The August issue of the Barometer never came out: the last week of the month rewrote the map completely, and any round-up would have gone stale on the day it was published. The dust has now settled just enough to describe it. Since 31 August your DTV consulate is set not by the weather but by your passport or your proof of permanent residence — yet the weather hasn’t gone anywhere: in one place a decision takes two days, in another you wait a month. In this issue: who accepts whom, timings from fresh cases, the new documents, visa-free 60 → 30, and what is happening at the border.
The weather on the board
- Calm zone: Astana — for citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, 6–8 days; Stockholm and Madrid — for holders of Swedish and Spanish permanent residence, two days and a week.
- Working, but slowly: Moscow — citizens of Russia and of the countries in its district (Belarus, Armenia, Moldova, Uzbekistan), three to four weeks; of Russians, only salaried employees with the 2-NDFL tax certificate (the Russian income-tax statement, form 2-NDFL) are accepted. Warsaw — Ukrainian citizens and holders of Polish permanent residence, from 23 days.
- Watching: Ankara — citizens and residents of Türkiye; how the consulate will read a Turkish residence permit is still open — no decisions yet — while retroactive refusals have already happened. Ho Chi Minh City — takes no new applications from visitors, is finishing off the August ones.
- Closed to visitors: Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vientiane, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Colombo, Phnom Penh — they accept only their own citizens and permanent residents.
The month in brief
The 31 August rule in five lines. On 20 August Colombo, by phone: “residents of Sri Lanka only.” On the 27th Vientiane publishes an announcement of the general rule; on the 28th so does the consular department of Thailand’s foreign ministry. The 29th is the last day of filings: the e-visa portal went down for maintenance on 30–31 August. On the evening of the 30th, around midnight, the form was updated: proof of permanent residence in the country of filing, a criminal record certificate, statements for three months with a minimum balance of 500,000 baht — for every DTV purpose. A word-by-word breakdown is in a separate piece.
Ankara applied the rule to applications already filed. On the night of 31 August the consulate refused applications from Georgia dated 26 and 28 August — filed without a Georgian residence permit — and for the first time in its history refused dependants: in one family two children were approved, the wife and the third child were not. The formula “filed before the 31st means the old rules” did not work in Ankara. Georgia as a place of filing, without a local residence permit, is closed.
Ho Chi Minh City is finishing off August — and spotting the templates. On 1 September approvals arrived for filings of 13 and 14 August: 18–19 days, a sole trader among them after two requests for additional documents. The requests have reached filings of 23 August; for mid-August filings they do not ask for a residence permit. Two refusals on 31 August among the pending ones — both through middlemen. A telling episode: of three identical applications from one middleman, one was approved, one rejected, and on the third a forgery check was ordered. At the current pace — about two days’ worth of filings per day — the August tail reaches decisions around 4–5 September.
Moscow — three to four weeks and a filter at the door. Fresh cases: filed 4 August, visa on 31 August, 27 days; 26 days with requests; a main applicant in 19 days, two of his three dependants in 10. The filter has grown stricter: only a 2-NDFL with income code 2000, at least 12 months of employment, and at the fee desk the officer looks at the applicant’s live Gosuslugi account (the Russian state services portal); sole traders and the self-employed are not accepted — confirmed by phone at the consulate on 31 August, the third independent confirmation in two days. For Moscow the criminal record certificate has to be the paper one with Interior Ministry stamps, about a month: new Russian filings in September will effectively start from the day it is ready.
Stockholm and Madrid — quiet consulates for permanent residents. Sweden: permanent residence plus the residence card in the package — a visa in two days with no requests, the first case in our chronicle. Spain: a request about the rental, utility bills in the applicant’s name and Spain–Thailand tickets, approval within a week. One case each — a direction, not statistics. But this is exactly what the DTV looks like for people with permanent residence in Europe: empty consulates, short timings.
Astana: fast for citizens, the temporary permit no longer counts. Kazakh citizens get through in 6–8 days with proof of address from e.gov; what is new is that a tax request now reaches them too, so an employer’s letter with income and taxes is best put in from the start. The last fast case we logged — eight days, zero requests — belonged to a Russian woman with a Kazakh temporary residence permit (RVP), and that path is closed: the consulate by phone on 29 August — “from 31 August the RVP is not enough, only the full residence permit.” That is verbal, there is no written announcement, and it covers dependants too.
Warsaw — the slowest of the open ones. 23 days and more of waiting after a request for every page of the passports. Budget a month.
The new documents, in brief
Three items now sit in the central e-visa form for every DTV purpose: proof of permanent residence in the country of filing; a criminal record certificate (police clearance certificate) from the country of citizenship or the country of filing; statements for the last three months with a minimum balance of 500,000 baht — or a sponsorship letter. The sum applies to every participant, dependants included. The slowest document is the certificate: order it first, and time everything else to the date it is ready.
Visa-free 60 → 30 from 15 September
On 31 August the Royal Gazette (volume 143, special issue 207 Ngor) published a package of acts: from 15 September 2026 the visa-free stamp for roughly 60 countries is 30 days instead of 60; land entries on the visa-free regime are capped at two per calendar year (exceptions — Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore). Russia is not among the 60: Russian citizens come under a bilateral agreement, and that gives 30 days as well. Anyone flying in up to and including 14 September gets 60; stamps already in passports are not cut. The 30-day extension at immigration remains — from our observations, once; how the extension will work under the bilateral regime for Russians is still being clarified.
What this means for the DTV: nothing — the visa has its own 180-day stamp. What it means for people who have lived in Thailand on stamps for years: from September that stops working. The market is already hunting for a replacement — the ED student visa, the TR tourist visa, the “investment visa” through property, Elite; language schools announced price rises from 1 September back on 28 August, the day the rule was published. The DTV remains the longest answer, with one caveat: a month for the criminal record certificate plus the consulate’s own timing. “Making it before the 15th” with a DTV is not going to happen — count from today.
The border
From entry reports between 28 August and 1 September, the picture differs by airport:
- Suvarnabhumi (BKK). The live check has reached here too: an applicant was taken to a side room and asked to show the money in his account and the whole filing package, originals included; the statement was in the banking app, in English, showing the balance; ten minutes and he was let in. His conclusion: “printed out everything I could, was ready — it worked.” In the same period a family with a baby went through Bangkok control via priority without a single question.
- Don Mueang (DMK). The smoothest point: five reports from 29 August — “a minute, a stamp,” with one light question among them; on 31 August a ten-minute queue, passport and a printout of the visa; a repeat entry on 1 September with no questions.
- Phuket. The strictest. On 25 August a couple were turned back — “they didn’t believe in the remote work”; the couple’s history included a same-day border run. On 29 August another applicant was checked in full: salary statement with a translation, return ticket, housing contract, insurance — and let through. A second DTV entry on 31 August, no questions.
- Chiang Mai. The first DTV entry report: the arrival form plus a return ticket, the booking not run through any system. Applicants from Türkiye and Japan with DTVs were let in without questions.
The common thread: a return ticket can be asked for even with a DTV — it was asked for in Phuket and Chiang Mai, and not in Bangkok on 28 August; in one report, showing a fake booking ended in questioning on the spot. Carry the whole filing package, keep the bank app live and in English, and make the ticket a real one.
How to read the Barometer
A status is weather, not a guarantee: the outcome of an application depends on the document package, and on how the consulate reads the applicant’s residence status, far more than on the date of filing. If you have put the package together yourself, you can hand it in for the Preflight Check — one package, one written report. Full support is the Solo Route and Family Route plans, answers to common questions. Which consulate is yours now — message Mira, she’ll match your citizenship and residence status against the consulate map and send the order of collecting documents.
The next issue of the Barometer comes out in October. Between issues the map lives on the consulate board.