Frequently asked questions

SawaLife is a multilingual platform that helps visitors and future residents prepare travel, life and practical next steps in Thailand.

SawaLife supports English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and German. A page is available in a language only when its relevant content has been prepared for that language.

No. Visa information is for orientation and preparation only. Always confirm current requirements with the cited official source or a qualified professional before acting.

Visa and other sensitive information are published only after editorial review and source capture. Each available visa page shows its review date, disclaimer and source links.

No. Visa Finder, readiness checks, city comparison, budget and currency tools are informational planning aids. They do not determine eligibility, entry permission, affordability, legal status or a personal recommendation.

Some information depends on editorial review or third-party data providers. We show sources, review dates or freshness notices where available, but you should always verify important or time-sensitive information directly with the competent authority.

City profiles show separate, source-backed planning criteria. They do not create a total ranking, declare a best city or evaluate your personal safety, health, visa or household circumstances.

They are reference snapshots from attributed providers and may be delayed, modelled or temporarily unavailable. They are not forecasts, health alerts, transaction quotes or emergency information.

No. SawaLife does not make bookings, submit visa applications, act as your agent or guarantee a provider’s service. Contact the official authority or service provider directly.

Treat listed prices and allowances as dated orientation. Confirm coverage at your address, identity or contract requirements, VAT, installation, fair-use rules and the final price directly with the operator.

No. It identifies relevant travel modes and authoritative checking channels. Timetables, transfers, weather, availability and fares must be confirmed with the operator; SawaLife does not issue a ticket or guarantee a connection.

No. It is a non-exhaustive starting directory, not a diagnosis, triage decision, quality ranking or treatment recommendation. In an emergency call 1669 or use the nearest appropriate emergency service.

SawaLife does not sell, broker or recommend a policy. The insurance guide explains comparison questions and links to regulator or industry directories; only the issued policy and insurer decision determine cover.

Scheduled retrieval collects titles, links, timestamps and short extracts from active sources. SawaLife classifies, rewrites and translates each update into all supported languages before publication, while displaying its source, original language and reliability score.

An update is corroborated when at least two independent publisher groups report the same subject. A single-source update can still be published, but is clearly identified as such and links to the original context.

No. A price is displayed only as a dated official reference, an estimate with its assumptions or a current provider result. Taxes, eligibility, capacity, location and provider changes can alter the final amount.

SawaLife shows an unavailable or stale state instead of inventing a value. Weather, air quality, exchange rates, route inventory, news feeds and AI translation can all fail independently without making the rest of the site unavailable.

Yes. SawaLife is fully responsive and works in any modern mobile browser; no app installation is required.

Most public articles, guides, city pages and tools can be read without an account. An account is needed only for member features such as preferences, saved information and personalised planning.

Use the language selector in the public header. Signed-in members can also change their interface language from their account area; the setting is saved for future visits.

After signing in, open My account to update your name, optional profile details, language, currency preference and alerts. Keep your email address and password secure and do not place sensitive identity or payment documents in free-text fields.

Contact info@sawalife.com to request help with access, correction or deletion. We may need to verify your identity and retain limited information where the law, security or an unresolved issue requires it.

Only when you submit a marketplace request to a selected partner and give the requested details for that purpose. The partner then handles the request under its own terms and privacy notice.

SawaLife currently uses only necessary session and security cookies. It does not currently enable advertising, social-media tracking or non-essential analytics cookies; see the Cookie Notice for updates.

Open My account → Profile and use the Choose file button under your photo to upload a new one. Accepted formats are JPEG, PNG or WebP.

Open My account → Notifications to turn optional reminders and alerts on or off. Security and legal emails cannot be disabled.

Your account covers your login, profile and preferences. Identity verification (KYC) is a separate, optional step that unlocks eligibility-restricted marketplace categories such as real estate.

Some marketplace categories, such as real estate, are restricted to verified members for safety and eligibility reasons. Verification is optional unless you want to access those categories.

You can use a passport, a national identity card or a driving license. A passport only needs its photo page; an ID card or driving license needs both the front and back.

A staff member manually reviews every submission, usually within a few business days. You can check your current status at any time on the Identity verification page.

No copy is kept. Once our team approves or rejects your submission, the uploaded files are automatically and permanently deleted from our servers within 48 hours.

A rejection usually means the document was expired, blurry, cropped or did not match the details you entered. Check the reason shown on the page and submit a new, clear and valid document.

Public partner profiles are manually reviewed by SawaLife before listing. Verification does not replace your own assessment or create a guarantee about a provider’s services.

Each marketplace opens independently. A visible preview does not mean listing, messaging or payment is active. The page status explains whether safety, moderation and inventory gates have passed.

Each is a dedicated marketplace category: Small ads is for one-off personal items, Real estate and Vehicle rentals for property and vehicles, Businesses for sale for transferring an existing business, Home food & catering for home cooks and caterers, and Digital talent / Thai local services for skills and services.

Each category has its own active duration shown when you publish. You will be reminded before it expires and can republish it from your dashboard.

Our moderation team checks every submission against the category rules before publishing. If rejected, the reason is shown on your listing and you can correct and resubmit it.

Open My account → the relevant marketplace category to manage all of your listings: edit their details and photos, request featured placement, or archive and delete them at any time.

A featured listing appears in the rotating highlights on the homepage and higher in its category for a limited period, increasing its visibility.

No. You need a free account to send or receive a marketplace message, which keeps conversations private and traceable to a real member.

Open the listing and use its Contact or Send message button. Your conversation appears in My account → Marketplace messages.

Members reply at their own pace and are not obliged to accept every request. If a listing is archived or expired, the other member may no longer be able to reply.

Yes. Open the conversation and use the Block or Report option. Blocking stops further messages in both directions; reporting sends the conversation to our moderation team.

Yes. Marketplace and social messages are automatically translated into your interface language so members speaking different languages can understand each other.

Social messages come from the community/discovery area of the platform, while marketplace messages are tied to a specific listing. Both appear in your dashboard, grouped separately.

It is a space to publish or find short-term collaborations, freelance missions and remote or on-site opportunities connecting members in Thailand.

Open My account → Nomad projects, fill in the project editor with your title, description, skills needed, timeline and compensation, then save it as a draft or publish it.

Open the project and use the Apply or Contact button depending on its contact method. Your request appears under Received/Sent requests in the Nomad projects page.

Yes, the Free plan allows a limited number of active projects and new contacts per month, shown at the top of the Nomad projects page; Premium removes these limits.

Yes. The Privacy section of the Nomad projects page lets you choose, field by field, whether each part of your profile is visible to everyone or hidden.

It is a space to discover other members, join discussions and ask questions about life in Thailand, separate from the marketplace and messaging areas.

Open My account → Community, then use the post or comment form. Your account must be active and email-verified to publish.

Yes. Every post, comment and profile has a Report action. Our moderation team reviews reports and can hide or remove content that breaks the rules.

Harassment, hate speech, spam, illegal content and anything that would violate another member's safety or privacy are not allowed and can lead to a suspension.

The Free and Premium capabilities are shown for clarity, but checkout remains unavailable until pricing and billing are formally approved.

The Pricing page uses the application capability registry and labels each row as available, beta or coming soon. A planned Premium benefit is not active merely because it appears in the comparison.

Once billing is active, payments are processed securely through Stripe and accept the major international debit and credit cards.

You can cancel anytime from My account → Subscription; access continues until the end of the paid period. Refund requests are reviewed case by case from the same page.

Once billing is active, every invoice is available from My account → Subscription → Billing history.

Use the Contact page and include the page link and a clear description. Do not send passwords, payment details, passport copies or other highly sensitive information by email or through a public form.

Do not rely on SawaLife in an emergency. Contact local emergency services, your insurer, embassy or an appropriate qualified professional directly.

Keep communication on the supported channel, do not send identity or payment secrets, inspect physical goods, use a safe public location, tell someone your plan and stop if there is pressure to pay or move to an unsafe channel.

Be cautious of prices far below market value, requests to pay outside SawaLife, urgency pressure, or refusal to meet or show the item in person. Report it immediately using the Report action.

SawaLife does not currently process marketplace payments or guarantee a transaction. Treat any request for advance payment with caution and follow the in-person meeting safety tips.

Use Contact and provide the exact page, disputed statement, current primary source and date. SawaLife reviews evidence and keeps sensitive claims private if their source or translation can no longer be verified.

We aim to reply within a few business days. Complex identity, safety or billing requests may take a little longer to review.

You can write to us in any of SawaLife's six supported languages: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian or German.