My husband and I are planning to move to Bangkok from the US to study Thai in a school that will provide the ED visa. We have 3 young children. One school told us they would receive visas based upon being our dependents. Another school told us they could not receive visas and we would need to find a school to enroll them to provide their own ED visa. Seeing they are below school age I'm not sure how to proceed (or what info to trust). I have done a lot of searching and continue finding conflicting into. Any details you could recommend would be appreciated!

Your children can get extensions based upon your extensions based upon attending school. Their extensions would be the same length as you which will be for 90 days unless you going to study Thai at a formal school.

The children will need non-o visa to apply for their extensions.

Thank you so very much! To verify I am understanding, we will apply for non-o for them from the embassy when we apply for ED for us, correct? Thank you for your help. 

The can get the non-o visa when you apply for your non-ed visas.

4 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

The can get the non-o visa when you apply for your non-ed visas.

Perfect, thank you! This helps so much! 

It is hit and miss with this subject and completely depends on which embassy and their specific policy of the day. They will do whatever they want regardless what the law says. It seems like most of the embassies that are granting the non-o dependent visas for children based on an ED visa (not all are) are also requiring that you have a stamped original letter from the school saying that you are studying at their school and that they are your children (all details of your children, name, age, passport #) Some are also requiring bank statements to prove that you can support them while you are staying in Thailand. 

 

Of course you could do what many do and that is just don't get your children a visa at all and let them overstay. If they are young there is no penalty for overstay and they will just get a stamp in their passport when they exit the country saying they overstayed but are under a certain age. 

Edited December 2, 20187 yr by vinegarbase

Thank you! 

Edited December 13, 20187 yr by allthings
Double post

Thank you, vinegarbase! Do you know which embassy is possibly more likely to allow it? I contacted two different private language schools and one told me it’s no problem to get them dependent visas, and another told me it definitely isn’t an option. 

 

Just not sure how to move forward! I would like to keep them all “legal!” Would you suggest a multiple reentry for us and leave as required? We plan to study for a year and I know METV is only valid for 6 months.