ED visa or DTV through a Phuket cooking school: rules and costs

Picking between the two? Start with how you plan to live. Coming and going over several seasons points to the DTV. One long stay tied to full-time study is what the ED was built for.

What we can book today is the DTV side: the Sky Thai Cooking programme of 6, 9 or 12 months, one 2.5-hour class a week, with an enrolment letter for your visa file. Prices are 16,900, 25,900 and 34,900 THB per person, the current published price on the school's DTV page, confirmed in the chat before you pay.

The school is Sky Corp Co., Ltd., registration 0835564004313, TAT licence 34/02895, with kitchens in Thalang (59/147-148 Moo 5, Sri Sunthon) and Phuket Town (98/51 Surin, Talat Yai).

Your message comes to Phuket DA, the team behind adadai.com. We hold your passport and plans up against both visa types, get the school's answer on ED, and send you its documents and receipt in the same chat. Tell us your citizenship, where you would apply and when your current stamp ends. The button opens the chat.

The biggest practical difference is time. A DTV lets you leave and return many times over 5 years. An ED is a single-entry visa for 3 months, and a longer stay on it depends on extensions at immigration, up to 1 year from your first entry and at the officer's discretion.

The second difference is what the school puts its name to. For a DTV it confirms that you are enrolled, and the rest of the file is about you and your money. For an ED it signs a letter on its letterhead and hands over a copy of its licence or business registration, which is a bigger ask for a part-time course.

A METV sometimes comes up in the same conversation. It is a tourist visa, valid 6 months with stays of up to 60 days per entry, according to the Royal Thai Embassy in Moscow. No school issues one, and buying a course does not lead to it.

Only if it agrees to sign. For an ED, the Phnom Penh embassy asks for a letter of acceptance typed on the school's letterhead and signed by an authorised person, plus a copy of the school licence or business registration.

Sky Corp publishes its registration and TAT licence numbers, so the papers exist. Whether the school will sign an ED letter for a weekly 2.5-hour programme is a separate question, and the embassy's ED page talks about full-time education and internships. We put the question to the school case by case and pass on its written answer before any payment.

Keep one more line in mind. A company registration is not approval of a course by Thai education authorities: for elementary, high school or vocational study, the same embassy page asks for a letter from the Ministry of Education side as well.

Requirements and fees differ between embassies, and some passports carry extra document requirements. The table shows where we read each rule; the page of the embassy you apply to is the one to follow.

The embassy decides the visa. Immigration decides entry and how long you stay. Sky Corp Co., Ltd. teaches and issues the enrolment papers, and Phuket DA takes your message, checks the details and keeps the paperwork moving between you and the school.

You pay in Thai baht: a bank transfer to a Thai account, an SBP transfer in roubles, or USDT on the TRC20 network, with the rate and amount agreed in the chat first.

If the embassy refuses a DTV before you arrive, the school's DTV page says the course fee is refundable and processing fees may apply. Once the course has started in Thailand there is no refund. Other cancellations have no published terms, so ask before paying; for an ED route the terms come only after the school confirms it supports ED at all.