jamesthailand

Here's the body of the letter I got. SB managed to send it to my old address, despite my having told them long ago that I had moved. The letter says that my application was approved by HMK on 28th Feb, but it took till the 2nd June to issue the letter. I find the phrasing of the letter a bit strange, but I understand it to say that I should go and swear the oath of allegiance within 7 days of the date of the letter, otherwise publication in the Royal Gazette will be delayed.

I would say it is a point in your favour. If you can show that you will continue to be based in Thailand, then the regular money you give her here is a reason for her to return to Thailand with you, rather than overstay in the UK.

I didn't use an agent. My secretary helped a lot.

I don't know exactly when the large committee approved my application. The two long (multi-year) delays in the process were waiting for the MoI interview and waiting for the Interior Minister to sign.

SB just told me (actually my secretary) by phone that my application had been signed by the palace (along with a couple of hundred others). A letter is supposedly on its way. I submitted my application to SB in Jan 2008.

I am wondering how long the remaining stages are likely to take. I am guessing the longest wait is from taking the oath to the announcement in the Royal Gazette.

I finally got my ID card yesterday. It turned out that the request for a card, which the khet had submitted, had been lost. After the request was resubmitted, the card came within a few weeks. Thanks to everybody for their help.

Congratulations!

What was the Khet or Amphur?

Sathorn

I finally got my ID card yesterday. It turned out that the request for a card, which the khet had submitted, had been lost. After the request was resubmitted, the card came within a few weeks. Thanks to everybody for their help.

The district was Sathorn. I can't find the receipt they gave me any more, but it was more than a year ago. It took several visits and many phone calls before they were able to successfully input the data (using the info in this thread). They gave me a receipt saying to come and collect it in 15 days, but there have been no further developments since then. My secretary calls up or visits from time to time, but they simply say that they haven't heard anything back yet.

If I could show them a copy of a pink id card issued to a permanent resident, maybe that would be enough to get things moving.

My citizenship application is with the palace, so it will be a toss up to see whether the PR id card before my proper Thai id card.

Success! I picked up my pink ID card yesterday.

Here is the official process: Bring your passport, blue PR book, reddish Alien Book, tabien bahn and other documents (they also took copies of my work permit and my driver's licence, as I had them with me), and a signed copy of each, to your District Office (Khet in Bangkok, amphur in the provinces) and go to the department that issues the ID cards also for Thai citizens.

You will be finger printed and photographed, and you'll have to sign an application form. They had filled it in for me in my case, I don't know whether it should normally be filled in by the applicant.

Then they send the file off to the Ministry of the Interior, where the card will be printed and sent back to the DO. I was told it should take 1-2 months, but it took only about 2 weeks in my case.

That's it. No fees at all.

Congrats. Is this in Bangkok or outside?

I submitted my application many months ago, but they always say they are still waiting to get the card from the MoI.

My wife just succeeded in getting a Schengen visa today. It was a total pain in the arse.

I'm a UK citizen and married my wife in the UK. The Spanish Embassy asked for a copy of the marriage certificate certified by the British Embassy: the British Embassy can't/won't do this.

I already had a marriage certificate which has been properly legalised (apostille by FCO in Milton Keynes, certified by Thai Embassy in London and then translated and certified by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs), which is legal both in Spanish law and Thai law, but they refused to accept that.

They insisted on being able to keep one of the original copies of the marriage certificate (issued in London on the day I got married). Since we can easily order more copies online from the UK GRO (and we're travelling in a few days), we went along with that. However, it seems highly unreasonable to me. (My wife sensibly prevailed on me to give in and get the visa, rather than be right and not get the visa.)

They slyly suggested that all these problems could easily be avoided if my wife just reapplied as a tourist rather than as the spouse of an EU citizen. It seems they have an agenda to make it difficult for EU citizens to exercise their rights.

I also had trouble with VFS. They insisted on my wife providing hotel booking information, until I went along and made a scene. I think after that the VFS staff all sympathised with my wife for being married to such an obnoxious farang, and were very nice to her.

The maximally correct legal procedure is as follows (I used this for my English marriage certificate):

1. Get your Scottish marriage certificate "legalised" by sending it off to the FCO legalisation department in Milton Keynes: https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised (you can instead get a copy from the GRO and legalise that). The FCO will stick a little slip of paper (called an apostille) to the marriage certificate that certifies that the signature on your Scottish marriage certificate is genuine
2. Take or send the marriage certificate with the apostille to the Thai Embassy in London. They will stamp it certifying that the FCO's apostille is genuine. See http://www.thaiembassyuk.org.uk/?q=node/172
3. When you get to Thailand, get the certificate translated into Thai.
4. Get the translation certified by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs
5. Take the legalized marriage certificate with the attached translation to your wife's amphur and register your marriage. They will then issue you a KR22, which you can use in immigration.

I have heard that people short circuit 1 and 2, by asking the UK Embassy in Thailand to certify the UK marriage certificate. But their web site seems to say that they don't do that:

https://www.gov.uk/notarial-and-documentary-services-guide-for-thailand

Hi Dork,

I decided to have a try at getting an ID card (I'm a PR). I'm in Sathorn District.

The first couple of layers of people claimed that I wasn't eligible. Eventually I got to see the head person, who admitted that I was supposed to be able to have one, but claimed they don't have the program/software to do it. They didn't even try to take a photo or print an ID card. I told them I knew of somebody in another district who had done it, and they wanted to know what district that was.

Currently the status is they are talking to head office. We'll see what happens. It seems I'm the first PR in my district to ask for one.

Thanks for the info.

I'm curious: when a PR gets Thai citizenship, do they keep the same ID number (starting with an 8) or do they get a new one?

SB is sent a list of interviewees and sends out invitation letters to them which sometimes arrive at very short notice or even after the interviews have already taken place.

That happened to me and I missed my scheduled interview date. Turned out not to be as big a problem as I feared. I wrote a letter to SB explaining why I missed the interview and they rescheduled me for the next month (or perhaps the month after that).

I can think of: CK, ITD and STEC.

My suggestion would be to buy TDEX, which is an ETF tracking the SET50. Since it's an ETF rather than a mutual fund, you can buy it through any broker, and there aren't any restrictions on foreigners holding it. If you don't have a broker yet, I would suggest trying KGI, which manages TDEX. I don't know for sure whether KGI accepts US customers, but I haven't yet heard of any brokers refusing US customers.

For an American is an ETF sold on the Thai stock exchange subject to IRS Passive Foreign Investment Company reporting and tax requirements, which are truly onerous?

Interesting question. In terms of Thai law, I don't believe there's any difference in the legal structure between an ETF and a regular mutual fund: an ETF is just a mutual fund that is traded on the SET. In Thailand, a mutual fund is a separate legal entity (under the Securities and Exchange Act) but is not a company. A bit of googling suggests that the IRS is nonetheless likely to treat it as a PFIC. So I think if you're an American the safest course of action is not to hold any Thai mutual funds (including ETFs). Ouch. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and not an American.)

My suggestion would be to buy TDEX, which is an ETF tracking the SET50. Since it's an ETF rather than a mutual fund, you can buy it through any broker, and there aren't any restrictions on foreigners holding it. If you don't have a broker yet, I would suggest trying KGI, which manages TDEX. I don't know for sure whether KGI accepts US customers, but I haven't yet heard of any brokers refusing US customers.

More from my lawyer. Another lawyer in the same firm takes a different view and thinks that income earned abroad in 2011 can safely be brought into Thailand in 2012. (I'm not sure how he get's that from the wording of the revenue code.)

My conclusion is that it's not clear. The safest course is to keep income earned abroad for an entire calendar year, but you'll probably be OK if it's brought in the calendar year following the calendar year in which it was earned.

I got a reply from my lawyer. Section 41, paragraph 2 of the Thai Revenue Code states:

A resident of Thailand who in the previous tax year derived assessable income under Section 40 from an employment or from business carried on abroad or from a property situated abroad shall, upon bringing such assessable income into Thailand, pay tax in accordance with the provisions of this Part.

(The corresponding Thai is here.) Thus, if in 2012 you bring into Thailand income earned abroad in 2011 you are liable to pay tax on that income. If you bring it into Thailand in 2013, you are not.

Thanks for the link.

I'm just relaying the advice I received from a highly experienced Thai lawyer. I just checked again with him, and showed him the passage you quoted, and he confirmed that his understanding is as I described it. I find this a bit surprising, because the passage does seem pretty clear. On the other hand, it's not uncommon for English-language information on Thai web sites to be inaccurate. I've asked him to check into it, and I'll post when I get an answer. I do hope your interpretation is the right one: it would significantly simplify things for me.

Do you by any chance have a link to the official Thai-language regulations on this issue?

I believe so. The legal advice I received was that to avoid taxation the income had to spend 1 calendar year (ie a period from 1st Jan to 31st Dec) overseas before being remitted to Thailand. For example, if you received income in August 2011, the earliest you could remit it would be 1st January 2013. I was also advised that income received in each calendar year needed to be kept in a separate account until it had become safe to remit.

You have to buy a minimum of 100 shares at a time, unless the price of the shares has been over 500 baht for 6 months, in which case the minimum is 50 shares.

If you want a diversified portfolio (and if you're cautious you should), 50,000 will constrain your choice of shares a bit. You might want to consider TDEX: it's a exchange-traded fund tracking the SET50 index. This would allow you to get diversified exposure to the SET within your 50,000 baht limit. The management fee, at 0.42%, is low compared to most Thai mutual funds.

I've having this problem too. I'm using True.

NVDR liquidity is the same as non-NVDR (for foreign shares, it's not, which is why NVDR was created).

If you are seeking respectable Premier Banking Services in the Kingdom, I have found that Standard Chartered and ICBC are the two best institutions now that HSBC has fled the scene.

I am curious what Standard Chartered or ICBC gives you that you don't get from a Thai bank such as BBL.

I use HSBC premier in Jersey for my offshore money, and tried HSBC in Thailand for a while, but I found their services very limited compared to a major Thai bank. In particular, I found HSBC limited in terms of its Internet banking transfer and direct debit capabilities.

However, BBL is ludicrously bureaucratic and their interest rates are pathetic. (I get around this by using a money market fund linked to my BBL account to hold the bulk of my cash.)

BBL do have a priority banking service (Bualuang Exclusive) that they give you if you keep 3m with them, but I don't find it particularly useful.

Another plus of BBL is that they seem pretty competent at handling international transfers.

I had my Interior Ministry interview today, just over three years after my initial application at Special Branch.

One question surprised me. The committee secretary, a rather fierce woman, asked whether I was willing to give up my current citizenship. I replied that if it was required, then I would. She then said that if I didn't, my Thai citizenship would be revoked. This wasn't consistent with what Special Branch had told me when I applied, so I had my secretary follow up with Special Branch. They said that the committee was not supposed to ask that question, and furthermore confirmed that (in their opinion) there was nothing in Thai Law to forbid dual citizenship, and that the Interior Ministry had no legal right to force me to give up my existing citizenship.

I'm told that the time from this stage to getting citizenship is mostly dependent on how long the Interior Minister takes to sign. It can take years. Apparently, the current minister has expressed the view that he doesn't view this as a priority relative to his other duties (except in special circumstances, which I will leave you to guess), so I am expecting a long wait.