Baan Thai answers about 3,000 perspective client inquiries every year. And our easiest discussions historically have been for those who have been over the age of 50, or those married to a Thai national, there are annual visas for both of those categories. Or working for a Thai entity, something called the non B visa, which is the business visa.
And like many countries around the world, including the United States, Thailand looks to attract capital by attracting successful people who want to invest either in the cost of the visa, for example, the privilege program, or want to invest in the kingdom. And that’s the LTR program. And we’ll talk about both of those later.
However, for younger people in their twenties, thirties, forties. Who really don’t have a Thai family and weren’t working for a Thai company. Those conversations historically were more difficult. That has changed. And we’ll talk about that in just a minute, but you had a couple of options. For example, the non ED or education visa, you sign up for a six month language program, but that has a limited lifespan or people were doing a bunch of border runs, which is time consuming and costly.
And by the way, at the end of the day. Thai Immigration Bureau is going to say enough of that and they’re going to stop you from doing that at some point. So let’s go to the next slide. Spoiler alert, this is the game changer. About a month ago, the Thai government formally adopted the Destination Thailand or DTV visa.
And I like to think of this as a tourist visa on steroids. It’s basically available for anyone over the age of 20, so there’s no age barrier. It applies to a wide variety of purposes. Roy is going to get into that in just a moment, and it doesn’t require a substantial economic investment in being here.
Once you’re stamped in, the term of the visa is for five years, so that’s compelling. It’s incredibly cost effective, and Roy is going to go through some of those expenses in just a moment. And most importantly, This is a true multiple entry visa, meaning that once you’re stamped in, you can come for a particular period of time, you can leave and come back in, and you’ll get stamped in, and you can stay again.
Essentially, you have unlimited access to the kingdom. Roy, why don’t you go through some of the benefits as we walk people through this? Okay. Thank you, Mark. This one is really super popular right now. For the DTV, after It is clearly after you get an ETB, you will be allowed to stay in Thailand up to five years with re entry permit.
And you will be allowed to stay in Thailand up to 118 days per entry. And when your entry permit is due, you have the option to extend it either with a local immigration or you can like to choose, you can choose to fly out. And return again to reset your permit of stay. And this DTV visa can extend to your spouse and children for the legitimate window.
And this visa is very cost effective. It’s all, the government fee for this visa is only 10,000 baht, but it’s very based on its embassy and consulate. So that 10,000 baht payment, Roy, is that one time for the entire five years? That’s right. That’s incredibly cost effective and to extend for another 180 days, you can essentially stay for up to 360 days.
How much does that cost and where can they extend? They can shoot to extend with the immigration. At any immigration office? Or they can shoot just to fly out of Thailand and re enter to the country to reset the period again. Got it. And at immigration, I believe the extension under Form TM 7 is about 1, 900 Thai Baht.
I think 8,000 Thai Baht. That one is correct. Yeah, 1,900 Thai Baht. Excellent. Okay. So who is the DTV visa for? For the DTV visa, if you consider yourself as a remote worker, you work for some big tech company abroad, or you consider yourself like a self employed. For example, you consider yourself an author, you provide some consulting services to the client internationally, or you consider yourself like an influencer.
Like a TikToker and YouTuber and stuff, you can obtain this DTV visa to make Thailand your home base. And also if you want to participate in Thai culture like culinary or Muay Thai You can get the DTV for that as well. And also if you have want to enjoy the Good health care here. You can use it as a purpose to get a DTP for their medical treatment.
And another one is cultural events. This one is really broad. So if you don’t know what you want to apply for, I think you should apply just for some culinary or Muay Thai course. Great. And just for the remote workers, And T is going to talk about the remote working category for the LTR visa, which does require you work for a big company.
You can even work for a closely held company, your own company. That’s right. Or you could be a content creator or consultant. It’s really wide open. That’s right. That’s right. I don’t know if you want to study Thai language. Oh, that might be an issue. If you have some study have you studied the DTV program for a little bit you might know that at the first step, the Thai government provide some example for the activity like to study a Thai language.
or something like that, but this was shared in a couple of weeks ago. Right now, the Thai language court, it deserve for the ED visa. So you cannot use that too, as a purpose of for the DTP. And that raises a great point. This is a brand new visa program and the ministry of foreign affairs and immigration and other government ministries are still figuring this out.
And those agencies have a lot of discretion in Thailand, and so things are likely to change as time goes on. So it’s always good to get the most up to date information before you make applications. Okay, so let’s talk about how people can make the application and qualify. All right, so after you decide that you want to be a remote worker here or you want to participate in Thai culture, you need to provide some document to the Thai embassy or consulate.
The main document, the first one is the proof of purpose. If you are a remote worker, you can like a provider. employment agreement or your employment certificate to show that you are a worker from some big company and they allow you to work overseas. Another one is proof of residence. This is for to confirm that you have a right to apply for the relevant Thai embassy that have power to accept your application.
Yeah, and another one is you need to provide a bank statement to show proof that you have a fund to spend here in Thailand for 500,000 baht, equivalent to 14,000 USD. This should issue, this bank statement should be issued in English. But for folks that somehow have their own Thai bank account already open, you can just transfer your funds here and obtain the bank statement from the Thai Commercial Bank.
That could work as well. Another one, if you want to extend your DTV to your spouse and you’re shy, you need to provide some certificate that shows your relationship. That you are that they actually your wife or your son. And again, this document is very based on the is embassy and consulate so recommend to discuss with some experts before you’re like a prepare your application.
