SMART Visa Narrowed to Startup and Dependent Categories Only: What Changed and Where Affected Applicants Go Now

Thailand's SMART visa program, launched in 2018 to attract highly skilled talent, investors, and executives to targeted industries, lost three of its five original categories on February 18, 2025. Following a Cabinet decision on January 13, 2025, the Board of Investment issued Announcements No. 5/2568 and Por. 6/2568, formally discontinuing the SMART-T (Talent), SMART-I (Investor), and SMART-E (Executive) categories. As of that date, and continuing through today, the SMART visa program exists only in two forms: SMART-S for startup founders operating within a BOI-endorsed startup, and SMART-O for the spouse and children of a SMART-S holder.

Why the Narrowing Happened

The three discontinued categories had overlapped substantially with the Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa, which the BOI had already positioned as its flagship long-stay program for skilled professionals, investors, and executives. Running two visa programs with materially similar target audiences and criteria created administrative duplication without a clear benefit to either applicants or the agencies processing them. Rather than maintain both indefinitely, the government consolidated the higher-end, non-startup categories into LTR, leaving SMART to specialize in the one area LTR does not directly address: individual startup founders working within Thailand's BOI-endorsed startup ecosystem, plus their immediate dependents.

This consolidation was not an isolated visa-policy tweak. It happened in the same Cabinet session, January 13, 2025, that approved a broader relaxation of LTR visa criteria specifically intended to absorb applicants who might otherwise have used the now-discontinued SMART categories, including a reduction of the minimum employer revenue requirement for the Work-from-Thailand Professionals category and removal of the standalone income threshold as an absolute bar for certain applicant types. The timing makes clear that this was a coordinated redirection of applicant traffic from SMART to LTR, not two unrelated policy changes that happened to land on the same date.

What Remains Under SMART-S and SMART-O

SMART-S continues to serve individual founders of startups that have received endorsement from Thailand's National Innovation Agency or another BOI-recognized certifying body, within one of the government's targeted innovation industries. The category grants the founder the ability to work in Thailand without a separate work permit, a benefit that continues unchanged from the original program design. SMART-O extends the same visa validity and multiple re-entry privileges to the SMART-S holder's spouse and children, without requiring the dependents to separately qualify on employment or investment grounds.

For a founder whose startup fits the BOI-endorsed criteria, SMART-S remains a genuinely useful, purpose-built category, arguably a cleaner fit for an early-stage founder than LTR's Work-from-Thailand Professionals track, which is built around employment by an established foreign company rather than founding a Thai startup.

Where Talent, Investor, and Executive Applicants Go Now

Anyone who would previously have applied under SMART-T, SMART-I, or SMART-E needs to evaluate LTR eligibility instead. The four current LTR categories, Wealthy Global Citizens, Wealthy Pensioners, Work-from-Thailand Professionals, and Highly-Skilled Professionals, cover broadly the same population the discontinued SMART categories targeted, and the January 2025 criteria relaxation makes several of those categories more accessible than they were when SMART-T/I/E still existed as an alternative path. A skilled professional employed by a qualifying foreign or Thai company, an investor with sufficient qualifying assets, or a senior executive at a company operating in a BOI-targeted industry should now default to an LTR application rather than looking for a SMART equivalent that no longer exists.

The practical difference an applicant will notice is primarily in the visa's structure rather than its substance. LTR is issued for an initial five-year term with a further five-year renewal rather than SMART's shorter validity periods, and it carries its own fee structure, a 50,000 baht visa fee split across the two five-year tranches plus a 3,000 baht annual fee tied to the LTR's digital work permit. Anyone who had begun assembling an application under one of the discontinued SMART categories before February 2025 needed to redirect that same documentation, adjusted for LTR's specific category requirements, rather than resubmit under a category that no longer processes new applications.

No Further Changes Found for 2026

A search specifically for any 2026 replacement program or additional SMART visa development beyond the February 2025 discontinuation returned only restatements of the same change; no further narrowing, expansion, or new SMART category has been introduced since. The program has settled into its current two-category form, and applicants and advisors should plan around SMART-S and SMART-O as the permanent shape of the program rather than a transitional state awaiting further change.

For a foreign entrepreneur or executive weighing where they fit in Thailand's current visa landscape, the practical takeaway is straightforward: SMART is now a startup-founder-specific instrument, and everyone else who previously would have considered it should be evaluating LTR eligibility directly. DeeMED's Visa & Immigration services help founders, investors, and executives determine which current category, LTR or SMART-S, actually fits their circumstances, and manage the BOI application process for either.