Can a foreigner holding a DTV visa open a company in Thailand, or do they need to change their visa type — Keep three things separate: obtaining the visa (Thai missions abroad), permission to stay (Immigration Bureau) and the right to work (Department of Employment) — each requires its own document set. /land|title deed/i Extensions of stay and changes of visa class are decided by the Immigration Bureau under the Immigration Act B.E. 2522. Overstay carries statutory consequences, including a daily fine and re-entry bans set by the Immigration Act and related notifications. Holders staying beyond 90 days must file the 90-day report with Immigration, which is a separate obligation from extending the visa. Civil-registry records issued before computerisation may need a fresh extract taken from the register held by the district office. Acceptance windows differ by recipient — many require issuance within the last three to six months, so the steps should be sequenced tightly. The 90-day report for foreign residents can be filed in person, by post, or through the Immigration Bureau online system. Where a minor is involved, evidence of parental authority or parental consent must be included. You can ask for a step-by-step route map with the document checklist before deciding to instruct us.
“Can a foreigner holding a DTV visa open a company in Thailand, or do they need to change their visa type?” falls within an end-to-end service that combines document preparation, translation, signature certification, consular legalisation and coordination with the destination mission into a single file. The people who search for it are usually preparing a filing against a fixed deadline, recovering from a rejected submission and trying to identify the missed step, or coordinating documents for several people at once.
In practice, each step sits with a different body: the issuing office, the Notarial Services Attorney, the Department of Consular Affairs, and the destination country’s diplomatic mission. Knowing which body owns which step makes it possible to judge how many stages a bundle needs, and which of them cannot be corrected without starting again.
This is a baseline set. Individual receiving authorities may add requirements, so confirm with the destination body first.
Record how many stages each document needs, who certifies it, and what must finish first, so no step has to be redone.
Check personal names, company names, addresses and dates across the whole bundle before any certification begins.
Original → translation → signature certification / legalisation → destination mission. Doing these out of order forces a restart.
Verify the number of sets, the seals, the binding, and that issue dates are still within the destination’s validity window.
| Route | When it applies |
|---|---|
| Notarial Services Attorney certification | For privately drafted instruments — powers of attorney, affidavits, consent letters — signed in the attorney’s presence. |
| Legalisation at the Department of Consular Affairs | Where a foreign authority needs confirmation of the Thai issuing office’s signature and seal, or of the translation. |
| Attestation at the destination mission | Where the destination country requires its embassy or consulate in Thailand to attest the file after consular legalisation. |
| Thailand’s Apostille status | Thailand acceded to the Apostille Convention on 30 June 2026 and it enters into force for Thailand on 28 February 2027. No Apostille is issued in Thailand before that date. |
If you are working through “Can a foreigner holding a DTV visa open a company in Thailand, or do they need to change their visa type?”, start by getting the receiving authority’s requirement in writing, then plan the certification chain backwards from your real filing date.