Dual citizen with two passports

[udornexpat]

My Thai wife is in Thailand on a 60 day tourist visa in her American passport. Her Thai passport and Thai ID card had expired two years ago but she was able to get a new Thai ID card and passport upon arriving here in Thailand recently. Anyone have experience or knowledge on whether or not she can exit (stamped out) at Nong Khai border with the American passport and reenter a day later using her Thai passport without running into problems with Lao or Thai immigration officials? Would she need to get a Laos visa  or border pass beforehand?

[ubonjoe]

Both Thai and Lao immigration at border crossings look for departures stamps when entering either country.

As a Thai she could talk to Thai immigration about entering on her Thai passport before leaving the country if it was just a border hop.

FYI and others a Thai can enter the country with a expired passport.

[elviajero]

Your wife should ask Thai immigration to stamp her leaving in both passports. Then she will be able to enter Laos using the Thai passport. 

 

If Thai immigration won’t play ball she will have to negotiate with Laos immigration to let her in on the Thai passport, and failing that negotiate with Thai immigration to use the Thai passport on the way back in.

 

If she exits/re-enters by air she won’t have a problem swapping passports.

[jackdd]

Unless she plans to stay in Thailand now for the rest of her life, afaik she can also get a one year extension for being Thai, maybe that's enough to cover her current stay and next time she can use her Thai passport for entering.

Edited August 29, 2018 by jackdd

[udornexpat]

Thanks for the advice, guys. We decided to avoid crossing to Laos from Nong Khai because of possible hassles from Thai and Laos IOs and took cheap Air Asia flights to/from Kuala Lumpur with overnight stay in KL. It was "easy-peasy". Wife's tourist visa in US passport was stamped out at Don Muang. She received 30 day visa on arrival at KL airport when she presented Thai passport. A day later the Malaysian IO stamped out her 30 day visa. She presented the Thai passport to Thai IO at Don Muang and became a dual-citizen again.

 

No cost for her 30 day visa (nor my 90 day visa on arrival with my US passport). Been traveling to Thailand over past 52 years and enjoyed our first ever trip to Malaysia.

 

In retrospect, if we knew she could enter Thailand with an expired Thai passport we would have tried it but her ID card had also expired.