DTV Visa Thailand
Since I applied and got the new (launched in 1st of June 2024) Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) I decided to share the process, what I did to get it and also my opinion on these new crop of VISAS aimed at remote workers and why it might interest you to get one too.
Before starting though, I’ll just say that this VISA is still pretty young and as such it hasn’t been put through the test for real since only in the next couple months will there be people who have got it and reached the 180 days limit per stay, and as such only then will we be able to see how Thai Immigration deals with the various nuances of it, but in principle, if it follows what has been published officially it should be an excellent type of VISA.
What is the DTV
The DTV, “Destination Thailand VISA”, is a new type of VISA launched by the Thai government to attract remote workers and individuals interested in certain aspects of Thai culture (gastronomy, language and Muay Thai, this part focused on the so called cultural “soft power”, but we won’t focus on that side since that is yet unclear how it works regarding applications and requirements).
This VISA has a validity of 5 years and allows you to stay on each entry to Thailand for a continuous period of 180 days. This means you can stay in Thailand for 6 months, get out of the country, return and get stamped for an additional 6 months. It also allows you to apply and pay for an extension each of these stays for an additional 180 days without leaving the country, this means, if approved the extension, 360 continuous days. This extension isn’t guaranteed, you need to apply and it might be rejected. We’ll talk about possible problems and some nuances further down.
Ignoring these additional details and in order to make it simple, lets say that this VISA allows you to get in Thailand, during 5 years, periods of 6 months, go outside and return, and stay another 6 months, and repeat this process as long as you want for 5 years, translating into almost 5 years of stays with a reentry each 6 months.
Buddha sculpture in the ruins of the historical city of Ayutthaya
How to apply
You can do the application yourself, through the official https://thaievisa.go.th , or you can hire the services of some company specializing in Thai VISAS to do it for you. I did myself my application, since the process looked simple enough, but in case you have some doubts or you’re not sure if you fit all requirements it’s better to contact some company to do it for you. Usually for a small fee on top of the actual cost of the VISA they’ll give you guidance and sometimes the success of an application is higher through them - some even refund their part of the fee in case the application is denied (but the VISA fee itself is not refundable)
The base cost of applying is $250 but to this is tacked an additional fee that varies according to which embassy you’ll be applying to (the one of your country of residence). In my case it was Thailand’s Embassy in Portugal and the total cost was a flat 350€. This value as I mentioned is NOT refundable, even if your application is rejected, hence the need to understand if you meet all the requirements.
You can always create an account on the thaievisa website and open an application to see what is asked, you only pay when you’re ready to submit the application and only if you do follow through the submission.
You’ll need some basic things like flight (booked or reserved), a valid passport and a stay for at least a few days (booked or reserved).
Then you’ll need a portfolio or CV that shows your area of work/work history in terms of remote work, you’ll need proof of funds in the order of 13.000€ (bank statement for example) and a work contract, or employer declaration, or work platform statement/self owned company that pays you out.
What did I use for the requirements
(this is not legal advice, this worked for me that’s why I’m sharing it)
Initially I only submitted my own company’s declaration, because since it mentioned the application went through the embassy of the country where you reside (and it appears as such when applying) I thought it would be enough, since it states the tax id of the company - with which you can check even online if the company exists - and because by Portuguese law a sole proprietorship company has to employ the sole owner at the very least and has to pay him the minimum wage, plus this declaration also included the area of activity of the company - I thought this would be enough.
But it wasn’t, so I was asked (through an email notification to the associated email I used when creating the account) that I uploaded as well a portfolio/CV and a work contract/employer declaration in ENGLISH.
So what I did was to emit a declaration from my company stating the following:
“CERTIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT
2024… Date when I emited the document
To whom it may concern,
Name of the Company, identified by Company TAX ID PTXXXXXXXX and
Social Security Number XXXXXXXXX, hereby declares that Micael Nussbaumer, identified by
TAX ID XXXXXXXX and Social Security Number XXXXXXX, is employed under a permanent
contract since 2023 October 04 (the date when the Social Security registered my contract).
Below are annexed the 6 last payslips, detailing the nominal monthly salary of this employee.
Additionally the employee receives a monthly alimentation allowance and 2 additional monthly
salaries pertaining to vacation (PTO), and his nominal salary can never be below the minimum
wage (€820 plus the specified allowances) as required by Portuguese Law. The employee also
qualifies for bonus payments.”
To this I added the last 6 payslips.
I created a Curriculum Vitae detailing my work (some things as general blobs, when they were periods where I did several small gigs that weren’t that relevant individually) since the end of my university degree up to today and a small note of the few jobs I held before getting into university. Meaning, this CV showed a period of 20 years between basic jobs, university, my initial work as remote freelancer doing audiovisual work up to my previous years in my current area of activity, web development, and included also the opening of my sole-proprietorship company.
In the CV I’ve also linked this blog, some youtube channels I own, personal website and my upwork profile, since I’ve used it for years and it contains actual gigs and long-term jobs I did through it, along with rates charged - all this supported what I wrote in the CV.
From that additional requirement notice and me uploading the documents next day it took a week to have it approved. I applied on the 4th of September 2024, on the 16th of September I got the notification to add additional documents and it was approved on the 23rd of September. I believe if I had included all that initially that it would have been approved by the 16th.
As you see, this might be one of the reasons to use a company to help you, because they’re also better equipped and have more up-to-date knowledge about what the immigration is currently asking and focusing on - this is a new VISA and as such there’s probably some ongoing work on polishing the requirements and as more people apply it might change slightly what they prefer in order to have seamless application.
Having said all this, one important thing to understand and the reason why I applied to the VISA and didn’t have any problem in buying a flight, booking accommodation, all that, even without being sure I was going to be approved, is that Thailand also increased the length of stays for VISAs on-arrival. You can now stay for 60 days without any kind of VISA (there’s a list of countries allowed to do it, but this list is very large), so my thinking was, even if they don’t grant me this VISA I can always stay for 2 months and then go somewhere else. I’ll talk a bit about that further down as well.
Wat Arun in Bangkok
Nuances yet to see
Now let’s talk a bit about the nuances related to this VISA.
This VISA doesn’t grant you the right to work IN Thailand. In fact, it’s clearly mentioned you can only work in situations that don’t impinge on Thailand’s labour market. What one can understand by this is that you can’t do any activity that directly competes with local jobs - you can’t do tourist guide, you can’t open a business, you can’t be a DJ in a party, you can’t teach english, and so on. It’s only for workers that have their employer outside of Thailand in a remote arrangement.
Regarding the duration of stays, theoretically it’s as I’ve mentioned, you can enter, stay for 6 months, exit, come back and stay another 6 months and do so until the end of the 5 year validity of the VISA.
Will it work like that in practice? It’s not guaranteed since the last word when you try to enter Thailand is always with the Immigration. The VISA doesn’t guarantee you that you can enter, it’s only the validity of the VISA. My reading, but I’m not a legal expert, is that this works like this so that if for some reason you become persona-non-grata, because you did some excessively stupid crap or you’ve been chasing problems, they don’t need to take you in anymore.
If it’s going to work 100% with the so-called “VISA RUNS”, which are basically getting out of the country through a land border in a small one day tour with a VISA agency, or getting into a flight out and back on the same or next day, is still to be tested. I believe it won’t be a problem since this is already common. Lots of people stay for years in Thailand doing this, but it’s still unknown. Nonetheless unless you’re really planning on leasing an apartment for a year or more I don’t think you should worry about this. I think it’s actually better to get out for a month or more, visit and stay in some other country that is so easy to get to from Bangkok and enjoy a change of airs for a while.
In the same vein I’m not worried about the extension for an additional 180 days from Thailand while there. That extension requires an additional approval from Immigration and a fee of 10000BHT, which is almost the price of getting it, and they might request you all those proofs once again and you might be rejected (although there’s no reason to think you would if everything is dandy). For me though I think if you actually stay the full length of 180 days a change of place for a week, a month, 3 months, is actually a good opportunity to go explore and enjoy some other place.
Lastly we have taxation. By law anyone staying over 180 days in the Kingdom of Thailand can become subject of taxation by the Kingdom. If this might be relevant for you I would advise you to get some legal counselling. There’s a whole bunch of double-tax treaties between Thailand and other countries that should cover most situations. By what I understand this also only applies in case you transfer or deposit funds to a Thai bank, meaning if you open a Thai bank account to access your money while here. So it would seem, from my non-legal reading, that you would need to meet these 3 requirements to be effectively taxed - stay for longer than 180 days in a single year, transfer funds to a Thai Bank account, and those funds are not covered by double-tax treaties.
Although not needed, and I’m currently not planning to, a reason to open a Thai Bank account is that it allows you to more serious things (licenses, payments and so on) that require one, plus it has the added benefit of not being charged withdrawal and conversion fees on every ATM withdrawal. This last part is nice, but not really something needed, you’ll just pay a bit more on your money and withdraw bigger quantities to dilute that fee.
Nomadism & VISAS
As a remote worker or digital nomad it’s always a frenzy planning and staying one step-ahead of our next VISA expiry date. There has always been possibilities for people who work remotely jumping places. There’s many countries in latin America that grant you 180 days on entry. In Southeast Asia there’s many countries with VISAs on arrival that give you anything from 30 days to 90 days (with extensions). Others do require an online application step but usually pretty straightforward through a VISA agency that charges a small fee on top of the cost, and allow for these kinds of periods as well.
Thailand was always open on this department granting 30 days on arrival with possibility of extending to 60 days, but they’ve now increased the base period to 60 days (and possible extension to 90). This is more than enough for most remote workers to feel comfortable coming here. Nonetheless one thing that has always been a gray area is that these on-arrival VISAs were initially thought for tourism. I say it’s a gray area because theorically they’re only for tourism, but obviously I never heard, seen or experienced any country raising problems about you working remotely with a visa on arrival, even though it’s not their purpose.
VISAs like DTV on the other hand do account specifically for that and allow you to be 100% according to law, besides the obvious benefits in lengths of stay. This has implications not only on how you plan your periods of stay, and using Thailand as base to live and work, but also on the things you can access, for instance longer-term rentals for 3, 6 or even 12 months.
Krungsri River Hotel, Ayutthaya, chilling after a long day of walking around temples and ruins
Thailand as a remote base
Thailand has always been in the conversation for remote workers and there’s plenty of reasons for that. I believe this VISA is extremely useful for those who work remotely and like not only Thailand but also the remaining Southeast Asia.
It’s important to understand that Thailand is an excellent entry and exit point for the whole region, including countries like Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, besides the direct neighbouring countries that you can reach through land borders. You’ve got extremely competitive pricing for a whole range of countries that have very reasonable VISA policies (in terms of European/USA passports) and very reasonable costs of living. It’s quite easy to come up with a yearly plan of stays that starts with 3 months in Thailand, then goes to Vietnam for another 3, then Indonesia, or Cambodia, and then return to Thailand for another 3 (in case you don’t want to for some reason exceed the 180 days per year in Thailand). There’s plenty of other easily reachable locations that you can use to split up a full year of living and working.
For me one of the most important things are the people and security and in that aspect Thailand is, similarly to other Asian countries, very safe. Its people are also usually nice and helpful plus they’re very used to foreigners and mostly open about it - if you respect others, and the more you do, as people, their culture, their ways of life, the better you’re treated. Yes, it’s possible to have a road accident driving a motorbike, yes it’s possible to find trouble if you’re looking for it but it’s generally very safe. Of course, a douche is a douche and if you behave in an entitled way, disrespectful towards those you meet, you might have a less pleasant stay, but otherwise it’s great.
Another important factor is the variety of cost of living you can aim for. You have everything for every pocket. From the street stalls and markets where you get a 60 or 80 baht (+-2€) local meal to top of the chain restaurants. You’ve got hotels with individual rooms, with fridge, private bathroom, air-conditioning, great quality, breakfast, in an OK area (not exclusive or completely central but still quite ok) for 20€ per night. There’s hotels and condominiums that will do for a monthly rate rooms, studios, or apartments anywhere from 250€ to whatever you might fancy.
This means that if for some reason you find yourself having to budget aggressively, you’ll still be able to afford an independent lifestyle and focus on what you need to do. For instance, if you’re trying out an idea, starting a business, making your first steps as a freelancer with some clients, or starting in a new area of work, it’s possible to limit your spending for some time, while still being surrounded by a bustling city where everything is reachable, or in a tropical island drinking coconuts in an hammock. This is not to say there aren’t problems or sometimes inconveniences, instead to say that it gives you room to plan and execute a plan while still living an adult independent life. It’s also one reason, if you happen to come here, to never loose sight of the big picture and be grateful - sometimes people will have the most embarrassing attitudes for reasons that are really ridiculous even when they’re getting much more than what they would anywhere else.
Lastly, but not least, you’ve got all the culture(s), historical heritage sights, the beautiful nature, from mountain to lush forests and beautiful beaches and islands, and also, without any kind of doubt, night life. You find here what you set yourself to find.
All these things make Thailand an excellent place to use as a remote base, specially when you can get a VISA that goes for 5 years and allows you 6 months seasons of uninterrupted stay.
I could go on on each of these topics further but they warrant their own posts/videos, because there’s so much to cover on each one, so I’ll end this post right here and will explore those in some future ones.