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Quote I got this week, so other people can laugh or warn. Agent in Bangkok: 95,000 baht 'package', government fees 'included', guaranteed timeline, and a line that the official route is 'not realistic'. The official route is a portal and a checklist. I asked which part of the 95,000 was the 50,000 issuance fee and the email went quiet.
That's the quote shape I was rude about in January. Glad the silence wasn't only for me.
You were rude and also right. I'll allow it.
I paid a lawyer to assemble documents because my pension statements are in three languages. That invoice was itemised and did not say guaranteed. The guarantee is the part that should make you close the tab.
Please just tell me straight. Wealthy Global Citizen. Off-plan condo. I've paid 40 percent and the developer keeps saying I 'effectively' own it. The title is still theirs. Am I about to learn this the hard way? I can take the hard way. I would like it in one sentence.
You are about to learn it the hard way if you file now. Mine was accepted because the title was already in my name. A payment schedule is not a title. I asked, in plainer words than the officer used.
Then I wait for transfer. The developer is going to be more optimistic than the BOI and I needed someone to say that out loud.
And only your share, if anyone else is on the title after transfer. The USD 500,000 has to be invested before the application date. 'Invested later this year' is a plan, not a qualification.
Insurance update from my November question. The foreign policy was accepted. They did ask for the schedule page that states inpatient cover in Thailand, in English, with the expiry visible. No one asked me to buy a Thai policy on top.
Same outcome, opposite path. My insurer excluded a pre-existing condition and I did not want a fight, so I used the deposit instead. USD 100,000, in my name, held 12 months. The statement had to show the balance did not dip under that.
Useful split. Policy if it's clean, deposit if the exclusions get philosophical.
How do i apply for the LTR visa?
You can submit on the immigration website, or get a prescreening.
I think I have this wrong, so I'm asking before I tell HR a story. I'm the dependent spouse. I want a job at a Thai company. He is Work-from-Thailand, so that job can't be his. Can it be mine, on the dependent stamp? Or do I need a whole category? They won't draft the offer until they see a work permit. Maybe that's already the answer.
We were told the spouse can seek permission to work and a child cannot. 'Can seek' did not mean the permit was sitting behind the visa stamp. HR is right to ask for the permit. The visa did not hand it to me.
That's the distinction I needed. I'll stop telling HR the visa is the permit.
Work-from-Thailand does not come with a Thai work permit, and it does not allow work for a Thai employer. A dependent spouse can apply for permission to work. That is a separate request. A parent or child dependent does not get that permission automatically. The digital work permit fee, where the category allows one, is 3,000 baht a year.
Annual report, not the 90-day. I did mine at Phuket immigration this week, one year from the stay date, not from my last flight. They wanted the passport, the lease, and a TM30 that matched the lease. It took 40 minutes because the TM30 address used an old spelling of the soi.
Same trap in Chiang Mai. The report is yearly. The address still has to be real. Landlord had filed TM30 for the previous tenant's spelling of my name and they treated that as a different person.
So the romantic version is 'once a year' and the real version is 'once a year, if the landlord can spell'.
Put the due date in a calendar the week you are stamped. The exemption from 90-day reporting is real. The exemption from remembering is not.
Tax, because every August someone states it too cleanly. I am not your adviser. Highly-Skilled can use 17% on Thai employment income. LTR holders can get an exemption on overseas income on the terms the Revenue Department actually applies. 'I have an LTR so I file nothing' is not a rule I can find. If you are in Thailand 180 days you are in tax-resident territory and you still need a person who does this for a living.
The agents sell it as zero. If the honest version is '17% for one category and a conditional exemption, and also hire an accountant', the brochure is doing a lot of work.
The brochure is short because it is a brochure. Overseas income of an LTR holder is not the same sentence as Thai salary of a Highly-Skilled Professional. Write those on two lines before you get angry at either of them.
I filed. The exemption was relevant to income I brought in from abroad. It was not a reason to skip the return. The accountant cost less than the argument I was about to have with myself.
The 17 percent rate applies to Highly-Skilled Professionals on the terms set for Thai employment income. Overseas-income treatment is a Revenue Department matter with its own conditions. A visa forum is a bad place to close a tax position. This site does not give tax advice.
So, bank account, after the stamp. I went to Bangkok Bank first. Passport, LTR, lease. They were fine until the lease turned out to be my friend's name on the condo. No. Had to be me. Then Kasikorn, different day: they wouldn't even open the screen without a Thai mobile number. Neither one asked for a work permit. I'm WFT, and two people had told me the work permit was part of the set. It wasn't, at those counters.
Phuket branch of the same bank asked for more than the Bangkok branch asked of you. Same visa. Go to the branch a friend has already survived, not the closest door.
I should have said Sathorn, not 'Bangkok Bank' as if the brand has one policy. Good catch.
Chiang Mai wanted a residence certificate on top. TM30 from the landlord was the thing that unblocked it. The visa alone was not the whole conversation.
I keep circling so I'm putting it down. LTR Work-from-Thailand, or the DTV? I'm a contractor, not an employee. Foreign clients, income clears 80k, and there isn't one letterhead that will claim me. DTV seems to live with that. LTR doesn't. Unless I'm forcing LTR because it sounds like the adult visa. I do that. I might be doing it now.
If you don't have the employer, you don't have WFT. Seriousness doesn't fill in a company account. DTV is a different product with a different stay pattern. Pick the one you qualify for.
That's blunter than my friends and probably right. I kept hoping 'contractor for several listed companies' would be read as employment.
Also don't pick LTR because someone said it makes foreign income vanish. The exemption has terms, and a contractor invoicing several clients is the sort of fact pattern a tax adviser should see before a visa forum does.
I got WFT because I am an employee with one letter. The visa is dull in the way I wanted. It is a bad costume for freelance. I would not stretch it.
Honestly my HR will sign whatever, they just don't want to think. Their template says I 'may work from anywhere'. The June notes say the letter has to say I only work remotely for the overseas company and I won't do their business inside Thailand. Did a vague 'anywhere' letter sneak through for anyone, or am I about to have a very long call with legal?
Mine was sent back until HR added a plain sentence: work is performed remotely for the foreign employer only, and I will not carry on the company's business in Thailand. They do not want poetry. They want that limitation.
I'll hand HR that sentence rather than ask them to interpret a brochure. Thank you.
The Work-from-Thailand document list dated 30 June 2025 asks for that limitation in the employment letter. Income evidence is the tax return for the two prior years, at the USD 80,000 average, unless you are on the USD 40,000 path with a master's, intellectual property, or Series A funding of at least USD 1 million. The employer still has to be listed, or a private company over USD 50 million across three years, or a wholly owned subsidiary of one of those.
Suvarnabhumi. Last night. First entry on the new stamp. Fast track is a lane, not a feeling. A few minutes. A friend with the same visa stood in the ordinary line. Nobody pointed. Ask.
Chiang Mai arrival was less theatrical. The officer knew the visa and did not make me fill anything extra. No fast-track theater, just a short queue. Don't fly into CNX expecting the BKK setup.
Good correction. I only know the Bangkok lane.
Same experience as Aisha in May. The lane is signed. If you are already in the normal queue, stay there. Changing lines looked worse.
Collected. TIESC. This afternoon. 6th floor, Parade Zone, One Bangkok. Queue was short. Checked: letter inside 60 days, insurance with more than 10 months left, two blank pages. Fee: 50,000 baht. Stamp: five years. Multiple entry. Not ten on day one. Five, then another five if you still qualify.
Same shape as mine in 2023. The ten years is the program. The permission to stay in the passport is five. Write the expiry down. If your passport expires first, the stay ends with the passport.
Passport runs to 2031, so the five years is the binding date. I put it in the calendar before I left the building.
Did they stamp dependents the same day, or was that a second appointment? We are trying to do the whole family in one trip.
We did the children the same morning, separate files, linked to his document number. Book them. Don't assume the officer will squeeze in a child who isn't on the list.
Update. The number, as promised. Endorsed today. 36 working days after the file was marked complete. No extra document. Letter: 60 days to collect. TIESC: 21st. I will list what the counter actually touches once I have stood there.
36 is a useful number. Congratulations, and also I'm still waiting, so I'll borrow your calm and not your appointment.
Borrow it. The letter is one page and a deadline. The stressful part was the silence, not the PDF.
Mine moved the same week. They asked for the parent revenue in a single table instead of three annual PDFs, I sent it, and the clock restarted. Not approved yet. So 'complete' means what they think is complete.
For the TIESC day: passport, letter, the insurance certificate again, and the fee. I paid 50,000 baht per person. Bring the appointment QR. The building is One Bangkok, not Chamchuri, whatever your 2024 bookmark says.
day 21 and it's crickets. faq says 20 working days once you're actually complete, and the clock stops if they want something. they don't want something. so is the silence the product, or do I poke VFS and become that guy?
I'm on day 26 of a complete file and the only mail is the receipt. I am choosing to believe the queue is the queue. I'll post here when it moves so we have a real number instead of a mood.
I'll do the same. Two data points beat one anxious refresh.
Poking on day 12 did nothing except produce a polite copy of the FAQ. Save the poke for when a document was clearly missed.
They rejected the photo. Are you serious. White background, no glasses, taken in January. By the time the file was 'complete' it was older than six months, and also they hated that it was cropped off a wedding. Does 'formal clothes' actually get policed or was the wedding the crime?
Yes. I redid mine at a studio in Ari in a plain shirt, white backdrop, no smile big enough to count as a party. It feels absurd and it was accepted the same week.
No glasses was the line they enforced on me. I had forgotten I was wearing them.
ACRO came back in 18 working days, which was faster than the website threatened. Uploaded today. For anyone else waiting on a UK certificate, the file really does sit still until that PDF exists. No partial review that I could see.
Good data point. I told you to wait and I am glad I don't have to be smug about a 30-day delay.
Which exchange rate are they using for a euro salary? My contract is EUR, my tax return is EUR, and my own bank converted December at a rate that flatters me. I don't want to be clever and then be wrong.
Use a published rate and show the source. I attached the Bank of Thailand daily rate on each tax-year end and the arithmetic on one page. They did not argue with it. They would have argued with a rate I invented because it helped.
If the return is already in USD, don't reconvert it. My husband did both and they asked which number was the income. Pick one path.
Filed. WFT. Por. 3/2568. This morning. Listed employer. Income over 80k, both prior years. Insurance: 14 months left. Document number: in. VFS receipt: in. If you filed this week, same mail? Or did TIESC opening yesterday tangle the queue?
Filed Sunday. Same mail from [email protected]. Nothing about TIESC in it. I think the new center is for stamping, not for reading PDFs.
Listed employer made the company tab boring, in a good way. They still asked me for the employment letter to say I only work remotely for that employer. Don't wait for them to request it. Put the sentence in the first upload.
I'm a week behind you. Parent-company accounts are in, share register is in, and I am now the person who refreshes a portal for a living.
Collection, this month. Which building? My note still says Chamchuri Square. That note is from a 2024 blog. A friend says One Bangkok. I am not standing in the wrong lobby with a 50,000 baht cheque.
I collected in 2023 at the old One Stop counter. I would not use my memory for a 2025 appointment. Ask them which floor when you book, and believe the booking, not a blog.
TIESC is supposed to open on 17 March at One Bangkok, Parade Zone, Rama IV. Until that morning I would treat Chamchuri as the place that still has a chair. After that, re-read the appointment email the night before. Buildings have opened late before.
Once the qualification letter arrives, how long do you actually have to pick up the visa? I will be in Vietnam for work for three weeks in April and I don't want the letter to die in my inbox.
60 days from the letter date. Not from when you notice the email. Book the collection before you book the beach.
The qualification letter gives you 60 days to apply for the visa. After that window the letter lapses and the endorsement has to be done again. Collection in Thailand is moving to the Thailand Investment and Expat Services Center. Abroad, a Royal Thai embassy or consulate can issue it, and that fee is often higher than the Bangkok counter.
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