Obtaining UK Emergency Travel Document

[Morakot]

Has anyone recently managed to get a UK Emergent Travel Document in Thailand, specifically for the purpose of staying/ remaining here?

 

1. How strict was the requirement for a travel booking?
2. How early did you get the emergency travel document, before your UK passport/ Thai visa expired?
3. Were there any issues from Thai immigration about that one-year document to renew your extension to stay?

 

The new passport I applied for will not arrive before my current extension to stay and work permit expires. This is due to the COVID-19 related backlog.

[brewsterbudgen]

Hopefully someone will have done this recently and can advise.  But if you get an Emergency Travel document, won't your new passport have to be cancelled, or can one be issued even if you have a valid passport on its way?

[OJAS]

56 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Hopefully someone will have done this recently and can advise.  But if you get an Emergency Travel document, won't your new passport have to be cancelled, or can one be issued even if you have a valid passport on its way?

It is unlikely that anyone would have succeeded in obtaining an ETD in the circumstances described by the OP. In response to an enquiry which I submitted to them on this point, the Embassy informed me that "International Civil Aviation Organisation Document (ICAO) regulation 9303 states that Emergency Travel Documents cannot be issued for anything other than emergency travel".

 

I find it curious, though, that the US Embassy doesn't apparently see International Civil Aviation Organisation Document (ICAO) regulation 9303 as being a bar to their issuing emergency passports (which, to all intents and purposes, are the same as ETD's) to our American cousins in identical circumstances!

[Eff1n2ret]

ICAO Document 9303 is concerned wholly with the specification for Machine Readable Passports and has absolutely nothing to say about the issue of Emergency Travel Documents:-

 

https://www.icao.int/publications/Documents/9303_p3_cons_en.pdf

 

In my days as an Immigration Officer the ETD was a single sheet, issued by an Embassy basically to get you home. We were instructed to impound them on arrival and they were sent to the Home Office or somewhere. I suspect little has changed in recent years. Even if the Embassy issued such a doc to the OP I can't imagine any Thai Immigration Office endorsing it with an extension, however temporary.

[Morakot]

Thanks gentlemen!

 

Yes, I can confirm the UK Foreign Office will not issue an ETD unless you have specific travel plans. According to a consular officer I spoke to, the Covid-19 related delay in passport renewals is not a sufficient ground to break international regulations (which he did not tell me what they were). Their current advise is to return to the UK! UK ETDs will be impounded on arrival in the UK. ETDs will only issued for the duration of the specified journey, unless the visiting country has a minimum passport validity requirement.

 

I obtained an ETD on the basis of a specific travel plan. The Foreign Office informed me that entering Thailand on an ETD is possible providing that the documents is at least six month valid.

 

My immigration advisor informed me  that Thai immigration apparently is indifferent as to whether you present a valid ETD at the border or at a visa extension appointment inside the Kingdom.

 

 

[Morakot]

10 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

won't your new passport have to be cancelled, or can one be issued even if you have a valid passport on its way?

 

That can potentially happen. If the new passport has been produced and is on the system, than definitely it's invalidated when your ETD is issued.

 

Now if the application has just arrived and is sitting in a pile of unprocessed mail in HM Passport Office in Liverpool, than I don't know.

 

Let me update you.

 

 

[OJAS]

35 minutes ago, Morakot said:

Now if the application has just arrived and is sitting in a pile of unprocessed mail in HM Passport Office in Liverpool, than I don't know.

I suspect that the critical factor here is when HMPO cancel your existing passport electronically. If so, it would be probably be advisable to use any ETD with which you are issued in order to exit Thailand before this happens. The $64,000 question, of course, is guessing correctly when HMPO actually instigate the cancellation of your existing passport.

 

EDIT: But this all seems academic in any event since, as already said, you will be relieved of your ETD upon your arrival back in the UK. So you would therefore find yourself without any passport unless HMPO's Liverpool office had not already sent your replacement passport to Thailand and you could somehow hot-foot it there in order to collect it in person.

[Morakot]

8 hours ago, OJAS said:

I suspect that the critical factor here is when HMPO cancel your existing passport electronically. If so, it would be probably be advisable to use any ETD with which you are issued in order to exit Thailand before this happens. The $64,000 question, of course, is guessing correctly when HMPO actually instigate the cancellation of your existing passport.

 

EDIT: But this all seems academic in any event since, as already said, you will be relieved of your ETD upon your arrival back in the UK. So you would therefore find yourself without any passport unless HMPO's Liverpool office had not already sent your replacement passport to Thailand and you could somehow hot-foot it there in order to collect it in person.

 

Thanks! But my journey is not to the UK.