Choosing a Thai school that will actually hold your visa

Before anything else, a word about the sources you will find on this subject.

Almost everything written in English about Thai education visas is published by a school or an agency that wants to sell you one, or by a competitor trying to frighten you away from one. Both distort in opposite directions: one tells you attendance is flexible and nothing ever goes wrong, the other implies you will be deported for missing a lesson. Neither describes an ordinary year.

What follows is the written rule, what it costs, and the handful of things genuinely worth checking. Read it as a checklist, not a warning.

The one thing that matters most

An ED visa is issued with three months’ validity, and you are stamped in for 90 days. The year or two people actually stay comes from extensions granted in Thailand, on paperwork your school prepares, against your school’s registration.

So the quality of the school is not mainly about the teaching. It is about whether the school’s own paperwork is in order, because your stay is built on top of it. Pick a properly registered school and the rest of this is administration. Pick badly and no amount of diligence on your part fixes it.

What “registered” has to mean

Being a real business that teaches Thai is not enough. The school must be registered with the Ministry of Education and authorised to enrol foreign students — two separate permissions, and some perfectly good schools have the first without the second.

When you apply, the embassy wants a letter from the Ministry of Education approving the enrolment of foreign students, plus a copy of the institution’s registration certificate. A school that cannot hand you both cannot get you a visa, however good the classes are.

What to ask before you pay

Ask by email, so the answers are in writing.

1. Can you send me the Ministry of Education letter approving enrolment of foreign students, and your registration certificate? A school used to genuine students sends both without fuss.
2. How long have you been supporting ED extensions? A track record is worth more than a price.
3. What attendance do you require? You want a clear number, because the school has to report it. A school that says it does not matter is offering to file something untrue on your behalf, and it is your stay that sits on top of it.
4. Who handles the extension paperwork, and is it included? Schools charge separately for this and it is routinely left out of the quoted price.
5. What is the total for a year — tuition, the school’s paperwork fee, and the 1,900 THB immigration fee each time you extend?

What the rules say, and what changed

Attendance is reported to immigration, and schools commonly require around 80% because that is what protects their own licence. If a school loses its registration, the extensions of everyone studying there lose the sponsorship they rest on — which is the practical reason to care who you sign up with.

This tightened in 2025. The Immigration Bureau said it had found several thousand people who had entered on student visas and never attended a class; its deputy commissioner said revoking a visa in that situation is standard procedure. The higher education minister said stay permits had been withdrawn from close to 10,000 foreign nationals for non-compliance of various kinds.

Worth reading in proportion. That enforcement was aimed at people enrolled at schools they never attended, and at the schools selling that arrangement. Someone studying at a registered school and turning up is not the target of it. But it does explain why schools have become strict about attendance, and why “it is not a problem” is no longer an answer any reputable one gives.

The trap that catches people who did nothing wrong

An ED visa and its extensions are single entry. Leave Thailand without buying a re-entry permit first and the extension is cancelled — not paused. You return on a tourist entry and start again.

The permit costs 1,000 THB for one trip or 3,800 THB for unlimited, from the Immigration Bureau. If there is any chance of a trip home, a wedding, or a weekend across a border, buy the multiple one at the start. This is the mistake that costs people a whole enrolment, and it has nothing to do with enforcement or attendance — it is simply how the visa works.

What it costs

Tuition varies enormously and is the school’s business. The parts that do not vary:

• 1,900 THB for each extension of stay, paid to the Immigration Bureau
• 1,000 or 3,800 THB for a re-entry permit, if you intend to leave at all
• The school’s own fee for preparing extension paperwork, which is not the immigration fee and is the line most often missing when people compare schools

There is no minimum bank balance for an ED visa, unlike the retirement and business categories. What you evidence is enough to cover tuition and living costs.

When another visa suits you better

If you have no real interest in studying, this is not the effortless long-stay route it is sometimes sold as — it ties your legal status to a third party and commits you to turning up.

If you work remotely for clients abroad, the DTV gives five years and 180 days per entry with no attendance obligation and no re-entry permit needed. Over 50, the retirement route is simpler again. The visa cost calculator puts them side by side.

But if you genuinely want to learn Thai or train Muaythai properly, ED is a good category and a properly registered school makes it straightforward. See Education Visas for the seven ED categories and what each one requires.