khongaeng

Yes, But go ahead and get the yellow book process started. I've heard that it could take as long as a year (mine took 6 months). If you have a baby sometime in the next 3 years then as soon as your baby is born you can apply (I highly recommend not rushing having children for the sole purpose of applying for Thai citizenship, though 😉)

When I applied based on marriage back in 2016 or 2017, Special Branch required me to have a Yellow Book (and I believe the pink ID). I was on the Yellow Book for over 5 years, but they still didn't give me any points for it. At the time, I believe that Arkady explained that the point system for registration is geared only for PR, so those of us applying based on marriage shouldn't hope to get any points under the residency section. @JayLeno I think the yellow book is required so that you are tied to a house registration. When you go and reserve your new Thai name (as part of the process) and then at the end of the process when you get your citizenship, it will be based on your house registration. Yellow books can be a pain to get depending on the office you are working with, so I would get that process started as soon as you can.

You should talk to your Uni about this. I can't think of a reason why they would cook the books unless built into your contract is a provision to offset your income tax in some way or possibly they want to save a little bit on your social fund contributions. Maybe they will work with you to get you above the minimum 40k, so that you qualify. However, at the same time, others on this forum have received backlash from their employers after becoming Thai because once you are Thai, they are not required to pay you as much or give you as many benefits.

Your wife is Thai correct? Do you have a yellow house registration book yet?

Getting Thai nationality is all just a matter of how much you want to put into it. For me I spent approximately 3500 EUR per year total to maintain a company on paper and pay taxes in Thailand to qualify me to apply (including cost to set up company, taxes, Work permits, employee taxes and social fund contributions, accounting and auditing fees every month and year, etc) for almost 6 years (3 years before I applied and 3 years after I applied). I had to do this since my company is based overseas. I'm here because Thailand is such a nice place to live. So I invested about 20,000 Euro total in my pursuit of Thai citizenship. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Owning land, the convenience of flashing my blue ID card or Thai passport when needed is so satisfying. I never paid a single bribe, and I jumped through all of the hoops unaided by lawyers or connections. Anyone can do it, it just depends on how much you care about it. As far as I'm concerned, the only limiting factor is wanting to live in Thailand long term and being married to a Thai person. If I had known at the beginning how easy it is to set up a company and do the monthly accounting, then I probably could have done everything for 10,000 EUR total. If you are already working in Thailand and married to a Thai person, then why wait, apply now. Your only cost is 10100 THB as david143 mentioned.

This is absolutely true. However as a data point for those who are concerned, I have flown in and out of Thailand 30 times in the past 4 years. I have only 2 stamps from another country in my passport. I have multiple pages full of stamps out and in through Thai immigration because I always go through the manual stamping lines, in the BOI/Monk/Special Assistance area (they don't have auto machines in this area). While coming into the country is just as fast to go through the Automated line as it is to go through the manual Thai stamping line, I have actually had a question on both of the 2 occasions when I went through the automated lines on the way out and when I came in through the manual stamping lines, they couldn't find the exit stamp. They simply asked "did you go through the auto lanes on the way out" to which I replied "yes." On the 60+ times I have been face to face with a Thai immigration official, they have never questioned me about why I don't have a stamp from another country or a visa from another country in my Thai passport. I hope that this never changes, otherwise I will have to go through the slow security lines to get to the automated immigration lines on the way out, and then use only the automated immigration lines coming in as you suggested.

Yes, I think Thai bank systems are becoming more flexible to middle names lately. I opened a bank account at each of the 5 top banks in Thailand last year, and I think only one had an issue with my middle name. It might have been SCB. In that case, I think they just put my first and middle names together with a space as my first name. All other Banks didn't have any issues with my middle name. My middle name has never created a situation that I wasn't able to open an account or apply for something.

Non-O visa and work permit are separate. I was unemployed, then employed by a Thai company, then employed by my own company all while maintaining an extension of the original Non-O visa. Be careful where you get a work permit from, because when you apply for citizenship, you will have to provide various documents from your employer (letter of employment, PND1, and possibly others). It your employer is a pseudo-company that just provides work permits for foreigners, they probably won't provide you with the required information, because they will most certainly not want to bring unwanted attention to their grey-zone arrangement with foreigners to provide work permits. You may consider opening your own company. Taxes, accounting fees, visas, WPs and everything included will cost you about 4000 EUR per year to open and maintain a company (based on my own experience). If you do your own accounting, except for the annual audit, you can save considerably, but it all depends on how much effort you want to put into the process. If you have your own company, you can generate the required paperwork whenever you want, and even adjust your salary to get more points (but also pay more tax).

I'm married to a Thai and SB asked me to sing in order to make sure that I got all of the language fluency points. Apparently they won't make you sing if you are comfortably over the limit of 50 points. I guess I was just at the cut off point. I was not asked to sing at the MOI interview. If you are not yet on a Thabian Bahn then you can't even apply. Supposedly you are supposed to get 5 points if you are on a house registration for 5 years, but they did not give me those points even though I was on a yellow book for 5 years. You do not need to be registered for a minimum amount of time (if you are married to a Thai). I think the points in the residency section are geared towards Permanent Residents. In the end, it doesn't really matter so long as you make the cutoff. If SB asks you to pay the 5000 baht to lodge your application, it means that you have the minimum required points (they won't take your application fee unless you make the cut).

That sounds about right given most people's recent timelines. My documents were at MOI for 30 months before I finally got called for an interview. The process is incredibly slow. I reached out to SB once every couple of months and MOI once every couple of months during my application process and it didn't help at all. Fortunately this forum provides clear documentation that the application process works. I remember how painful the waiting process was thinking how can it be this way after paying so many Baht in taxes and after doing this and that for the country and the community that I live in. Don't worry about it. Your application is making progress, just let it run its course. It will take 3-4 years give or take half a year. This is normal. Good luck!

To me that question is asking if have you changed your citizenship. To which the answer is no, because you have merely acquired another citizenship. You still are a US citizen and file your income taxes yearly. Your country of residence probably also hasn't changed if you have been claiming residency in Thailand on your US taxes.

I had my visa cancelled at the immigration office as well, but they didn't stamp cancelled over the visa and re-entry in the passport. Rather they wrote in Thai (taking the usual full page of my previous nationality passport). "This person received Thai nationality according to the the Royal Gazette posting xxxxx on date xxxxx" signed by the person in charge that would normally sign visas. The documents I took with me were my Blue Thai ID card. Royal Gazette copy and Naturalization paper. They didn't keep any originals and actually made copies for free (shocking)! My European friend that had immigration police show up at his door 2 years after his visa expired also had a similar handwritten note in his passport.

Funny story. My European friend who got his citizenship the same time as I did was out of town a couple of weeks ago and 3 immigration police show up at his house, asking his wife where he was. His wife explained to them that he had received his Thai citizenship all the way back in 2021, and that he had gotten his visa cancelled at immigration immediately after getting his blue ID card. They explained that somehow their team was different from the visa department and that they never received word that my friend had acquired Thai citizenship. His wife gave them a copy of his ID card and they went happily on their way. I thought it was interesting to find out that even if you go through all the right steps of cancelling your visa, etc. Immigration may still come looking for you. This is the first time I have heard about something like this happening, which means that in all other cases, Immigration must not be bothered enough to check on people that have "overstayed" their visa. Apparently they came with their police cars and 4 officers, as if they were ready to haul him away to immigration prison. Even within Immigration, I guess one department can't be bothered to let the others know about immigration status. It is a miracle that our applications are able to make it through the process at all to obtain Thai nationality.

No, your new Thai name will not automatically be used on your new ID card. All of the paperwork and Royal Gazette announcements will have your foreign name on them. You will first get your ID card in your foreign name, at which point you could have the option to change your name to the Thai name you reserved at the start of your application. Your new Thai name is never used a single time in any paperwork after the day you request it as just part of the process that you are required to do.

If you have a Pink ID card, then you should have been issued a yellow book at the same time. For the yellow book you will need to go to the same office that a Thai would go to get their blue book or ID card and ask them what documents you need to bring. It will be a stack, but basically the same stack of documents you need to apply for citizenship. The yellow book may take a few months to get and it should only cost something around 100 baht (definitely less than 1000). It has been such a long time since went through that ordeal that I have forgotten the process. My name was on a yellow book in Bangkok for 1 day prior to applying at SB in Bangkok (I had been on a yellow book in our home province for almost 5 years prior to that). They don't care how long you have been on the registration in Bangkok, only that your registration is in Bangkok.