No. You buy a visa. Cheapest one is 500k baht. Gives you nearly 6 years with minimum hassle.

I think it could still just be doable. I did it in April-May and it was 6 weeks. But! I lost like 7-8 business days due to bankers being wankers.

Also, there was some talk during June-Juli that they had been able to speed up processing even more. I'd ask them.

Either way, one wouldn't loose anything by applying and clearing the background check phase.

Right. The mysteries of tm30. Sigh :)

Do you own the place you're staying in? Is that necessary to do this?

Bangkok Bank. Letter of reference from your embassy. Did it on a tourist visa. But I'm pretty sure the guy didn't even check that.

Cheers! Best of luck.

So, I lost maybe 7-8 bizz days due to these details.

I couldn't. Typically there are daily and monthly limits on credit cards. What I found out was that

1. I could only transfer ~100k baht pr day from Denmark to Thailand. And

2. Once I had the funds in Bangkok Bank they were being a bit bitchy about the inside-country transfer. Main problem was they wanted the "juristic number" of Thai Elite. Sort of company registration/id/some such. Not easy to find. It's

0105546103468468

for anyone keeping score.

There's another approval ("financial department") after the payment goes through. I think mine took 4-5 business days.

I did it in April-May and it was pretty much 6 weeks. I could've perhaps done a week or so better, if it wasn't for my banks being a pain in the behind. I have also been lead to believe they process the thing faster now.