In the spring of 2026 something happened that rewrote the plans of thousands of people: the Thai embassy in Moscow stopped accepting DTV applications from sole traders and the self-employed. The reason is technical — the Moscow filter is built around the 2-NDFL income certificate, and entrepreneurs simply don’t have one. Tax returns and income statements aren’t accepted as substitutes.
The conclusion spread across the internet immediately: “the DTV is closed to entrepreneurs.” The conclusion is wrong.
The irony of it
The DTV was designed for exactly these people: freelancers, entrepreneurs, owners of their own business, working with clients outside Thailand. Sole traders and the self-employed aren’t an exception to the visa’s rules — they’re its target audience. The Moscow filter is a quirk of one consulate, not of the visa: a dozen consulates around the world accept DTV applications, and most of them read entrepreneurial income very differently from Moscow.
What an entrepreneur actually needs
The skeleton of an entrepreneur’s package differs from an employee’s, and it has to be built more carefully:
- Status. Business or self-employment registration, your tax regime — documents showing the business exists and is legal.
- Living income. Account activity that tells a story: regular payments from clients, not one-off transfers.
- Clients and contracts. Agreements, invoices, acceptance certificates — whatever ties the incoming money to real work.
- A tax trail. Filings showing the income doesn’t just arrive but gets declared.
For a salaried employee, half of this work is done by the employer with a single certificate. An entrepreneur assembles the picture alone — and that’s where DIY filings break down most often: the income is real, but the package doesn’t show it.
Where to file if not Moscow
The right answer is annoyingly honest: it depends on your legal form, your turnover and where you can physically be while filing. Different consulates treat different tax regimes, self-employed people with an app-generated certificate, and company owners in different ways. Each has its own jurisdiction: some want you to be a resident of the country, for others being there legally is enough. And the picture is alive — it changes month to month (the consulate board shows the current weather).
Matching profile to consulate is the first thing we do for entrepreneurs, and we do it on fresh data, not last year’s articles. Message Mira with your legal form and where your income comes from — she’ll send a document list and a filing plan for your case. We take on what others call impossible, too — that part we actually enjoy.