Marriage

[abigailsch]

I am a woman living in the USA and plan to go to Thailand to marry a Thai citizen, in Thailand. Once I marry him, may I ask in Thailand for visa extension, permit to stay, etc?? How do I go around that? Do I apply for a tourist visa in the Thai consulate in the US to be able to go and marry him?

Thank you.

Abigail

[samran]

The rules for foriegn females married to Thai males are slighly different than if a foreign male marries a Thai female. The biggest difference is that there are no income requirements need by Immigration in your case.

So, what you need to do is get a non-immigrant O-Visa from your nearest Thai consulate, or if you are near DC, the embassy there. This is a visa based on having family in the country, which you will have. It will let you in for 90 days.

Once in, and married, in the last 30 days of your initial stay, you and your husband must head down to the local immigration office. You'll need to produce your marriage certificate, your husbands ID, his house registration, and your passport, plus the 1900 baht fee. Best also to bring down your birth certificate etc, just in case.

Most likely, they'll ask you a few questions to test the genuiness of the marriage (they asked us what colour were our bedroom curtains - I had no idea but we still passed). The you'll then most likely get a 30 day extension intially while your application is 'under consideration'. This actually means that it goes to the bottom of the pile, so they can process the visa.

At the end of the 30 day extension, you'll be given an extension to a date which will be 12 months after you first entered Thailand. Towards the end of that 12 months, you'll have to go through the same process again.

A couple of notes.

If you leave Thailand at any time, you MUST get a re-entry permit. If you don't get one, the upon exit, ALL your visas and extensions will be cancelled, and when you come back, they'll only give you a 30 day permit on arrival.

Also, if you intend to work, you must get a work permit. Some people will say you can't do so with a non-immigrant 'O', but this is untrue and very possible.

[lopburi3]

The non immigrant O visa is optional, but best. You can enter on anything and get married so if Consulate says no don't worry about it. It just adds an extra 2,000 baht step to the extension of stay process. Believe Honorary Consulates are the most likely to issue, especially if you explain the reason. Official places would probably want copy of spouse to be ID card or some other documentation.