Hello, I'm 22 y/o from Israel. I want to live in Chiang Mai for a year.

My income comes from online job, so no work permit needed(I think?).

I'm a bit confused with the visa types, requirements and duties.

I would like to know what are my options if I want to obtain a permit to stay for a year?

Thanks.

You have some choices.

Option 1 --

Get an education visa (Non Immigrant ED) by enrolling with a Thai language school in Chiang Mai that meets immigration's standards. You only need to go to class 4 hours a week. With this visa, you can stay for your desired year but need to get extensions every 90 at the Thai immigration office in CM. For more details, find some links for Chiang Mai language schools. They generally have info on how to arrange your visa. Or search this forum for additional tons of info on the ED visa.

Here is a typical program with visa info --

http://www.thaisolutions1502.com/education-visa-thailand/

Option 2 --

Tourist visas, get as many entries as they'll sell you, obtained in Israel and Laos, 30 day stamps air border crossings (I think Israelis are eligible for that which is visa free), 15 day stamps border crossings (visa free), combined to make a year. That would make you a visa runner. You'd need to education yourself on the ins and outs.

Working online for a year? No practical visa for this. Technically you need a work permit for that to be legal as well. That also won't be really practical. There are many threads discussing this but the general consensus is that if it is all online and has nothing to do with Thailand, there isn't a big risk in doing that but you must be hush hush about it. But nobody here will officially advise that you should for obvious reasons.

In your case, I would DEFINITELY choose the ED education visa option. You don't actually have to study Thai, it could be another subject, but Thai is the most common.

Another thing to consider is that if you arrive at the airport in Israel bound to Thailand without a visa in your passport, you will probably not be boarded. Generally you need either a visa in your passport or a flight leaving Thailand within 30 days (to anywhere) to be boarded.

BTW, if these options don't sound appealing to you but you still want to live in SE Asia for a year and work online, Cambodia would be quite a bit more straightforward, visa-wise (business visa).

Edited April 8, 201115 yr by Jingthing

Thanks a lot for your info Jingthing.

It looks like ED visa will be the safest way to go but i'm not sure i'm interested in learning Thai 4 hours per week.

Do you know about reputable schools(i.e. licensed by the Ministry of Education) in Chiang Mai that teaches other subjects and will help with ED visa? I couldn't find any info here on the forum about such schools...

I also heard that Muay Thai is an option, so if you know about Muay Thai gyms that make such deals, it will be good too...

Muay Thai programs eligible for the ED visa in CM? I don't know. You might want to post about that specific question in the Chiang Mai forum. BTW, would learning a little Thai really be so bad? Nobody is going to expect you to be fluent after a year, so not much pressure, it could be fun.

Edited April 9, 201115 yr by Jingthing