My guide to online E-visa applications via London Thai Embassy (60-day SETV by post)

[Markphuket]

8 hours ago, greggraham said:

This was useful, thanks. 

 

I sent my passport off with a pre-paid/labelled special delivery envelope inside, it arrived at the embassy on Monday. Today (Wednesday) the visa tracking is saying "Ready to collect passport" and my Royal Mail tracking isn't on the system yet. Do I just hold my nerve a bit longer or did I do something wrong? 

I’d like know same answer as I sent mine on Thursday received Friday and have the same ready to collect message. Hopeful I’ll receive tomorrow In post as I fly on Monday. But I’ve emailed, will be making the panic calls them tomorrow if still nothing received in tomorrow mornings post.

[Markphuket]

Found out today Passport ready for collection means it’s in the post as the London Embassy today provided me the tracking and were very helpful 

 

sadly Royal Mail next day guaranteed delivery isn’t guaranteed...... so tomorrow is do or die for me hoe to god it arrives back.

[Guest jonzboy]

I would like to add my experience to this excellent forum and to this thread in particular (grateful thanks to Senior Player for putting this together.

 

Firstly, I have to say that things have obviously improved since the e-visa process commenced.

 

This morning I applied for a METV to London Embassy.  Using the information from this thread I had already prepared all my JPG documents, so I was "oven ready" as it were for today's experience.

 

I was done and dusted in a shade under 30 minutes.

 

I used MacOS Safari on a 5 year old iMac and an ageing Canon Pixma printer for scanning.  I had no problems with proceeding through the many pages of inputting data and uploading documents.  There were no unexpected lags or refusals, including no delay whatsoever with the payment process as experienced by many posters in the past.  However, whilst this was a pleasant surprise, I did a screen cap of each stage as a record of what I had done.

 

The takeaways from this, apart from what I have already mentioned are:-

 

1.  I had assumed 200kb was the limit for each document size, but when asked to upload it said 500kb maximum.  All my documents were under 200kb.

 

2. At the submit application phase (immediately after uploading the final documents) an advisory page appeared telling me to submit all uploaded documents with the application.  However, once I had cleared the visa payment phase and I had downloaded the confirmation document with barcode, that document (which you sign and send in) has advice in red clearly stating to submit 1)barcode reference, 2) actual passport, 3) GBP10 cash and 4) return address.  With regard to 4), when I previously obtained a SETV by post earlier this year I wrote the return address on a slip of paper - they then glued that to the courier envelope to return my passport. 

 

I hope this is of some assistance to others, and I'd be happy to share further details if anyone has any questions.

 

Jon

[SheungWan]

Keep getting the "Access is invalid. Please try again" message after hitting save after uploading the signature/residence/financial docs. Driving me potty.

[Guest jonzboy]

13 hours ago, SheungWan said:

Keep getting the "Access is invalid. Please try again" message after hitting save after uploading the signature/residence/financial docs. Driving me potty.

As I recall, at that stage I pressed the blue "done" button, not the green "save" button.  I thought I'd made a mistake at the time, but everything proceeded with no problem after that.

[SheungWan]

12 hours ago, jonzboy said:

As I recall, at that stage I pressed the blue "done" button, not the green "save" button.  I thought I'd made a mistake at the time, but everything proceeded with no problem after that.

Today I did that and was admitted through the magic door to stage 5. Clearly the software process has been designed by a fiendish gamer.

[SheungWan]

On 11/4/2019 at 7:51 AM, CliffH said:

It appears that the application they're using is designed to deal with the requirements for a passport portrait photo.  How did you manage to get it to accept your passport scan which does, of course, contain required background detail?

As soon as I used one of the Photo-Me booths I realised it had been a waste of money. The quality was poor and I knew the scans would be as well. What I did in the end was go to a local Snappy-Snaps shop. Not only did they take a professional portrait photo (2 copies) but emailed me a copy of the photo correctly sized for uploading (They asked me for which country visa application). The charge for this service was 14.99. I am sure they would also scan and size passport and other docs if requested.

[Guest jonzboy]

7 hours ago, SheungWan said:

As soon as I used one of the Photo-Me booths I realised it had been a waste of money. The quality was poor and I knew the scans would be as well. What I did in the end was go to a local Snappy-Snaps shop. Not only did they take a professional portrait photo (2 copies) but emailed me a copy of the photo correctly sized for uploading (They asked me for which country visa application). The charge for this service was 14.99. I am sure they would also scan and size passport and other docs if requested.

The £6 photo-me booth worked ok for me.  I scanned the photos, cropped down to one and then resized as a jpg of about 180kb.  It was accepted by the evisa system.

[SheungWan]

15 minutes ago, jonzboy said:

The £6 photo-me booth worked ok for me.  I scanned the photos, cropped down to one and then resized as a jpg of about 180kb.  It was accepted by the evisa system.

For some reason the optional background curtains had been removed at the local Photo-me inside the post office and the white background swallowed up my greying hair giving a photo image that appeared to show that parts of my head had disappeared. But well done to you!

[SheungWan]

A couple of notes re application for the non-Imm O visa on retirement: 1. No need to upload any boarding house booking evidence, just name of boarding house and address.** 2. No need to upload flight booking evidence, just flight number. I have no idea what happens if either hotel booking or flight number entering Thailand changes subsequent to visa issuance.

** note re private address booking. There is an additional request for a phone number, presumably of the private address owner.

[SheungWan]

On 1/2/2020 at 10:36 PM, SheungWan said:

Keep getting the "Access is invalid. Please try again" message after hitting save after uploading the signature/residence/financial docs. Driving me potty.

I have learned that in the event of getting this message, the very first thing one must do is log out and then log in to check the dashboard and make sure one is working on the same application. Some guys have not been doing this and instead creating a long list of new applications leading them eventually to giving up.

[SheungWan]

So I collected my passport visa yesterday. Now that I have been around the houses it shouldn't be too bad next time round, subject to another set of changes rolling down the pipeline. The one thing I spent extra money on was the professional passport photo. Otherwise I used a laptop, scanner and printer. I would think that it is technically possible to do the whole thing on tablet or phone, but that is for someone else to report on.

[Guest jonzboy]

3 hours ago, SheungWan said:

So I collected my passport visa yesterday. Now that I have been around the houses it shouldn't be too bad next time round, subject to another set of changes rolling down the pipeline. The one thing I spent extra money on was the professional passport photo. Otherwise I used a laptop, scanner and printer. I would think that it is technically possible to do the whole thing on tablet or phone, but that is for someone else to report on.

Congrats on the successful application.

 

I personally think the visa process is now very efficient.  For METV and SETV there is no longer any need to send in original documents to show bank balances, flights and hotels.  In the past I had to go to my bank and get officially printed bank statements as they stated that downloaded statements were not acceptable.  This time around I merely downloaded the six months of statements and converted to JPG format.  As for flights and hotels, it is a simple matter to just make bookings that can later be cancelled at no cost.  And as SheungWan pointed out, for Non-O they don't even ask for booking details.

[Jsnow]

It would  be far easier if the Thai Govt just allowed a 60 days Visa exemption on arrival for most EU countries,  anyhow I applied for the e visa online,  In this day and age the form seemed ridiculous.  It asked a lot of information for a 60 day stay even the supplying of bank statements. The form kept reloading part way through and not saving the data, so I had to manually save my information after each question. In step 5 it asked for supporting documents. I was asked to provide details of a person living in Thailand who has invited me, an Invitation letter or Thai ID card or passport scan. I could not skip this step to complete the Visa application so I uploaded a hotel booking instead. Finally I then had to print a barcode with a non existent appointment on it to send in with my passport. The following day I received an email asking for my flight booking. I’ve logged in and it says the status of the Visa is Sticker printing. So who knows...but  once I have my visa I can apply for a C.O.E. All this work to go on holiday, this and 4 covid tests and a covid health insurance policy but it’ll be worth it for the sun, sea and great food. 

[MASMITH2]

Re Thai e -Visa.

1. I have accidentally uploaded a document to the wrong question but I’m unable to delete it -to upload it to the right question. I keep pressing the the pencil/edit but it doesn’t let me either delete or add another document. any ideas? 
2. Q11- what on earth does it mean?? (Applicant must apply for e-Visa via specific Embassy/Consulate conforming with his/her consular jurisdiction and residency. Applicant is required to upload document that can verify his/her current residency) 

thank you in advance! 

[BritTim]

This ancient thread is now almost entirely of academic interest. The current email system, and the experience when applying in the UK, is so different that the information here is misleading. There are more recent threads that are much more relevant now to those seeking Thai visas from the UK.

 

This thread is

LOCKED