SMART Visa Thailand: What Changed in 2025
If you're researching Thailand's SMART Visa as an investor or executive, the category you're looking for no longer exists. As of February 2025, only SMART-S (Startup) and SMART-O (dependents) remain active. Here's what changed and where to go instead.
Last reviewed: July 2026
Investor, Executive, and Talent were discontinued
Under BOI Announcements No. 5/2568 and Por. 6/2568, effective February 18, 2025, following a Cabinet decision on January 13, 2025, Thailand discontinued the SMART-I (Investor), SMART-E (Executive), and SMART-T (Talent) categories. Applicants who fit those former profiles are now directed to the LTR visa, usually its Wealthy Global Citizens or Highly-Skilled Professionals category. This is a real, confirmed discontinuation, not a technicality: BOI's current SMART Visa portal only builds out application pages for SMART-S and SMART-O, and an older BOI page still listing all five categories is a stale, unmaintained legacy page dated 2019, not current guidance.
SMART-S: what's still active
SMART-S remains a real, active visa for founders of a startup certified in a BOI-targeted industry. It requires at least 25% equity ownership or a director role in the certified startup, a 600,000 THB deposit held for at least 3 months (plus 180,000 THB per dependent under SMART-O), and health insurance. The visa fee is 10,000 THB per year of permitted duration, paid in cash, up to a maximum 4-year term.
Getting the startup certified in the first place
SMART-S eligibility runs through a separate certification step before the visa application itself: the startup has to be endorsed as operating in one of Thailand's targeted S-Curve industries by the relevant agency, the National Innovation Agency, the Digital Economy Promotion Agency, or the National Science and Technology Development Agency, depending on the sector. Medical and wellness, agriculture and biotechnology, and digital technology are among the targeted categories, which covers a meaningful share of the health-adjacent startups DeeMED works with. Without that underlying certification, the 25% equity or director-role requirement doesn't matter, there's no SMART-S application to file yet.
SMART-O: dependents
SMART-O covers the spouse and children of a SMART-S visa holder, filed alongside the primary application with its own additional deposit requirement per dependent.
If you're an investor or executive, not a startup founder
Do not file a SMART application expecting Investor or Executive treatment, that category is gone. If your profile is an investor, a senior executive of an established company, or a highly-skilled professional, the LTR visa is now the correct route, with a longer 10-year term than SMART ever offered. If your role is tied to a BOI-promoted manufacturing or operating company rather than a certified startup, the BOI-endorsed visa and fast-track work permit may fit better.
DeeMED confirms which visa category actually fits your situation before you file, since SMART's 2025 restructuring has left a lot of stale information circulating about what it still covers. If you're a genuine BOI-certified startup founder, we handle the startup certification and the SMART-S application together; if your profile is investor or executive, we'll route you to the LTR or BOI-endorsed process that replaced it. Talk to us before you file the wrong application.
