paper to the immigration officer, no questions nothing asked. Stamped back in for 6 months!
I want to personally thank everyone in this group for your immensely useful and compassionate support and guidance throughout this tedious last few weeks of visa adventure lol. Just flew back into Thailand,
Immigration: "how long will you be staying on Thailand "
Me: hands over dtv visa email
Immigration: puts stamp on passport
Loving this! So nice to hear "Ka" and "kup" again lol
Hi everyone, I haven't posted in this group before, but I wanted to share that my DTV application was approved today and I’d like to give back by sharing some details of my process, in case it helps others.
* Nationality: Japanese
* Current residence: Tokyo
* Visa type: Workation (Freelance designer) My husband started working in Bangkok in April. His company does not allow partners to earn professional income—even from Japan—under the dependent visa.
1st submission – Tokyo – Canceled ❌
* Submitted: June 11th / Canceled: June 17th
* Reason for rejection: The "Title" field was left blank. I think this was due to writing "Ms." instead of selecting “Mrs."—though I’m not entirely sure. Apparently, the system doesn’t accept a blank field.
After reading that the Tokyo embassy tends to be strict, I contacted the Fukuoka consulate to ask if I could apply there while living in Tokyo. They told me it depends on the person in charge, but that I was free to try—so I did.
2nd submission – Fukuoka – Approved ✅
* Submitted: July 23rd / Approved: July 26th
* No additional documents or interviews were requested.
Documents submitted:
* A motivation letter explaining why I want to obtain the DTV and how important it is for me to continue my career while staying with my husband
* Bank transaction statements showing over 500,000 THB for more than 3 months (from both personal and business accounts)
* Last year’s tax return and tax payment certificate
* CV with a list of clients
* Business registration document
* Two client contracts
* Professional portfolio (12 projects)
Hope this helps others navigating the process. And thank you again to everyone who has shared their experience here—it helped me a lot.
Just did my visa extension at Korat Immigration. It was a (seriously) pleasant experience. Doing my TM30/90 day report took around 10 minutes in total and the officers at the desk where you get the forms at were extremely helpful - they explained exactly what documents I needed and helped annotate documents where needed. There's a quaint little print shop just across the road that does photos and document printing.
In the end I submitted (for workcation):
- Bank statements going back to January
- Pay slips (the company I work for uses JustWorks so it was basically just a spreadsheet showing when I was paid)
- A printout of the website for the company I work for (literally just hit print on the main page lol)
- An example of my work - I printed one of the newsletters I wrote for the company
- All the other forms they give you on the day (basically address/passport information over and over again)
I was asked to clarify which balances were my savings (Revolut's statements are a bit confusing) and then the officer asked me when I'm going to marry my girlfriend 555. They asked my girlfriend in Thai about some details about my work so I showed them some more examples of completed work on my phone. I think this might mean they care that I'm actually working, not only about the numbers in my bank account. Everything is legit so I wasn't worried.
Applied Monday evening 10pm. Tuesday 10am request for more documents. 1am this morning received an email of approved visa.
Highly reccomend Dowden Muay Thai in Koh Samui. I messaged them on instagram and they was very helpful throughout the whole process. They said they have only just started doing the DTV visa and have had less than 5 apply so far. They was very thorough and helpful. Would highly recommend. Wasn’t requested anymore Muay Thai docs so what they gave me first time round was plenty.