Renewing 5 Year license at DTL Morchit

[tweezer]

Hi All,

Just renewed my 5 Year driving license at Morchit Department of Land Transport today.  Just thought I would share the process in case anybody is interested or looking for info.

 

Got to DLT at 10:00 AM with:

- Passport, and copies of the first page, visa page, and latest entry stamp/TM6 page.

- Printed copy of work permit, and my actual one which lives in my iPhone (the new digital wp app).

- My current license which expired exactly one day before I went to renew.

 

• Went to floor 2, and document checker lady checked the docs and gave me a C000XX queue number.
• Went to the area of booths 18 and 19, which are the two booths that handle licenses for foreigners.
• Waited there about half an hour (one guy in there took forever, and there was only one lady on duty.)
• Then got to see the lady who did her thing and prepared the application.  I kind of screwed up here when she asked "same address?" and I said no, because I'd moved since the last license.  I should have just said yes.  So after some discussion with another lady, and a mention that I might need an embassy cert (oh no), they finally decided to go with my company address on my work permit.  Fine with me.
• Worth noting that they had to play around a while with a couple different phones to scan the QR code on my work permit printout in order to pull up my data (this also happened when I went to get an international a few months ago too.).  They could scan it off my phone, but not off the printout for some reason.  Finally they figured it out.
• By about 10:40 I was heading upstairs for the perception tests.  No problem there... the normal color, depth, reflex and peripheral vision tests.
• By 11:10 I was watching the video (dreadfully boring, but interesting that one section is about why watching that video is not a waste of time... fair enough.)
• At 12:00 the lady called us off one by one and gave us our papers to head back downstairs for the license.
• 12:00 back on 2nd floor, the document inspector gave me queue number B0573.  Walk into the big room and the queue was at B0424 (Yikes!)
• Since it was the lunch hour the queue was moving pretty slow.  at 13:00 is started to move much more quickly.
• Then at about 13:40 my number came up... went to the called booth, got the photo taken, paid 555 baht, and then by 13:45 was walking out the door.
• And huge thanks to the TV user here who posted the tip that you should renew your license shortly AFTER it expires so you get an extra year.  Like I said, I renewed mine one day after it expired, so the new on expires on my birthday, exactly 6 years minus one day from today.

 

So that's it... just wanted to share in case it's helpful for anyone else.  It's useful to have recent, uo-to-date stories on things like this.

Cheers,

T.

PS: The parking situation is pretty bad there.  Using Grab or BTS is probably worth it.

 

 

[KhunBENQ]

You are in the good position to have a work permit which is accepted as proof of residence.

For many other foreigners getting an accepted proof of residence is the biggest hurdle.

[watcharacters]

39 minutes ago, tweezer said:

So that's it... just wanted to share in case it's helpful for anyone else.  It's useful to have recent, uo-to-date stories on things like this.

 

Does anyone if the same rule of thumb regarding the extra  year applies to Thais as well as falangs?

 

 

P.S...     Outstanding post, tweezer.   Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by watcharacters

[tweezer]

9 minutes ago, watcharacters said:

 

Does anyone if the same rule of thumb regarding the extra  year applies to Thais as well as falangs?

 

 

P.S...     Outstanding post, tweezer.   Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

Thanks... and yes, the extra year applies to anyone.  It's the way their system counts up to the expirey date.  Current date + 5 years, then up to the next birthday.  It should apply to all, though I haven't verified that with a Thai person's story...

Edited March 15, 2019 by tweezer

[tweezer]

16 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

You are in the good position to have a work permit which is accepted as proof of residence.

For many other foreigners getting an accepted proof of residence is the biggest hurdle.

I believe an affidavit from your home country embassy will be accepted.  Yes, it's an extra step of bureaucracy but I think that's what you need.   Maybe another user can confirm if I'm correct.

[KhunBENQ]

29 minutes ago, watcharacters said:

 

Does anyone if the same rule of thumb regarding the extra  year applies to Thais as well as falangs?

No difference for foreigner or Thais.

And the DL is not the only document where the "birthday" rule applies.

Expires on the x-th birthday following date of issue.

Similar applies for Thai ID cards (8 to 9 years validity).

 

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by KhunBENQ

[Henryford]

When renewing a 5 year did they require a medical certificate?

[tweezer]

37 minutes ago, Henryford said:

When renewing a 5 year did they require a medical certificate?

Nope... not required for the renewal of the 5 year license.

[walailak]

Hello forum, 

Does anyone knows if they will accept my pink foreigners ID card to replace my expired passport number eventhough my driving licence is still valid for another 2 years.

Every single bank account, even my ktb krungsri credit cards were changed to my pink foreigners id card for identification purposes. 

 

At the moment I'm on my 3rd 5 year driving licence 

Thank you 

Walailak 

[DavisH]

On 3/15/2019 at 7:00 PM, tweezer said:

And huge thanks to the TV user here who posted the tip that you should renew your license shortly AFTER it expires so you get an extra year.  Like I said, I renewed mine one day after it expired, so the new on expires on my birthday, exactly 6 years minus one day from today.

That's what I suspected:) I will be renewing in July. So the WP is still ok to use? I ask this, as one fellow worker went to get hers renewed and she was told to get a residence certificate (I believe she did have her WP with her), so I'm not sure what happened. Perhaps she did change addresses, as you mentioned. I've always used my WP at Nonthaburi. Never needed a residence certificate, so am wondering if the rules have changed.