How to get a Thailand 9 months STV visa in 2021, during COVID pandemic times

9 min readFeb 5, 2021

How can you be 9 months as a Digital Nomad or tourist in Thailand with an STV visa.

Thailand is one of the safest countries regarding to the COVID pandemic.
By February 2021 less than 80 deaths and less than 25k cases have been registered in the whole kingdom which counts more than 100 million inhabitants. Together with places like Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand, Thailand has shown to the world that they can control the virus spread and that they count with a strong and reliable health system.

However, that went with a cost. Thailand, as many other Asian countries, totally closed its borders on March 2020 and since then, getting inside of the country has been impossible or really difficult. Thailand received 40 million visitors on 2019, representing the 20% of its GDP and all of that was gone in 2020. Now, border is open with certain restrictions, being one of them that every single visitor must quarantine for 16 days in a special hotel (ASQ) being the cheapest possible option around 900 EUR. Expensive, in terms of time and money, if you just plan to go there for a short vacation.

Thus, Thailand opened a new special visa, called STV (Special Tourist Visa) that allows the holders to stay up to 9 months on the land of the smiles, pretty attractive if you are a digital nomad looking for a safe and nice place to work remotely.
However, getting this visa is not an easy job. I did it, and I share with you in this article all the steps that you must follow if you also want to stay there.

First of all

Almost all process must be done with the Thailand embassy/consulate in your residence country. After all my research I found out that some embassies can be stronger or weaker in some requirements. First of all contact your residence country embassy to get the whole list of details. This article is done according to the Spanish embassy, which shares requirements with many European countries, and, as I saw, are the most common ones everywhere.

Also, you must know that going to Thailand and quarantining there for 16 days ain’t cheap. If you sum insurances, flights, hotel, medical certificates and tests, etc… you will need up to 2000 EUR. Upfront. Be willing to spend that if you wanna continue, there is no cheap workaround.

Finally, the amount of documents, bookings, backs and forwards, etc… requires some time. As a general advice plan to leave at least 3 weeks after you start this process. It will be safer than rushing it.

Overall process

The whole process is as following:

First, apply for the STV Visa, which requires lots of documents
Secondly, apply for the COE (Certificate of Entry) in the Kingdom
Third, get your RT-PCR test, your Fit2Fly certificate
Fly there!

STV Visa and Documents

You must apply for the VISA in your residence country embassy. When applying you will be required to show originals and copies of all the documents below. Please, pay attention that initially the visa is for 3 months (90 days) and once in Thailand, you will be allowed to renew it twice for 90 and 90 days more.

For an STV Visa you will be required to have:

#Flights (two ways)

They require and inbound and outbound flight. Consider the 90 days period. In many embassies they will require that this flights are booked with Qatar airways, Emirates or Thai airways.

I bought my flights with Qatar since they have a daily flight there and free open ticket changes, so I can keep changing my return flight with each visa extension.

#Criminal records check

They require the original and copy of your home country criminal records check. It must be not older than 3 months ago.

Luckily, in Spain, this is a 4EUR online application and you get the certificate right away.

#Medical/Accident Insurance(s)

For the STV Visa two types of coverage must be included during your whole trip.

100.000 USD (or equivalent) for COVID specific coverage. This is mostly because if you are tagged as positive in COVID during your stay you will need to be for at least 10 days in a hospital. Regardless of showing or not symptoms. That’s how Thailand controlled super well the virus spread. To make it easier the Thai government allows you to purchase directly this insurance here: https://covid19.tgia.org/ If your general travel insurance covers COVID above that premium and covers the whole time there, you can use also your own.
400.000 THB In patient / 40.000 THB Out patient Thai medical insurance. Important: from an approved Thailand provider. This is the same requirement than for an OX/OA Visa. You can find one of these providers in the following link: https://longstay.tgia.org/home/companiesstv

#Medical Certificate

Besides COVID they wanna make sure you are not bringing any other serious illness. Thus, they require you to bring below certificate from an official doctor.

In my case, finding someone to fill this was not easy nor cheap. I ended up doing the different tests (drugs, tuberculosis, syphilis) in a lab, bringing the results in a private doctor consultation and, after a general checkup, getting the results. It cost me around 150 EUR.

#ASQ Hotel reservation

ASQ states for Alternative State Quarantine and is the place where we should quarantine as non-Thai visitors. There is a specific, government controlled, list of places that are allowed to provide this service, being the cheapest possible option 27.000 THB and the average one around 32k~40k. This often includes airport special pickup (mandatory, you cannot go anywhere till finish), the 2 mandatory control RT-PCR tests, the stay, the whole meals (often you’re not allowed to order Grab or 7/11 deliveries) and they are linked to some hospital for the whole checkups process.

In Facebook groups you can find good reviews about each place. Mostly look for enough space, good food, good internet, and their cancellations and changes policies. In my case, my embassy required me to pay everything upfront, so I did.

I suggest you check the cured list of places here: https://asq.wanderthai.com/

After paying for your ASQ they will send you a confirmation letter that you will need for your COE certificate (see below).

You can choose between dozens of packages like this one

#Post quarantine 75 days stay

Not surprisingly, you also need to show, and prove, where will you stay for the rest of 75 days after ending your quarantine.

If you are renting a condo or being invited they will require the rental contract and the owner ID.

If, instead, you book a hotel or an apartment, you must show proof of booking, proof of payment, owner IDs and a bank statement proving that for the last 6 months you at least had 13.000 EUR in your average balance.

After being dealing with VISAs in several countries for too many years my advice is that in case of strong bureaucracy just show as much as you can. If you can attach your reservation, all the copies of all the documents you can and many bank statements you’re safe.

Airbnb technically is not legal, but I guess this depends more in the person who is checking your documents than anything else. If that’s your option, just ask.

#Others

They will require to also attach to your STV Visa application the following things:

Your original passport, obviously… and a copy of the data page
70 EUR in cash
2 photos (standard for ID, 4x6cm)
2 copies of the general Visa application form. Here you have the one for USA, but look in your residence country embassy for the one in your country’s language.

Once you give them this, if everything is correct, you should get your STV Visa back in around 3 days. Some people reported waiting up to 2 weeks for it, specially if they miss some document. Be careful with the timings!

COE Certificate of Entry

Once you get your STV Visa, you can apply for the COE. The COE is a required document that you must have before taking your flight, otherwise you won’t be allowed to board.

In order to apply to the COE you must go to https://coethailand.mfa.go.th/ and start a new application.

The process is as follow:

Start your COE application, you will be required to upload your passport, your STV Visa Picture, and your insurance information.
Local Thailand Embassy will be back to you (from 1 to 3 days) requiring you to fill more documents. This time will require to attach the flight details and the ASQ confirmation.
After attaching all the documents you need to wait for the approval. Mine took almost a week, and got it 4 days before flying. Some people reported getting it in less than 3 hours. It’s a lottery!

Medical checkups before flying

Once you get your STV and your COE, 72 hours prior your boarding you must get the following two documents:

#RT-PCR

Must be RT-PCR, in English or Thai (or an official translation) with a negative result within 72 hours of boarding the plane.

Nowadays this service is available in all major cities and price rounds 100 EUR.

Please, notice that public health services certificates (as NHS in the UK) or other type of tests (such as antigens quick test) are not valid. I saw people reporting having done all above process correctly and being stuck in the airport because their PCR was not valid. Don’t get stuck here!

#Fit2Fly certificate

This must be done AFTER the PCR test, and BEFORE flying. It’s a medical certificate that states that you’re capable of taking the plane, free of COVID, and do not require any special condition.

The best you can do here is go for Dr. Donna, who provides this service online, with a call, and for only 400 THB.

Some other PCR test places provide also Fit2Fly certificate. Please, just notice that must be TWO different documents, and not a single one, since some other people reported issues having everything together in a single certificate.

Dr. Donna Fit2Fly certificate: https://medconsultappointment.simplybook.me/v2/#book/category/1/count/1/

Boarding day

Wow! That was a hell of a process, now you’re ready to take the plane and lining up in the check in counter. This is the things that you must have printed out (and better with copies, just in case) because they are gonna check it:

Declaration Form. Just download this document and fill it.
COE certificate
Negative RT-PCR certificate
Fit2Fly Certificate
T8 Health Declaration form. Attached below, just download and fill it.
Insurance(s) certificate
ASQ confirmation letter
ThailandPlus app. This is an app that you must have in your smartphone, linked to your COE reference, and will be tracking all your movements for contact tracing while in Thailand. More info here: https://thailandplus.in.th/en/