Oct. 6, 2026
From Non-B to DTV to OMG: A Look at the Thai Visa Landscape [S8.E64]
![From Non-B to DTV to OMG: A Look at the Thai Visa Landscape [S8.E64]](https://img.podpage.com/CUNgEDRHABNs8d_y7HfQsz5u_GhaLFzfY4o8QvxumyU/rs:fit:480:0:1/q: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.webp "From Non-B to DTV to OMG: A Look at the Thai Visa Landscape [S8.E64]")
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Apple Podcasts Hey, remember when the visa rules changed, making us all learn entirely new procedures and protocols? No, the other time. No, the other…no, not that one, the other time.
Greg begins by discussing the latest tightening of Thailand’s entry rules, especially the reduction of visa-exempt stays from sixty days back to thirty. He and Ed use the change to illustrate a broader problem for foreigners: Thai immigration rules are constantly evolving, and advice that was accurate only a few months ago may already be obsolete.
Ed then argues that Thailand remains welcoming to visitors, but the old atmosphere of loosely enforced rules seems to be fading. The guys connect that shift partly to highly publicized cases of foreigners behaving badly and partly to a wider push by Thai authorities to enforce laws more literally. They stress that foreigners increasingly need to understand exactly what their visa permits rather than relying on what people historically got away with.
Next, Greg and Ed discuss the traditional visa system, including the Non-B route for people working in Thailand and the awkward position of remote workers who were technically working while entering under other categories. They then examine the Destination Thailand Visa, designed partly for digital nomads and people pursuing approved “soft power” activities. They discuss its long validity, repeated six-month stays, and financial requirements.
Toward the end, Ed explains recent changes making the DTV harder to obtain, including tighter residence requirements and criminal-record documentation. The overall message is that foreigners now need better planning, current information, and stricter compliance with the rules.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:03 On this episode, we discuss the current state of Thailand's labyrinthine visa system. So if you've.
Ed Knuth 00:00:10 Ever gotten a headache trying to keep up with the rules, conditions, and pitfalls of staying here legally, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:27 Sawat dee krap and welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 on the rarely used non Si visa, which any Canadian can get for two bottles of maple syrup and a hockey stick.
Ed Knuth 00:00:40 I would give you a visa for two bottles of maple syrup and a hockey stick.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:43 visa for Edland.
Ed Knuth 00:00:45 That's right. And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 26 years ago, fell in love with Thai people being casual about everything, even matters of life and death. So I never left.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:00 y pen rai, my serious.
Ed Knuth 00:01:02 You know. On the bonus, I talked about a buddy of mine who had a stroke, which is super tragic. But when we were in the ambulance, we were having trouble finding a hospital that would that would take him in the emergency room and the and the I was getting agitated and the the EMT said he's fine.
Ed Knuth 00:01:22 And I was like, he's unconscious. You know, he's nonverbal. You know, he's just like, relaxed, like my partner. I and I'm like, I'm like, no, no, my pain. Right. Like my like my like, you know, basically I want to say pen rai!
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:38 You know, ben rai.
Ed Knuth 00:01:39 Yeah. Not not my ben rai.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:41 Yeah. He pulls out a coconut from the thing with a machete. Sit back and relax.
Ed Knuth 00:01:46 Right.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:47 Don't worry about it.
Ed Knuth 00:01:48 That's pretty funny. I really want to give you a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about my eventful week, which saw me taking care of a friend who had a medical emergency, as I just mentioned, and what lessons we can learn from this to better prepare ourselves for the unknown.
Ed Knuth 00:02:29 Greg's experiences with an old school snail mail service at the main post office, and his visit to the wireless House Museum at one Bangkok, as well as a few thoughts on the crazy floods that Bangkok has just been through. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.
Greg Jorgensen 00:02:55 That's right. And as always, if you have a comment to show, idea or just want to say hi, head to bankrupt podcast. Com and click the little microphone button on the right to leave us a voicemail that will play on our show. Joe does that quite often. Our buddy Joe in New York. Be like Joe. Leave us a voicemail.
Ed Knuth 00:03:08 Yeah. Be like.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:08 Joe. Be like Joe. All right. On this episode, we are going to check in on how Thailand's visa situation is doing. Spoiler alert. Yikes. As any Thai follower knows, the visa regulations that all of us well, most of us follow are prone to change on short notice, which, to put it lightly, keeps us on our toes.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:29 Witness the recent rollback of the visa on arrival from 60 days to 30 days, which caused a lot of grumbling. Another wrinkle. For years, Ed and I have been saying that a huge win for Thailand would be a visa that gives people the freedom to come here and work without all the rigmarole and paperwork that people deal with to get a regular visa. And I guess they listened because the DTV visa seems to answer that call. Or does it? And if it does, for how long? And yet another wrinkle the slight elasticity the tourist visa used to offer has recently been rolled back to with surprise, surprise, some pretty silly unintended consequences, which seems to be a common side effect of a lot of decisions that come down from on high here in Thailand. So as you can see, lots to discuss. So and this is something that is kind of bubbling underneath the surface sort of constantly isn't it. And it spikes and frothy froth over whenever a big case happens or a big change is made. But visa issues are sort of a perennial thing that we all have to sort of keep on top of.
Ed Knuth 00:04:29 Agreed. We have to add it to the list of problems that never seem to get a permanent solution. Right. It's a little bit like flooding and other things that think things are okay for a while, and then it comes back too soon. And in the case of, in the case of the visa stuff, it's really it's really problems with the Thai bureaucracy, the fairly absurd rules that govern foreigners, especially those of us who want to live here. And now it's even affecting tourists. Like, typically, the paperwork has been very tourist friendly and expat unfriendly. This is the world that you and I navigated and managed to survive in. But that. But now even the tourist paperwork or the the the positive attitude towards tourists, has seemed to be waning. And, so I think part of it is, is a natural up and down thing that you mentioned. But I do think I have to say this. I do think Thailand is going through some kind of pretty nationalistic, kind of general anti foreigner phase.
Ed Knuth 00:05:33 I think it's very difficult to deny. Maybe it started with the Cambodian border thing, which sparked a lot of nationalism and kind of anti Cambodian sentiment unfortunately. And then there's been some directed criticism at certain groups of foreigners. But if you listen to the Prime Minister's recent speeches and rhetoric, it. He does throw in a hey, we still welcome people who follow the law. So he throws that in there like a politician. But then a lot of his criticisms are like very broad. Like he he just said, like, if you're going to die like don't do it here. Like go home first.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:13 Yeah.
Ed Knuth 00:06:13 Remember that like stuff. And, and I think we're just in a phase right now. Like we are in a phase where Thai people are blaming foreigners for more problems. And you and I might be the most honest foreigners, but in Thailand, where we've done whole shows on foreigners behaving badly. Right. You know, you know, so, you know, we know that foreigners sometimes come here and act like jackasses.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:36 yeah. Understatement. You know, when I hear something like that, my first instinct is to say no. I often poo poo a lot of these. Sort of like grand grand. Not conspiracy theories, but grand coordinated theories kind of things. But you are right. If you look at what's happening, there seems to be maybe not a coordinated shift, but certainly a pattern and a shift towards it. And it's the Cambodia thing. There's, you know, the Israeli thing, and then there's the.
Ed Knuth 00:07:02 Russians and the Chinese, like Russians and the.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:05 Chinese. Then you have someone like Santi, who's sort of resurfaced from the swamp that he lives in, to sort of stoke those nationalist flames. So there does seem to be this maybe resurgent undercurrent. And I don't think it's anything that's serious. It's not going to change the reality of day to day for many people, but it's just something that adds a little bit of texture and tension to the to the to the issue for sure.
Ed Knuth 00:07:29 Well, the truth is, and this is why we're doing the show, is it definitely changes the reality.
Ed Knuth 00:07:33 For some it's it's definitely basically there are people who did visa runs for years and always were able to get back into the country, and now they're getting denied. So this stuff is all over expat social media.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:46 Right, right. I mean, like, no one's going to come out and say like, that's it. No more foreigners.
Ed Knuth 00:07:49 Like, oh yeah, yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:50 You know, so I think like that.
Ed Knuth 00:07:52 Yeah. I mean, I don't know what I mean. It's an interesting question. Obviously the United States like with with Trump has you know, it's more become more anti-immigrant maybe. Maybe nationalism is rising around the world. I mean, maybe so it's good to be part of a worldwide trend. And we're and we're just stuck in the middle of it. Who knows? But it's just the reality and listeners out there, you should be aware of this. You know, always you should like, follow the law and dot your eyes and cross your t's. But I would say now even more like in the past, where they let certain things slide or certain regulations weren't enforced.
Ed Knuth 00:08:29 Like, now they're just going by the book and even more, you know. So now we've kind of they've, they've switched from like a kind of casual, oh, well just enforce half the laws. You know, now when it comes to, you know, you know that that that would be the Thai standard, you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:08:45 Where my pen and that's where the my pen right comes in.
Ed Knuth 00:08:48 That's right. but now they've just kind of switched the other direction. Now they're like, they're following every rule to the T and then maybe even pushing some things or adding some things. so we're just in a max enforcement situation, so, like, you can still come here. The tourist numbers are still good. The country is not shut down or anything like that. it's just you just as foreigners. Now. You just have to be just more careful that all your paperwork's in order. You've done everything required. You've researched it. Make sure you're not relying on information from six months ago. Don't do that.
Ed Knuth 00:09:24 Like, don't don't don't read some posts from six months ago that says, oh, you need A, B and C.
Greg Jorgensen 00:09:29 And ironically, don't listen to old podcasts too. This is going to become out of date.
Ed Knuth 00:09:34 Well, right. Yeah. Right. That's exactly right. But I mean like I'm gonna I'm going to get into some of the DTV changes, but who knows if you're listening to. So this is now a, what is it? It's end of September 2026. But if you're listening to this in January 2027, it might be different.
Greg Jorgensen 00:09:49 Yeah. Probably is. And, you know, all of this just reinforces my theory that I know we've talked about before that fairly or unfairly, as expats, as foreigners, we are all to a small degree ambassadors for all of expat them. So if you act like a jackass, all of us are going to be tarred with that brush to some extent.
Ed Knuth 00:10:11 Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, I mean, I yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Ed Knuth 00:10:15 We're like, we might have to share the blame with with some of the bad actors. which is true. So do you want to talk about your. You have a kind of an anecdote which reveals a larger thing. And then I wanted to talk a little bit about the the DTV thing.
Greg Jorgensen 00:10:28 Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm going to say this message specifically for one of our most loyal listeners. This is for Scott the pennant. And, you know, a lot of times we say like, you know, Canadians, Americans, we get a visa on arrival when we come to Thailand. Right. Technically not true. We don't get a visa when we come into Thailand. We are visa exempt, so we don't need a visa when we come into Thailand. But people often mash those two together and say you get a visa on arrival, when in fact we don't. So there we go. Scott, stop bugging me whenever I say visa on arrival. Excellent. But anyway, what changed was something interesting.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:06 And it was a story that I was being told from by a friend of mine about a very, very big company here in Thailand, which I won't name, but it employs a lot of people, it has a lot of recognition, and it does makes a lot of money. And normally when you wanted to come to Thailand for a little bit of business a day or two, you know, you were a you were a CEO and you wanted to meet your new office or you wanted to give a tour on the factory floor or something like that. You could just come in on a, on a, on a visa on arrival. and.
Ed Knuth 00:11:39 Essentially as a tourist coming as.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:41 A tourist. Yeah. And and you were sort of allow you, if you're here for a few days on to do on a business thing and then you're going to bounce back out again, no big deal. Might've been right. No need to go through the whole thing of getting a business visa and stuff like that. But they, recently changed that.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:57 So I was reading this story here. So let me just read this quick, quick, paragraph here. The old scheme, named Short term business, was widely used for factory walkthroughs, negotiations and installation support. The new notifications name only tourism tie work permit law still treats some meetings, seminars and negotiations as not by themselves work that does not convert to tourism in the right status when the trip exists because of business. If the trip exists because of business, the tourism only exemption is the wrong instrument. If the traveler will meet counterparties, inspect assets, supervise vendors or represent the company, plan a nonimmigrant visa in advance through the Thai visa portal, blah blah blah blah. So basically they're saying you used to be able to come in on a tourist visa, get a couple of quick business days under your belt, and then and then get out. As long as you weren't here for a long time. Can't do that anymore. You have a non visa.
Ed Knuth 00:12:55 Right. So listeners just to clarify what's going on here.
Ed Knuth 00:12:59 on paper. Thai laws are very strict about foreigners not being able to do work in Thailand. even technically even things like charity where you're not getting paid. It's actually illegal. even even foreigners standing up and playing music like jamming, is technically illegal. And historically, it's been largely unenforced. But again, recently it's been enforced. I heard a story about a bar in Hua Hin that is, that they stopped. They didn't actually arrest, but they stopped foreigners from standing up on, like, jamming with, like, a Thai band. Because they didn't. Because they didn't. Because they didn't have a work permit.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:36 The reason I heard this story was because the friend I was talking to, he works for this big company, and he said that a very senior executive was going to come in to Thailand to do a couple of days of business, and there was a lot of infrastructure and set up around it. It was going to be a big deal. But they said, no, actually, you can't just come in.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:54 You need a non B visa which takes.
Ed Knuth 00:13:56 And he didn't have time to get one. Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:58 So it takes weeks to organise. So instead of coming in and doing what he had planned, this guy actually just ended up joining via a video conference which was a bit less impactful.
Ed Knuth 00:14:08 Yeah. And so so Greg's story is basically about, you know, I don't know if the in this case, I'm not sure if the wording of the law change, but in the past they were just fairly flexible. In other words, you could come in on a tourist visa, do do a little bit of work for a couple of days or something. Yeah. And they they didn't make a big deal out of it. But now they're cracking down. We're just we're just in a high enforcement period where they're where they're going to be extra strict about it. Now they're in this case you could still come, but it's just requires extra preparation in time, which he didn't have, which he didn't have.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:44 Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:44 So I wonder here if the blame goes on the guy for not having enough foresight to sort of arrange this, or we can blame the government just for having this stupid rule in place. Or if is it like in the middle where the rule changed and the guy didn't have enough time to to, you know, get the non visa?
Ed Knuth 00:15:01 To be honest I I've, I'm more blame the government because I since I think it's a dumb rule and I mentioned this before I don't think it's fair. You know even if the rule has always been in place. I really hate it when people say, hey, you gotta you gotta know the law. We do have to know the law, but we also have to know what the standard enforcement policy is like. This is the way Thailand works. You know, it's just it's never been a strong rule of law country. And there's tons of laws that historically have not been enforced. So if the government is going to enforce it, they should have some transition period or announcement.
Ed Knuth 00:15:35 To be fair, I agree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, technically, I guess this guy should like have a better lawyer. Really. So in this case, you'd probably blame you should probably blame his his his lawyer. This is what lawyers. This is what we mean. I say we because I'm a lawyer. I haven't practiced in a long time. We're supposed to be on top of this stuff. We're supposed to send the email out saying, hey, they're enforcing this thing now, you know, you got six, you got a six weeks ahead of time. You better do this paperwork.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:00 Let me let me ask you a legal question, though. So there's the law, and then there's this sort of wiggle room that the law is allowed to have because it's just easier to allow that wiggle room. You know, like I said, if everyone here in Bangkok drove to their cars and motorcycles, to the letter of the law, it'd be anarchy. Right, right, right.
Ed Knuth 00:16:16 Right, right.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:17 But does that wiggle room then becomes sort of legit legal basis in the eyes of the law for enforcement of future laws? You know what I mean?
Ed Knuth 00:16:27 I mean, I would say unfortunately, usually it does not. So usually in court it's going to depend on the letter of the law. But there are there is a in the US, at least we have a policy or an exception called like selective enforcement. So if you if you can show that, hey, this is normally not enforced, but your enforcement is against me because I'm black or because whatever. Okay then. So we do have like a remedy called selective enforcement. where where, where you can find a pattern of discrimination in how enforcement takes place, but in general. But in general, the problem is, once you get into the courtroom, it is, of course, that's where you're supposed to be following the letter of the law. So, so to me, my, my my issue is with, the fairness of the whole thing.
Ed Knuth 00:17:14 but this is what, you know, this is why we have the podcast. Like, we're trying to get the word out so everyone is informed, like, hey, you got to follow the letter of the law now, and, and you have to pay attention to how it's being enforced. And even, you know, even sometimes they're adding, you know, you know, I'm going to talk about the DTV visa now. They're even like adding things that maybe not even originally in the law. So you just got to stay up to date, right?
Greg Jorgensen 00:17:38 Yeah. The onus is on you. That's right.
Ed Knuth 00:17:42 yeah. Let me jump into this DTV thing. So you and I talked for years about how there should be some type of visa option for digital nomads. what I mentioned before was that. Historically, Thailand has been very harsh on people who come here to work for any reason. And essentially digital nomads for years were working illegally in Thailand, but again, it was just rarely enforced. So if you came here and you're sitting up in Chiangmai on your laptop and you're doing work that's illegal, even if it's charity work, you know, you know, so and but it was never enforced, so.
Greg Jorgensen 00:18:20 So you couldn't have vegetables on an elephant farm or something illegal.
Ed Knuth 00:18:23 Illegal, illegal. and, so, but this created a problem where obviously the, the reality was not matching the law. And so the Thai government, to their credit, after years people begging, they actually created a visa to capture this type of situation. Now it's only it's not necessarily only for digital nomads. It could cover a couple different reasons. But essentially this is a visa where you can come here and work digitally, so it has to be employment outside of Thailand. So this is not coming here to do work in Thailand with a Thai company. You're physically in Thailand, but like many people the your place of employment is outside the country. Or it also covers coming here to do various like soft power things like study Muay Thai for six months or a year, or take Thai cooking classes. So it overlaps potentially with things like, you know, previously there's an education visa. So this allows people to this allows people to come here long term and participate in these activities, in a way that previously would be difficult, because you're not a normal tourist, but you're also not coming here to work like on a non-immigrant visa either.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:42 Right now, I think it's fantastic. I think it's about time. They should also expand it. They should have, you know, marijuana, horticulture, visa, learning how to import Thai weed. They should have, you know, Muay Thai or massage or whatever.
Ed Knuth 00:19:55 Well, basically the DTV, it works roughly like this, and this never exists before. So, you know, Greg and I have been here for a long time, 26 years for me in my case. And this until what we got the DTV about, what, a year, 1 or 2 years ago. It hasn't been that long, right?
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:10 Two at most, I think.
Ed Knuth 00:20:11 Yeah, yeah. Basically it works this way. it's, a visa that potentially lasts up to five years. So it's a five year deal, which is incredible, but it lasts for 180 days at a time. And so you get 180 days, which is a long time, six months. typically tourists got 60 days and now it's been reduced 30.
Ed Knuth 00:20:33 So to get 180 days is huge. And then you get an automatic one time renewal for another 180 days inside Thailand. And I think it's something like 2500 or 2600 baht, something like that. So you get a renewal. So essentially you get a year.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:49 It's a hell of a deal.
Ed Knuth 00:20:51 Yeah. It never existed before. And again, you're allowed to work. but it has to be for an external, you know, some something outside the country. But then after a year, you have to leave, but then you're allowed to come back again. And you can do that for up to five years.
Greg Jorgensen 00:21:09 That's great.
Ed Knuth 00:21:10 Yeah. So, so, so basically you get five years with, with like yearly exit. I think I think that's how it works. I mean, the bottom line is what I want to talk about today is how they've changed some of the enforcement things and made things a little bit, a little bit stricter. All right. Good. So in the past you could essentially at the end of your year you could actually not.
Ed Knuth 00:21:34 These details are so specific. I'm not even not even sure I 100% understand it now. I think I think what they changed is that up until the end of August this year, you could actually apply for the DTV. Even if you were inside Thailand already as a tourist or just from any other country. So let's say you leave Thailand and go to Cambodia. You could then apply to no matter your nationality, you could apply from Cambodia. But they changed the rule. That said, you can only apply for a DTV in your where you have a permanent residence or where you have nationality. So for me, in my case, as an American, I would I can't apply. I would have to go back to the US to apply for the DTV. I see so so essentially you can't you now you can't get a DTV on a visa run. Like, you know, you can't just cross the border, apply unless you're a Cambodian citizen, you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:32 Well, I mean, you could call the trip back to Canada a visa run for me, I guess technically, but yeah, be a hell of a trip.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:37 A hell of a visa.
Ed Knuth 00:22:38 Yeah, it would be a long one. and they're also enforcing now. God, what is the. Let me double check the value. it was actually higher than I thought you actually need. You have to show assets of 500,000 Thai baht, which is about, which is about 15,000 USD. And so this is not an income. It's in it's got to be sitting in a bank. And they, before August and they were kind of very loose about it, like, you know, how like, for example, you have one buddy with money and you ask him, hey, can you transfer money into my account? I gotta apply for this thing.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:18 Sure. Like a bank statement. Then you transfer the money back.
Ed Knuth 00:23:21 Yeah. That's right. So, as of last month, they started to be very strict about it. So now they're looking at your financial history, so they're asking for more documents. So there they they won't allow it to be like a short term borrowing situation.
Ed Knuth 00:23:35 You have to kind of show that the assets are legitimately yours. And you know, if if you're an older person, you know, 500,000, it's not that much. But a lot of digital nomads are young. I mean, it's kind of a young phenomenon. It's like a 20s. It's like a 20s thing, right? Mostly. I mean, it depends. I mean, it could be anyone. Of course. And, so I, I didn't have I mean, I'm not sure I really have 15,000. I have $15,000, but I don't have I don't have it like sitting in one account.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:03 Yeah. It's not collecting dust. Put it that way.
Ed Knuth 00:24:05 Yeah, yeah. That's right. so that's a pretty strict requirement if you think about it. Especially since you can't just have your mom transfer it for you. You know what I mean?
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:14 Man, when I was in my 20s, I had, like, 50 bucks and a stack of comic books.
Ed Knuth 00:24:20 Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Ed Knuth 00:24:22 apparently different countries, because the Thai government has just made this requirement in general. It turns out each country now is interpreting it differently. And so apparently the the Thai mission in D.C. is asking people for three months of bank statements. So you have to you have to show three months of bank statements to show that, hey, this money is legit. So I suppose maybe you could have your your mom transfer money in and then you could wait three months or something?
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:53 Sure. Why not?
Ed Knuth 00:24:54 You know, but then. But then they're going to ask you, you know, where where you got the money.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:57 But then this becomes sort of like a long game you got to play, right? Like you got to plan this many months in advance.
Ed Knuth 00:25:02 And another new thing which did not exist until last month is you have to do a criminal background check, which I, which I think is a it's not a crazy requirement. You don't want to give criminals long term visas, but it did not exist in the DTV when it originally started.
Ed Knuth 00:25:20 And depending on the country you're in in the US, you have to get an FBI background check, which is not easy to do. You have to be fingerprinted. There's months of delay.
Greg Jorgensen 00:25:30 Wow.
Ed Knuth 00:25:31 So the bottom line is, the DTV. Now, it just has more barriers to it. It still exists. You can still do it, but they've just kind of raised the fence up. It's, you know, it's like they've added some some more hurdles to the process. and, I think it's part of again. I see pluses and minuses. It is part of this rule of law. We've talked about how the Thai government is cracking down on scam centres. They're cracking down on shady business practices of foreigners like the nominees structures, like they're just they're basically the Eye of Sauron now is on foreigners, you know, and and foreigners now you better really be following the law completely. And even if in the past they allowed certain activities, now they're not going to allow it. so basically, get your shit together.
Ed Knuth 00:26:24 That's the that's the moral of the story. Plan ahead if you want to come here on a DTV. I think to me, looking at these requirements, it's a six month project. I think of getting everything together, the money, the background check. You know, you're probably looking at six months. I, I'm thinking to get it all set up properly.
Greg Jorgensen 00:26:45 Do you think this is going to stick? Like, you know, we've been here long enough that we've seen sort of the ebb and flow of these kind of things. You know, I remember back in the day, I used to do visa runs to bomb out to Cambodia, come back the same day. And, you know, there were there were guys who had been doing that for years, every 90 days. Years. Yep. And, you know, they cracked down and they're like, you can't do it for more than five times and then you can't do it overland. And then so people started flying. And now you can't do a flying.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:10 So you know you see these.
Ed Knuth 00:27:11 Things two times now I think they're saying two times.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:14 So that that did stick around. Hey.
Ed Knuth 00:27:15 So it did. Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:17 Yeah. So, I don't know I don't know how long all of this is going to stick around or what the next phase of it is going to be. But, I, I do like the fact that the DTV visa exists, and like a lot of things in Thailand, it's not perfect. It's far from it. And it's frustrating and silly sometimes, but the fact that it exists says a lot about the state of things, you know.
Ed Knuth 00:27:40 Agreed. And when I was, you know, I've been researching this. And when I was checking the like the chatter, the expat chatter. A number of people pointed out that people were abusing the DTB. Like like, you know, because it's longer. It got very popular, very fast. Like for a lot of people, this is the dream thing, but that also attracts people who want to do shady or illegal stuff here.
Ed Knuth 00:28:06 Yeah. You know, so we're imagining a 24 year old who's got who, who? The digital nomad, some cool dude, like drinking espressos and working on some AI project in San Francisco. But he's doing it from Chiang Mai. That's like our image, you know, but it's also attracting, like, pseudo mafia dudes.
Greg Jorgensen 00:28:23 Who we're not thinking of the, the, the the Russian assassin Sergey who comes here.
Ed Knuth 00:28:27 That's right, that's right. We're not we're not thinking of, like, money launderers who are like, oh, holy shit, I can get a five year thing, you know? So, I'm I'm I'm all for it. You know, as long as they're fair about the enforcement and make announcements. And so we're, we're we're we're doing this as a public service thing. And, you know, I just had a buddy come to Thailand for the first time in 23 years. No problems. Great time. You know, he just had his shit together. I gave him a little bit of advice, but he just.
Ed Knuth 00:28:57 He came as a tourist. As an American. No. No issues, no problems. Great time. So Thailand is still open for business. It's still welcoming tourists. It's still welcoming potential expats. It's just, you know, dot your eyes, cross your t's, get up to date like enforcement things so that that might be the most important lesson. It's like you got to get online, you know, make sure AI you know, sometimes AI has outdated information like you have to you have to tell AI do check this week. You have to tell it to it, and then you can see it do the web search.
Greg Jorgensen 00:29:33 You know, I I'm I'm a huge AI guy, as are you. But for something like this I would specifically avoid AI. I would go to a legitimate website with a history.
Ed Knuth 00:29:42 Well, yeah. If you. Well, like a real person that you trust is better than AI for sure. Like someone who like if you talk to a lawyer, like I said, it's a lawyer.
Ed Knuth 00:29:50 It's a lawyer's job to keep up to date. It's literally what we're supposed to be doing. but if you don't have access to that, to me, I've had good luck with AI. If I tell it, if I say, as of today, I want to know X, and then then you can see it do web searches. So you have to push it and verify it. so I think AI is still possible. so it's weird. So I guess that our message is somewhere in between. We're not saying don't come to Thailand. We're not saying that, Thailand hates foreigners now. Like, that's not the vibe. That's not the vibe.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:25 No, no.
Ed Knuth 00:30:26 But but we are going through some type of phase where where the government is pretty pissed off at a bunch of foreigners. Let's say that.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:35 Right.
Ed Knuth 00:30:35 You know, and and that has trickled over into the general population where I've seen more anti foreigner posts just just by like random noise.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:45 Yeah. I generally think my takeaway from this is that this is all sort of part of the two steps forward, half a step back, one step back, two steps forward of getting to the point where it should be.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:58 I mean, a lot of this stuff is going to go online. It's going to be digital. It's going to be much more efficient, which also has a side effect of removing some of the the corruption out of it. You know, if all this stuff is traceable and trackable, right, you know, you're going to have less, less hands under the table kind of thing. So I generally think this is a positive idea and a positive trajectory. But like with a lot of things in Thailand, like I said, it's it's not perfect. It's frustrating, it's slow, but ultimately it's, you know, what's the quote the, the, the the bureaucratic arc of Thailand bends towards efficiency.
Ed Knuth 00:31:34 I hope so. I hope that's true, that, you know, sometimes you get the you know, it's like, remember when was it was that like a year ago? Remember when they announced, we're going to enforce the helmet laws? Like we're going to be dead serious about it. And it lasted about two weeks or something.
Ed Knuth 00:31:51 And then now everyone's riding without a helmet. So, you know, so in this case, you know, we've mentioned it before, this rule of law phase, they're in it. It has lasted now more than a year. Like we started talking about like the nominee crackdown started a long time ago. So I think that this is serious. they're not joking. And I don't think this is a temporary phase.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:15 Right? Caveat emptor.
Ed Knuth 00:32:17 Agreed.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:18 Agreed. Yeah. Nice. All right. Let's do a little bit of love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discuss to decide if it's something that we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept it is something that we just have to learn to live with, no matter how we feel about it. And add here on stage, the spotlight is on you. What do you got?
Ed Knuth 00:32:37 All right. This is a little bit funny, and to be honest, I'm not even sure this is unique to Thailand.
Ed Knuth 00:32:43 It's just a little a little anecdote that comes from my buddy who I just mentioned, who had a good stay here, and he mentioned a weird thing about Thai hotel room. So he he was in Bangkok, and then he went down to Hua Hin and he mentioned something about his hotel room, which was very funny that I've noticed myself and he he's probably more of a traveler than I am. And so he thought it was a little bit of a Thai thing or something that he hadn't seen as much. So I'm just going to throw this out there. Greg, what's your take on bathrooms in hotels where there's like a glass wall next to the shower so that if someone is like in the in the hotel room, they can actually see into the shower through a glass wall. Like I think this is a Thai thing. Like there's, I've been in many hotel rooms like this and I just don't travel enough to know if it's true in Japan pan or Georgia or or Latvia, I don't know, but my my buddies had two different hotel rooms and he was like, dude, what's up with the the glass wall?
Greg Jorgensen 00:33:53 I, I will say I was just in Vietnam recently and, me and our buddy Andrew, we shared a room and it had a glass wall into this.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:01 Oh. Did. Okay.
Ed Knuth 00:34:02 Yeah. Oh, you and Andrew?
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:04 Yeah, it was very sexy.
Ed Knuth 00:34:05 That's hilarious. Okay. That's hilarious. So this might not be exclusively Thai, but what are you are you into that? Are you you you like showing off? Are you an exhibitionist? Are you an exhibitionist?
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:16 Not when I'm with Andrew. No, but I mean, if I'm staying in a hotel room and it's, you know, nine times out of ten, it's with my family. So, you know, I'm not really that concerned.
Ed Knuth 00:34:24 Well, what if you're with your your lovely wife? That that could be cool.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:29 Well, yeah, I'm far past the days of that being any sort of romantic. Hey, you want to put the blind know? Keep it down. Thanks. Just for a shower. But you know it does. It's silly, I think. I don't get it. Like, what's the upside of that? Like, is it really supposed to be something romantic? Because if it is.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:48 Why don't you just come out of the bathroom and go into the bedroom, you know? Right? Right, right. but usually they have a blind. Like a blind.
Ed Knuth 00:34:55 Sometimes they do, but not always. They don't always have a blind. So sometimes it's just there's sometimes it's just a glass wall and you can't do anything about it.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:01 If they don't, that's messed up. That's stupid. But if there's a blind, I guess so. But it does see the question. Why have a glass wall at all? Why not just put up a tile wall?
Ed Knuth 00:35:11 Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:11 Well, what's what's that glass wall doing for anyone?
Ed Knuth 00:35:14 It's supposed to be. I guess it's supposed to be cool or chic or something.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:17 No, it's supposed to be creepy and weird, I guess.
Ed Knuth 00:35:21 So, what are you you're you're live with.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:23 I'm gonna live with. But I live with with a giant question mark. It's sort of like, why, why? Why is this necessary?
Ed Knuth 00:35:30 I I'm probably in the same boat.
Ed Knuth 00:35:31 I'm gonna I'm going to go live with it. That's fine.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:34 That's a good one.
Ed Knuth 00:35:35 Okay. Final thanks to our patrons who support the show, patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling, knowing that they're helping and our never ending quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. We're Bangkok podcast on social media. Bangkok podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast. Com. We'd love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're a PR agent who pitches clients who have no connection to Bangkok.
Greg Jorgensen 00:36:07 That's right. Also, listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website and we'll put that on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky at grey. Thank you for listening. Everyone will see you back here next week.
Ed Knuth 00:36:17 No doubt.
Ed Knuth 00:00:10 Ever gotten a headache trying to keep up with the rules, conditions, and pitfalls of staying here legally, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:27 Sawat dee krap and welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 on the rarely used non Si visa, which any Canadian can get for two bottles of maple syrup and a hockey stick.
Ed Knuth 00:00:40 I would give you a visa for two bottles of maple syrup and a hockey stick.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:43 visa for Edland.
Ed Knuth 00:00:45 That's right. And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 26 years ago, fell in love with Thai people being casual about everything, even matters of life and death. So I never left.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:00 y pen rai, my serious.
Ed Knuth 00:01:02 You know. On the bonus, I talked about a buddy of mine who had a stroke, which is super tragic. But when we were in the ambulance, we were having trouble finding a hospital that would that would take him in the emergency room and the and the I was getting agitated and the the EMT said he's fine.
Ed Knuth 00:01:22 And I was like, he's unconscious. You know, he's nonverbal. You know, he's just like, relaxed, like my partner. I and I'm like, I'm like, no, no, my pain. Right. Like my like my like, you know, basically I want to say pen rai!
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:38 You know, ben rai.
Ed Knuth 00:01:39 Yeah. Not not my ben rai.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:41 Yeah. He pulls out a coconut from the thing with a machete. Sit back and relax.
Ed Knuth 00:01:46 Right.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:47 Don't worry about it.
Ed Knuth 00:01:48 That's pretty funny. I really want to give you a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about my eventful week, which saw me taking care of a friend who had a medical emergency, as I just mentioned, and what lessons we can learn from this to better prepare ourselves for the unknown.
Ed Knuth 00:02:29 Greg's experiences with an old school snail mail service at the main post office, and his visit to the wireless House Museum at one Bangkok, as well as a few thoughts on the crazy floods that Bangkok has just been through. To learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.
Greg Jorgensen 00:02:55 That's right. And as always, if you have a comment to show, idea or just want to say hi, head to bankrupt podcast. Com and click the little microphone button on the right to leave us a voicemail that will play on our show. Joe does that quite often. Our buddy Joe in New York. Be like Joe. Leave us a voicemail.
Ed Knuth 00:03:08 Yeah. Be like.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:08 Joe. Be like Joe. All right. On this episode, we are going to check in on how Thailand's visa situation is doing. Spoiler alert. Yikes. As any Thai follower knows, the visa regulations that all of us well, most of us follow are prone to change on short notice, which, to put it lightly, keeps us on our toes.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:29 Witness the recent rollback of the visa on arrival from 60 days to 30 days, which caused a lot of grumbling. Another wrinkle. For years, Ed and I have been saying that a huge win for Thailand would be a visa that gives people the freedom to come here and work without all the rigmarole and paperwork that people deal with to get a regular visa. And I guess they listened because the DTV visa seems to answer that call. Or does it? And if it does, for how long? And yet another wrinkle the slight elasticity the tourist visa used to offer has recently been rolled back to with surprise, surprise, some pretty silly unintended consequences, which seems to be a common side effect of a lot of decisions that come down from on high here in Thailand. So as you can see, lots to discuss. So and this is something that is kind of bubbling underneath the surface sort of constantly isn't it. And it spikes and frothy froth over whenever a big case happens or a big change is made. But visa issues are sort of a perennial thing that we all have to sort of keep on top of.
Ed Knuth 00:04:29 Agreed. We have to add it to the list of problems that never seem to get a permanent solution. Right. It's a little bit like flooding and other things that think things are okay for a while, and then it comes back too soon. And in the case of, in the case of the visa stuff, it's really it's really problems with the Thai bureaucracy, the fairly absurd rules that govern foreigners, especially those of us who want to live here. And now it's even affecting tourists. Like, typically, the paperwork has been very tourist friendly and expat unfriendly. This is the world that you and I navigated and managed to survive in. But that. But now even the tourist paperwork or the the the positive attitude towards tourists, has seemed to be waning. And, so I think part of it is, is a natural up and down thing that you mentioned. But I do think I have to say this. I do think Thailand is going through some kind of pretty nationalistic, kind of general anti foreigner phase.
Ed Knuth 00:05:33 I think it's very difficult to deny. Maybe it started with the Cambodian border thing, which sparked a lot of nationalism and kind of anti Cambodian sentiment unfortunately. And then there's been some directed criticism at certain groups of foreigners. But if you listen to the Prime Minister's recent speeches and rhetoric, it. He does throw in a hey, we still welcome people who follow the law. So he throws that in there like a politician. But then a lot of his criticisms are like very broad. Like he he just said, like, if you're going to die like don't do it here. Like go home first.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:13 Yeah.
Ed Knuth 00:06:13 Remember that like stuff. And, and I think we're just in a phase right now. Like we are in a phase where Thai people are blaming foreigners for more problems. And you and I might be the most honest foreigners, but in Thailand, where we've done whole shows on foreigners behaving badly. Right. You know, you know, so, you know, we know that foreigners sometimes come here and act like jackasses.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:36 yeah. Understatement. You know, when I hear something like that, my first instinct is to say no. I often poo poo a lot of these. Sort of like grand grand. Not conspiracy theories, but grand coordinated theories kind of things. But you are right. If you look at what's happening, there seems to be maybe not a coordinated shift, but certainly a pattern and a shift towards it. And it's the Cambodia thing. There's, you know, the Israeli thing, and then there's the.
Ed Knuth 00:07:02 Russians and the Chinese, like Russians and the.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:05 Chinese. Then you have someone like Santi, who's sort of resurfaced from the swamp that he lives in, to sort of stoke those nationalist flames. So there does seem to be this maybe resurgent undercurrent. And I don't think it's anything that's serious. It's not going to change the reality of day to day for many people, but it's just something that adds a little bit of texture and tension to the to the to the issue for sure.
Ed Knuth 00:07:29 Well, the truth is, and this is why we're doing the show, is it definitely changes the reality.
Ed Knuth 00:07:33 For some it's it's definitely basically there are people who did visa runs for years and always were able to get back into the country, and now they're getting denied. So this stuff is all over expat social media.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:46 Right, right. I mean, like, no one's going to come out and say like, that's it. No more foreigners.
Ed Knuth 00:07:49 Like, oh yeah, yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:50 You know, so I think like that.
Ed Knuth 00:07:52 Yeah. I mean, I don't know what I mean. It's an interesting question. Obviously the United States like with with Trump has you know, it's more become more anti-immigrant maybe. Maybe nationalism is rising around the world. I mean, maybe so it's good to be part of a worldwide trend. And we're and we're just stuck in the middle of it. Who knows? But it's just the reality and listeners out there, you should be aware of this. You know, always you should like, follow the law and dot your eyes and cross your t's. But I would say now even more like in the past, where they let certain things slide or certain regulations weren't enforced.
Ed Knuth 00:08:29 Like, now they're just going by the book and even more, you know. So now we've kind of they've, they've switched from like a kind of casual, oh, well just enforce half the laws. You know, now when it comes to, you know, you know that that that would be the Thai standard, you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:08:45 Where my pen and that's where the my pen right comes in.
Ed Knuth 00:08:48 That's right. but now they've just kind of switched the other direction. Now they're like, they're following every rule to the T and then maybe even pushing some things or adding some things. so we're just in a max enforcement situation, so, like, you can still come here. The tourist numbers are still good. The country is not shut down or anything like that. it's just you just as foreigners. Now. You just have to be just more careful that all your paperwork's in order. You've done everything required. You've researched it. Make sure you're not relying on information from six months ago. Don't do that.
Ed Knuth 00:09:24 Like, don't don't don't read some posts from six months ago that says, oh, you need A, B and C.
Greg Jorgensen 00:09:29 And ironically, don't listen to old podcasts too. This is going to become out of date.
Ed Knuth 00:09:34 Well, right. Yeah. Right. That's exactly right. But I mean like I'm gonna I'm going to get into some of the DTV changes, but who knows if you're listening to. So this is now a, what is it? It's end of September 2026. But if you're listening to this in January 2027, it might be different.
Greg Jorgensen 00:09:49 Yeah. Probably is. And, you know, all of this just reinforces my theory that I know we've talked about before that fairly or unfairly, as expats, as foreigners, we are all to a small degree ambassadors for all of expat them. So if you act like a jackass, all of us are going to be tarred with that brush to some extent.
Ed Knuth 00:10:11 Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, I mean, I yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Ed Knuth 00:10:15 We're like, we might have to share the blame with with some of the bad actors. which is true. So do you want to talk about your. You have a kind of an anecdote which reveals a larger thing. And then I wanted to talk a little bit about the the DTV thing.
Greg Jorgensen 00:10:28 Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm going to say this message specifically for one of our most loyal listeners. This is for Scott the pennant. And, you know, a lot of times we say like, you know, Canadians, Americans, we get a visa on arrival when we come to Thailand. Right. Technically not true. We don't get a visa when we come into Thailand. We are visa exempt, so we don't need a visa when we come into Thailand. But people often mash those two together and say you get a visa on arrival, when in fact we don't. So there we go. Scott, stop bugging me whenever I say visa on arrival. Excellent. But anyway, what changed was something interesting.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:06 And it was a story that I was being told from by a friend of mine about a very, very big company here in Thailand, which I won't name, but it employs a lot of people, it has a lot of recognition, and it does makes a lot of money. And normally when you wanted to come to Thailand for a little bit of business a day or two, you know, you were a you were a CEO and you wanted to meet your new office or you wanted to give a tour on the factory floor or something like that. You could just come in on a, on a, on a visa on arrival. and.
Ed Knuth 00:11:39 Essentially as a tourist coming as.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:41 A tourist. Yeah. And and you were sort of allow you, if you're here for a few days on to do on a business thing and then you're going to bounce back out again, no big deal. Might've been right. No need to go through the whole thing of getting a business visa and stuff like that. But they, recently changed that.
Greg Jorgensen 00:11:57 So I was reading this story here. So let me just read this quick, quick, paragraph here. The old scheme, named Short term business, was widely used for factory walkthroughs, negotiations and installation support. The new notifications name only tourism tie work permit law still treats some meetings, seminars and negotiations as not by themselves work that does not convert to tourism in the right status when the trip exists because of business. If the trip exists because of business, the tourism only exemption is the wrong instrument. If the traveler will meet counterparties, inspect assets, supervise vendors or represent the company, plan a nonimmigrant visa in advance through the Thai visa portal, blah blah blah blah. So basically they're saying you used to be able to come in on a tourist visa, get a couple of quick business days under your belt, and then and then get out. As long as you weren't here for a long time. Can't do that anymore. You have a non visa.
Ed Knuth 00:12:55 Right. So listeners just to clarify what's going on here.
Ed Knuth 00:12:59 on paper. Thai laws are very strict about foreigners not being able to do work in Thailand. even technically even things like charity where you're not getting paid. It's actually illegal. even even foreigners standing up and playing music like jamming, is technically illegal. And historically, it's been largely unenforced. But again, recently it's been enforced. I heard a story about a bar in Hua Hin that is, that they stopped. They didn't actually arrest, but they stopped foreigners from standing up on, like, jamming with, like, a Thai band. Because they didn't. Because they didn't. Because they didn't have a work permit.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:36 The reason I heard this story was because the friend I was talking to, he works for this big company, and he said that a very senior executive was going to come in to Thailand to do a couple of days of business, and there was a lot of infrastructure and set up around it. It was going to be a big deal. But they said, no, actually, you can't just come in.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:54 You need a non B visa which takes.
Ed Knuth 00:13:56 And he didn't have time to get one. Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:58 So it takes weeks to organise. So instead of coming in and doing what he had planned, this guy actually just ended up joining via a video conference which was a bit less impactful.
Ed Knuth 00:14:08 Yeah. And so so Greg's story is basically about, you know, I don't know if the in this case, I'm not sure if the wording of the law change, but in the past they were just fairly flexible. In other words, you could come in on a tourist visa, do do a little bit of work for a couple of days or something. Yeah. And they they didn't make a big deal out of it. But now they're cracking down. We're just we're just in a high enforcement period where they're where they're going to be extra strict about it. Now they're in this case you could still come, but it's just requires extra preparation in time, which he didn't have, which he didn't have.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:44 Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:44 So I wonder here if the blame goes on the guy for not having enough foresight to sort of arrange this, or we can blame the government just for having this stupid rule in place. Or if is it like in the middle where the rule changed and the guy didn't have enough time to to, you know, get the non visa?
Ed Knuth 00:15:01 To be honest I I've, I'm more blame the government because I since I think it's a dumb rule and I mentioned this before I don't think it's fair. You know even if the rule has always been in place. I really hate it when people say, hey, you gotta you gotta know the law. We do have to know the law, but we also have to know what the standard enforcement policy is like. This is the way Thailand works. You know, it's just it's never been a strong rule of law country. And there's tons of laws that historically have not been enforced. So if the government is going to enforce it, they should have some transition period or announcement.
Ed Knuth 00:15:35 To be fair, I agree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, technically, I guess this guy should like have a better lawyer. Really. So in this case, you'd probably blame you should probably blame his his his lawyer. This is what lawyers. This is what we mean. I say we because I'm a lawyer. I haven't practiced in a long time. We're supposed to be on top of this stuff. We're supposed to send the email out saying, hey, they're enforcing this thing now, you know, you got six, you got a six weeks ahead of time. You better do this paperwork.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:00 Let me let me ask you a legal question, though. So there's the law, and then there's this sort of wiggle room that the law is allowed to have because it's just easier to allow that wiggle room. You know, like I said, if everyone here in Bangkok drove to their cars and motorcycles, to the letter of the law, it'd be anarchy. Right, right, right.
Ed Knuth 00:16:16 Right, right.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:17 But does that wiggle room then becomes sort of legit legal basis in the eyes of the law for enforcement of future laws? You know what I mean?
Ed Knuth 00:16:27 I mean, I would say unfortunately, usually it does not. So usually in court it's going to depend on the letter of the law. But there are there is a in the US, at least we have a policy or an exception called like selective enforcement. So if you if you can show that, hey, this is normally not enforced, but your enforcement is against me because I'm black or because whatever. Okay then. So we do have like a remedy called selective enforcement. where where, where you can find a pattern of discrimination in how enforcement takes place, but in general. But in general, the problem is, once you get into the courtroom, it is, of course, that's where you're supposed to be following the letter of the law. So, so to me, my, my my issue is with, the fairness of the whole thing.
Ed Knuth 00:17:14 but this is what, you know, this is why we have the podcast. Like, we're trying to get the word out so everyone is informed, like, hey, you got to follow the letter of the law now, and, and you have to pay attention to how it's being enforced. And even, you know, even sometimes they're adding, you know, you know, I'm going to talk about the DTV visa now. They're even like adding things that maybe not even originally in the law. So you just got to stay up to date, right?
Greg Jorgensen 00:17:38 Yeah. The onus is on you. That's right.
Ed Knuth 00:17:42 yeah. Let me jump into this DTV thing. So you and I talked for years about how there should be some type of visa option for digital nomads. what I mentioned before was that. Historically, Thailand has been very harsh on people who come here to work for any reason. And essentially digital nomads for years were working illegally in Thailand, but again, it was just rarely enforced. So if you came here and you're sitting up in Chiangmai on your laptop and you're doing work that's illegal, even if it's charity work, you know, you know, so and but it was never enforced, so.
Greg Jorgensen 00:18:20 So you couldn't have vegetables on an elephant farm or something illegal.
Ed Knuth 00:18:23 Illegal, illegal. and, so, but this created a problem where obviously the, the reality was not matching the law. And so the Thai government, to their credit, after years people begging, they actually created a visa to capture this type of situation. Now it's only it's not necessarily only for digital nomads. It could cover a couple different reasons. But essentially this is a visa where you can come here and work digitally, so it has to be employment outside of Thailand. So this is not coming here to do work in Thailand with a Thai company. You're physically in Thailand, but like many people the your place of employment is outside the country. Or it also covers coming here to do various like soft power things like study Muay Thai for six months or a year, or take Thai cooking classes. So it overlaps potentially with things like, you know, previously there's an education visa. So this allows people to this allows people to come here long term and participate in these activities, in a way that previously would be difficult, because you're not a normal tourist, but you're also not coming here to work like on a non-immigrant visa either.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:42 Right now, I think it's fantastic. I think it's about time. They should also expand it. They should have, you know, marijuana, horticulture, visa, learning how to import Thai weed. They should have, you know, Muay Thai or massage or whatever.
Ed Knuth 00:19:55 Well, basically the DTV, it works roughly like this, and this never exists before. So, you know, Greg and I have been here for a long time, 26 years for me in my case. And this until what we got the DTV about, what, a year, 1 or 2 years ago. It hasn't been that long, right?
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:10 Two at most, I think.
Ed Knuth 00:20:11 Yeah, yeah. Basically it works this way. it's, a visa that potentially lasts up to five years. So it's a five year deal, which is incredible, but it lasts for 180 days at a time. And so you get 180 days, which is a long time, six months. typically tourists got 60 days and now it's been reduced 30.
Ed Knuth 00:20:33 So to get 180 days is huge. And then you get an automatic one time renewal for another 180 days inside Thailand. And I think it's something like 2500 or 2600 baht, something like that. So you get a renewal. So essentially you get a year.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:49 It's a hell of a deal.
Ed Knuth 00:20:51 Yeah. It never existed before. And again, you're allowed to work. but it has to be for an external, you know, some something outside the country. But then after a year, you have to leave, but then you're allowed to come back again. And you can do that for up to five years.
Greg Jorgensen 00:21:09 That's great.
Ed Knuth 00:21:10 Yeah. So, so, so basically you get five years with, with like yearly exit. I think I think that's how it works. I mean, the bottom line is what I want to talk about today is how they've changed some of the enforcement things and made things a little bit, a little bit stricter. All right. Good. So in the past you could essentially at the end of your year you could actually not.
Ed Knuth 00:21:34 These details are so specific. I'm not even not even sure I 100% understand it now. I think I think what they changed is that up until the end of August this year, you could actually apply for the DTV. Even if you were inside Thailand already as a tourist or just from any other country. So let's say you leave Thailand and go to Cambodia. You could then apply to no matter your nationality, you could apply from Cambodia. But they changed the rule. That said, you can only apply for a DTV in your where you have a permanent residence or where you have nationality. So for me, in my case, as an American, I would I can't apply. I would have to go back to the US to apply for the DTV. I see so so essentially you can't you now you can't get a DTV on a visa run. Like, you know, you can't just cross the border, apply unless you're a Cambodian citizen, you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:32 Well, I mean, you could call the trip back to Canada a visa run for me, I guess technically, but yeah, be a hell of a trip.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:37 A hell of a visa.
Ed Knuth 00:22:38 Yeah, it would be a long one. and they're also enforcing now. God, what is the. Let me double check the value. it was actually higher than I thought you actually need. You have to show assets of 500,000 Thai baht, which is about, which is about 15,000 USD. And so this is not an income. It's in it's got to be sitting in a bank. And they, before August and they were kind of very loose about it, like, you know, how like, for example, you have one buddy with money and you ask him, hey, can you transfer money into my account? I gotta apply for this thing.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:18 Sure. Like a bank statement. Then you transfer the money back.
Ed Knuth 00:23:21 Yeah. That's right. So, as of last month, they started to be very strict about it. So now they're looking at your financial history, so they're asking for more documents. So there they they won't allow it to be like a short term borrowing situation.
Ed Knuth 00:23:35 You have to kind of show that the assets are legitimately yours. And you know, if if you're an older person, you know, 500,000, it's not that much. But a lot of digital nomads are young. I mean, it's kind of a young phenomenon. It's like a 20s. It's like a 20s thing, right? Mostly. I mean, it depends. I mean, it could be anyone. Of course. And, so I, I didn't have I mean, I'm not sure I really have 15,000. I have $15,000, but I don't have I don't have it like sitting in one account.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:03 Yeah. It's not collecting dust. Put it that way.
Ed Knuth 00:24:05 Yeah, yeah. That's right. so that's a pretty strict requirement if you think about it. Especially since you can't just have your mom transfer it for you. You know what I mean?
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:14 Man, when I was in my 20s, I had, like, 50 bucks and a stack of comic books.
Ed Knuth 00:24:20 Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Ed Knuth 00:24:22 apparently different countries, because the Thai government has just made this requirement in general. It turns out each country now is interpreting it differently. And so apparently the the Thai mission in D.C. is asking people for three months of bank statements. So you have to you have to show three months of bank statements to show that, hey, this money is legit. So I suppose maybe you could have your your mom transfer money in and then you could wait three months or something?
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:53 Sure. Why not?
Ed Knuth 00:24:54 You know, but then. But then they're going to ask you, you know, where where you got the money.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:57 But then this becomes sort of like a long game you got to play, right? Like you got to plan this many months in advance.
Ed Knuth 00:25:02 And another new thing which did not exist until last month is you have to do a criminal background check, which I, which I think is a it's not a crazy requirement. You don't want to give criminals long term visas, but it did not exist in the DTV when it originally started.
Ed Knuth 00:25:20 And depending on the country you're in in the US, you have to get an FBI background check, which is not easy to do. You have to be fingerprinted. There's months of delay.
Greg Jorgensen 00:25:30 Wow.
Ed Knuth 00:25:31 So the bottom line is, the DTV. Now, it just has more barriers to it. It still exists. You can still do it, but they've just kind of raised the fence up. It's, you know, it's like they've added some some more hurdles to the process. and, I think it's part of again. I see pluses and minuses. It is part of this rule of law. We've talked about how the Thai government is cracking down on scam centres. They're cracking down on shady business practices of foreigners like the nominees structures, like they're just they're basically the Eye of Sauron now is on foreigners, you know, and and foreigners now you better really be following the law completely. And even if in the past they allowed certain activities, now they're not going to allow it. so basically, get your shit together.
Ed Knuth 00:26:24 That's the that's the moral of the story. Plan ahead if you want to come here on a DTV. I think to me, looking at these requirements, it's a six month project. I think of getting everything together, the money, the background check. You know, you're probably looking at six months. I, I'm thinking to get it all set up properly.
Greg Jorgensen 00:26:45 Do you think this is going to stick? Like, you know, we've been here long enough that we've seen sort of the ebb and flow of these kind of things. You know, I remember back in the day, I used to do visa runs to bomb out to Cambodia, come back the same day. And, you know, there were there were guys who had been doing that for years, every 90 days. Years. Yep. And, you know, they cracked down and they're like, you can't do it for more than five times and then you can't do it overland. And then so people started flying. And now you can't do a flying.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:10 So you know you see these.
Ed Knuth 00:27:11 Things two times now I think they're saying two times.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:14 So that that did stick around. Hey.
Ed Knuth 00:27:15 So it did. Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:17 Yeah. So, I don't know I don't know how long all of this is going to stick around or what the next phase of it is going to be. But, I, I do like the fact that the DTV visa exists, and like a lot of things in Thailand, it's not perfect. It's far from it. And it's frustrating and silly sometimes, but the fact that it exists says a lot about the state of things, you know.
Ed Knuth 00:27:40 Agreed. And when I was, you know, I've been researching this. And when I was checking the like the chatter, the expat chatter. A number of people pointed out that people were abusing the DTB. Like like, you know, because it's longer. It got very popular, very fast. Like for a lot of people, this is the dream thing, but that also attracts people who want to do shady or illegal stuff here.
Ed Knuth 00:28:06 Yeah. You know, so we're imagining a 24 year old who's got who, who? The digital nomad, some cool dude, like drinking espressos and working on some AI project in San Francisco. But he's doing it from Chiang Mai. That's like our image, you know, but it's also attracting, like, pseudo mafia dudes.
Greg Jorgensen 00:28:23 Who we're not thinking of the, the, the the Russian assassin Sergey who comes here.
Ed Knuth 00:28:27 That's right, that's right. We're not we're not thinking of, like, money launderers who are like, oh, holy shit, I can get a five year thing, you know? So, I'm I'm I'm all for it. You know, as long as they're fair about the enforcement and make announcements. And so we're, we're we're we're doing this as a public service thing. And, you know, I just had a buddy come to Thailand for the first time in 23 years. No problems. Great time. You know, he just had his shit together. I gave him a little bit of advice, but he just.
Ed Knuth 00:28:57 He came as a tourist. As an American. No. No issues, no problems. Great time. So Thailand is still open for business. It's still welcoming tourists. It's still welcoming potential expats. It's just, you know, dot your eyes, cross your t's, get up to date like enforcement things so that that might be the most important lesson. It's like you got to get online, you know, make sure AI you know, sometimes AI has outdated information like you have to you have to tell AI do check this week. You have to tell it to it, and then you can see it do the web search.
Greg Jorgensen 00:29:33 You know, I I'm I'm a huge AI guy, as are you. But for something like this I would specifically avoid AI. I would go to a legitimate website with a history.
Ed Knuth 00:29:42 Well, yeah. If you. Well, like a real person that you trust is better than AI for sure. Like someone who like if you talk to a lawyer, like I said, it's a lawyer.
Ed Knuth 00:29:50 It's a lawyer's job to keep up to date. It's literally what we're supposed to be doing. but if you don't have access to that, to me, I've had good luck with AI. If I tell it, if I say, as of today, I want to know X, and then then you can see it do web searches. So you have to push it and verify it. so I think AI is still possible. so it's weird. So I guess that our message is somewhere in between. We're not saying don't come to Thailand. We're not saying that, Thailand hates foreigners now. Like, that's not the vibe. That's not the vibe.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:25 No, no.
Ed Knuth 00:30:26 But but we are going through some type of phase where where the government is pretty pissed off at a bunch of foreigners. Let's say that.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:35 Right.
Ed Knuth 00:30:35 You know, and and that has trickled over into the general population where I've seen more anti foreigner posts just just by like random noise.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:45 Yeah. I generally think my takeaway from this is that this is all sort of part of the two steps forward, half a step back, one step back, two steps forward of getting to the point where it should be.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:58 I mean, a lot of this stuff is going to go online. It's going to be digital. It's going to be much more efficient, which also has a side effect of removing some of the the corruption out of it. You know, if all this stuff is traceable and trackable, right, you know, you're going to have less, less hands under the table kind of thing. So I generally think this is a positive idea and a positive trajectory. But like with a lot of things in Thailand, like I said, it's it's not perfect. It's frustrating, it's slow, but ultimately it's, you know, what's the quote the, the, the the bureaucratic arc of Thailand bends towards efficiency.
Ed Knuth 00:31:34 I hope so. I hope that's true, that, you know, sometimes you get the you know, it's like, remember when was it was that like a year ago? Remember when they announced, we're going to enforce the helmet laws? Like we're going to be dead serious about it. And it lasted about two weeks or something.
Ed Knuth 00:31:51 And then now everyone's riding without a helmet. So, you know, so in this case, you know, we've mentioned it before, this rule of law phase, they're in it. It has lasted now more than a year. Like we started talking about like the nominee crackdown started a long time ago. So I think that this is serious. they're not joking. And I don't think this is a temporary phase.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:15 Right? Caveat emptor.
Ed Knuth 00:32:17 Agreed.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:18 Agreed. Yeah. Nice. All right. Let's do a little bit of love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discuss to decide if it's something that we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept it is something that we just have to learn to live with, no matter how we feel about it. And add here on stage, the spotlight is on you. What do you got?
Ed Knuth 00:32:37 All right. This is a little bit funny, and to be honest, I'm not even sure this is unique to Thailand.
Ed Knuth 00:32:43 It's just a little a little anecdote that comes from my buddy who I just mentioned, who had a good stay here, and he mentioned a weird thing about Thai hotel room. So he he was in Bangkok, and then he went down to Hua Hin and he mentioned something about his hotel room, which was very funny that I've noticed myself and he he's probably more of a traveler than I am. And so he thought it was a little bit of a Thai thing or something that he hadn't seen as much. So I'm just going to throw this out there. Greg, what's your take on bathrooms in hotels where there's like a glass wall next to the shower so that if someone is like in the in the hotel room, they can actually see into the shower through a glass wall. Like I think this is a Thai thing. Like there's, I've been in many hotel rooms like this and I just don't travel enough to know if it's true in Japan pan or Georgia or or Latvia, I don't know, but my my buddies had two different hotel rooms and he was like, dude, what's up with the the glass wall?
Greg Jorgensen 00:33:53 I, I will say I was just in Vietnam recently and, me and our buddy Andrew, we shared a room and it had a glass wall into this.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:01 Oh. Did. Okay.
Ed Knuth 00:34:02 Yeah. Oh, you and Andrew?
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:04 Yeah, it was very sexy.
Ed Knuth 00:34:05 That's hilarious. Okay. That's hilarious. So this might not be exclusively Thai, but what are you are you into that? Are you you you like showing off? Are you an exhibitionist? Are you an exhibitionist?
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:16 Not when I'm with Andrew. No, but I mean, if I'm staying in a hotel room and it's, you know, nine times out of ten, it's with my family. So, you know, I'm not really that concerned.
Ed Knuth 00:34:24 Well, what if you're with your your lovely wife? That that could be cool.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:29 Well, yeah, I'm far past the days of that being any sort of romantic. Hey, you want to put the blind know? Keep it down. Thanks. Just for a shower. But you know it does. It's silly, I think. I don't get it. Like, what's the upside of that? Like, is it really supposed to be something romantic? Because if it is.
Greg Jorgensen 00:34:48 Why don't you just come out of the bathroom and go into the bedroom, you know? Right? Right, right. but usually they have a blind. Like a blind.
Ed Knuth 00:34:55 Sometimes they do, but not always. They don't always have a blind. So sometimes it's just there's sometimes it's just a glass wall and you can't do anything about it.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:01 If they don't, that's messed up. That's stupid. But if there's a blind, I guess so. But it does see the question. Why have a glass wall at all? Why not just put up a tile wall?
Ed Knuth 00:35:11 Yeah.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:11 Well, what's what's that glass wall doing for anyone?
Ed Knuth 00:35:14 It's supposed to be. I guess it's supposed to be cool or chic or something.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:17 No, it's supposed to be creepy and weird, I guess.
Ed Knuth 00:35:21 So, what are you you're you're live with.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:23 I'm gonna live with. But I live with with a giant question mark. It's sort of like, why, why? Why is this necessary?
Ed Knuth 00:35:30 I I'm probably in the same boat.
Ed Knuth 00:35:31 I'm gonna I'm going to go live with it. That's fine.
Greg Jorgensen 00:35:34 That's a good one.
Ed Knuth 00:35:35 Okay. Final thanks to our patrons who support the show, patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling, knowing that they're helping and our never ending quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. We're Bangkok podcast on social media. Bangkok podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast. Com. We'd love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're a PR agent who pitches clients who have no connection to Bangkok.
Greg Jorgensen 00:36:07 That's right. Also, listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website and we'll put that on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky at grey. Thank you for listening. Everyone will see you back here next week.
Ed Knuth 00:36:17 No doubt.
