What's your thought on permenant residency??

[hanuman2543]

Just now, rimmae2 said:

It is possible to apply for citizenship without PR, as many people do. Depends on the circumstances. 

I corrected my post already

[LogicThai]

19 minutes ago, thedemon said:

If applying on the basis of being married to a Thai citizen the requirement for knowledge of Thai language is dropped and you will not be asked to sing the national anthem.

 

As BritManToo has said there is no requirement to give up your current nationality(s). If there was, few westerners would apply.

There is no language test per se, but all the interviews are in thai language, obviously. No singing of the national and royal anthems though.

 

Thailand does not require relinquishing other nationalities held, but one's original nationality might require doing so (US, maybe?). 

[thedemon]

7 minutes ago, hanuman2543 said:

Much more difficult than PR, her is a list of the required documents and an explanation of the process:

 

https://visaguide.world/tips/becoming-a-citizen-of-thailand/

 

P.S. Typical lame and unstructured advice from you like nearly always

 

Apart from the knowledge of Thai language requirement, which is dropped if married to a Thai citizen, all the other requirements for citizenship are very similar to PR. PR also has a higher income requirement and costs a lot more in fees.

 

I would say BritManToo is correct, unless you come from a country that doesn't permit dual nationality, going straight for citizenship instead of PR makes more sense and I am saying that as someone with PR.

[nausea]

You jump through hoops, presumably, so you no longer have to do the 90 day reporting thing. It's not such a hassle, actually. I do it by post. What other advantages are there? Maybe you get access to the 30bt health scheme. 

[smutcakes]

28 minutes ago, nausea said:

You jump through hoops, presumably, so you no longer have to do the 90 day reporting thing. It's not such a hassle, actually. I do it by post. What other advantages are there? Maybe you get access to the 30bt health scheme. 

The advantage for me would be that i could retire or at least take extended breaks from work well before retirement visa age without having to be concerned about visas.

 

A valid argument for Elite Visa for ease of doing it, but PR is essentially for life.

[BritManToo]

2 hours ago, hanuman2543 said:

Much more difficult than PR, her is a list of the required documents and an explanation of the process:

https://visaguide.world/tips/becoming-a-citizen-of-thailand/

P.S. You have to hold PR for several years before you can apply so forget about what you proposed.

Typical lame and unstructured advice from you like nearly always

Interesting that you corrected your 'lame advice' after another poster corrected you.

But still chose to insult me even though I was correct and you were wrong.

 

555 ...... that must have really hurt!

Best to put you on ignore.

Edited August 15, 2020 by BritManToo

[Purdey]

I have had PR for several years. I can stay all my life without interference. You must get PR before applying for citizenship. No skipping it I was told. 

The reentry permit is a hassle but using the e-passport machine at Suwanabhumi saves time and doesn't fill your passport with stamps. 

It cost less if you are married but if you have three years of tax payments you just pay more and get it. 

I used Camerata's guide and it was helpful. The officer who took my documents said I was the only one who put the documents in the order listed. Most jumbled them up and the officer had to sort them. 

Keeping your nationality could be helpful I guess but after PR status you can apply for Thai citizenship if you want to buy land, for instance. I just dont want to be bothered with reporting, visas that require more documents at the whim of some immigration officer. A simpler life. 

[tomazbodner]

11 minutes ago, Purdey said:

I have had PR for several years. I can stay all my life without interference. You must get PR before applying for citizenship. No skipping it I was told. 

The reentry permit is a hassle but using the e-passport machine at Suwanabhumi saves time and doesn't fill your passport with stamps. 

It cost less if you are married but if you have three years of tax payments you just pay more and get it. 

I used Camerata's guide and it was helpful. The officer who took my documents said I was the only one who put the documents in the order listed. Most jumbled them up and the officer had to sort them. 

Keeping your nationality could be helpful I guess but after PR status you can apply for Thai citizenship if you want to buy land, for instance. I just dont want to be bothered with reporting, visas that require more documents at the whim of some immigration officer. A simpler life. 

I also used Camerata's guide and it was very helpful. It took in total about 6 years, but that was because of all the coups and changes of governments. Paperwork was done just final signature was missing for 4 out of 6 years. I hear now they process quicker.

 

You do not need PR for nationality since 2008, if you are married to a Thai. In that case you also apparently don't have to sing national anthem. But if you are not married, you need PR for 5 years before you can apply for citizenship. The language exam for citizenship however is far more difficult and thorough than the one for PR. The rest of paperwork is more or less the same, except that you need to submit the paper, certified by foreign ministry of your home country, stating that you'll give up your original citizenship if you're granted Thai one.

 

PR is good for many things, and useless for some others. But overall, if one has intention of spending the rest of their lives in Thailand, it's certainly good investment, regardless of the cost. To update scorecard's pricelist, it's gone up a bit so it's about 100k if married and 200k if unmarried for application and payment at approval. Obviously much higher amounts are generally used on getting original certified paperwork, especially if there's no embassy of home country here or it's not cooperative. In my case I lost track of how many times I had to get on the plane and fly home for a paper that all of a sudden got required and could not be older than x days. Nonetheless, it has saved me a lot of headache with visa extensions and reporting etc. On the other hand, many businesses like telecoms, and even some government offices just don't know what to do with you when instead of passport and work permit you hand over PR booklet, alien registration or pink card. You're farang - need passport and work permit. Don't care about PR... One additional hassle was "reentry permit"... well, non-quota immigrant visa and endorsement, which could only be done at immigration office, not at the airport. And failing to do it, or if it expires while you're abroad, you lose PR and have to start all over. I'd say that is the main negative of the way this works.

 

And about kiosks... long long time ago, when we were still flying freely... kiosks were a great thing where you could walk through automatic gates... until changing the booklet and then couldn't even re-register anymore. But on the other hand, you could (unless you experienced a really annoying cop directing foot traffic) use Thai passport counter. In fact, several times I went to foreign passport counter, and after reaching the officer, they called over someone to take me to Thai counter. Due to auto gates which most Thais used, there was little or no queue there so that's a big advantage after a long flight.

 

So some positives, some negatives.

 

Overall, if you don't want to be an old man in Thailand who at 90 still needs to drag himself to immigration every 3 months, you may do yourself a favour to get it if you can. If you don't leave Thailand, all you need to do is extend your alien registration every 6 years at local police station... that's actually all. Most of the rest of visits to immigration are if you want to leave the country...

[villageidiotY2K]

So for PR, do you still need to renew it every year? I read somewhere about need to renew red book stuff.

Mumbojumbo

[Led Lolly Yellow Lolly]

Quote

Yes you can, but you'd have to be bloody stupid to apply for PR when you were entitled to apply for citizenship.

 

I've been looking at Citizenship for a long time now. I qualify, but for one reason or another I didn't get around to it. However, due to getting tired of the annual visits to immigration I started looking at it again recently, particularly in light of the fact it's a points based system and I'll start losing points when I hit 50 years of age. Even though it seems ar$e about tit to apply for PR when you can skip and go straight for citizenship, I've identified a couple of reasons to do so. Firstly, once you've submitted the PR application, visa extensions are just automatic during the waiting period i.e. no more hassles there, for many that's a big plus. Secondly, when it comes to citizenship application later, you score big points for being a PR holder, even if you don't need them, it can make up for point losses elsewhere.

 

Note also that PR fees for those applying in humanitarian category i.e. family, are significantly lower, under 100,000 I believe

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by NilSS

[HampiK]

38 minutes ago, NilSS said:

I've been looking at Citizenship for a long time now. I qualify, but for one reason or another I didn't get around to it. However, due to getting tired of the annual visits to immigration I started looking at it again recently, particularly in light of the fact it's a points based system and I'll start losing points when I hit 50 years of age. Even though it seems ar$e about tit to apply for PR when you can skip and go straight for citizenship, I've identified a couple of reasons to do so. Firstly, once you've submitted the PR application, visa extensions are just automatic during the waiting period i.e. no more hassles there, for many that's a big plus. Secondly, when it comes to citizenship application later, you score big points for being a PR holder, even if you don't need them, it can make up for point losses elsewhere.

 

Note also that PR fees for those applying in humanitarian category i.e. family, are significantly lower, under 100,000 I believe

My understanding was, that from the point system this is mainly used for PR. So you say under 50 is a plus, but the questions still stay what are the other factors?
I heard once, when you married but not have children you lose 10 points. So for marriage without children and no work.. is it possible at all?

[Led Lolly Yellow Lolly]

The points system is for citizenship. I'm not aware of any points system for PR, other than one they may or may not use internally. Note that I'm not very familiar with the PR process, other than I know I qualify after a cursory glance. I've only studied citizenship in depth.

 

You heard wrong about not having kids, although they may consider it as part of their formation of the big picture of your application, and rightfully so. The system is geared towards those that work and pay taxes (not rightfully so IMO, I believe citizenship should be granted based on family ties, no other factors if that is the case but call me a hippy). Don't be guided by what you hear. Develop your strategies based on official information, these are life changing decisions (this is my point about applying for PR first even if you might not need to, it may be a good strategy if your points are borderline for citizenship). The internet is awash with nonsense information about this topic, particularly with regards to citizenship. The Thai Citizenship Act is freely available from official sources.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by NilSS

[Bennyl]

On 8/15/2020 at 1:08 PM, Sydebolle said:

Got mine in 1988 against an official fee of (then) THB 25'000 - the absolutely very best thing, besides my marriage, I ever did in Thailand.

Get it from the horse's mouth and enquire with the corresponding desk at Chaengwattana; that is the (only) place of reference. You can do it yourself, no need for agents, lawyers etc. 

Compile the documents required, file the whole thing (which then was only possible during the last two weeks in December) and wait. You'll get invited to do a simple interview and, provided your paperwork is correct (and otherwise they will not accept your application in the first place) wait again until your application is approved. The official fee today is something like THB 193'000 (single) or half for a married applicant. The quota is 100 people per nationality per year; if you're from Luxembourg or the US then that is not an issue; it might get tighter if you hold a Southasian, Chinese or Northasian passport. 

Good luck and you will never regret having done it! 

I followed excatly the same path when I applied PR based on supporting a Thai National (wife) in June 2019.
No agent, who actually quoted 180 K plus offical fees, translation and legalisation costs.

All done with great support from my wife and my employer's HR.  
IO informed 2 weeks ago that my application passed both committees, now waiting for various signatures.

Costs: 7,2 K application fee, 98 K offcial fee (payable once PR is received) and approx 25 K for translations & legalisations.     

[scorecard]

On 8/15/2020 at 5:04 PM, jomtienisgood said:

Do you speak fluently Thai and can you sing the National Anthem????

Willing to give up your native nationality????

 

Many countries do allow dual citizenship and if you don't tell them they don't know, so no problem.

[Bennyl]

On 8/15/2020 at 3:40 PM, samtab said:

 

How much did you pay to improve your chances ?

Don't pretend that you didn't, this is what everybody is doing !

 

 

I admit bringing sweets and chocolates on two occasions....   

[scorecard]

On 8/16/2020 at 3:32 AM, tomazbodner said:

I also used Camerata's guide and it was very helpful. It took in total about 6 years, but that was because of all the coups and changes of governments. Paperwork was done just final signature was missing for 4 out of 6 years. I hear now they process quicker.

 

You do not need PR for nationality since 2008, if you are married to a Thai. In that case you also apparently don't have to sing national anthem. But if you are not married, you need PR for 5 years before you can apply for citizenship. The language exam for citizenship however is far more difficult and thorough than the one for PR. The rest of paperwork is more or less the same, except that you need to submit the paper, certified by foreign ministry of your home country, stating that you'll give up your original citizenship if you're granted Thai one.

 

PR is good for many things, and useless for some others. But overall, if one has intention of spending the rest of their lives in Thailand, it's certainly good investment, regardless of the cost. To update scorecard's pricelist, it's gone up a bit so it's about 100k if married and 200k if unmarried for application and payment at approval. Obviously much higher amounts are generally used on getting original certified paperwork, especially if there's no embassy of home country here or it's not cooperative. In my case I lost track of how many times I had to get on the plane and fly home for a paper that all of a sudden got required and could not be older than x days. Nonetheless, it has saved me a lot of headache with visa extensions and reporting etc. On the other hand, many businesses like telecoms, and even some government offices just don't know what to do with you when instead of passport and work permit you hand over PR booklet, alien registration or pink card. You're farang - need passport and work permit. Don't care about PR... One additional hassle was "reentry permit"... well, non-quota immigrant visa and endorsement, which could only be done at immigration office, not at the airport. And failing to do it, or if it expires while you're abroad, you lose PR and have to start all over. I'd say that is the main negative of the way this works.

 

And about kiosks... long long time ago, when we were still flying freely... kiosks were a great thing where you could walk through automatic gates... until changing the booklet and then couldn't even re-register anymore. But on the other hand, you could (unless you experienced a really annoying cop directing foot traffic) use Thai passport counter. In fact, several times I went to foreign passport counter, and after reaching the officer, they called over someone to take me to Thai counter. Due to auto gates which most Thais used, there was little or no queue there so that's a big advantage after a long flight.

 

So some positives, some negatives.

 

Overall, if you don't want to be an old man in Thailand who at 90 still needs to drag himself to immigration every 3 months, you may do yourself a favour to get it if you can. If you don't leave Thailand, all you need to do is extend your alien registration every 6 years at local police station... that's actually all. Most of the rest of visits to immigration are if you want to leave the country...

" ..." all you need to do is extend your alien registration every 6 years at local police station... that's actually all." Actually 5 years but no issue there. What is perhaps valuable info is that the 5 year police RED book (police registration book) activity is an update of your photo, there's no interview, and it doesn't require any 'new approval of your immigration status or anything similar'. RED book photo renewal totally str8 forward, takes 10 minutes.  

[tomazbodner]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

" ..." all you need to do is extend your alien registration every 6 years at local police station... that's actually all." Actually 5 years but no issue there. What is perhaps valuable info is that the 5 year police RED book (police registration book) activity is an update of your photo, there's no interview, and it doesn't require any 'new approval of your immigration status or anything similar'. RED book photo renewal totally str8 forward, takes 10 minutes.  

Mine is 6 years. They asked me if I wanted 1 year or 6 years (weird choice), but they both cost the same... so I took 6 years - 2015 to 2021... Last time I was doing update of address, the lovely police lady asked me to come back next year to extend the red book.

 

[thedemon]

11 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

Mine is 6 years. They asked me if I wanted 1 year or 6 years (weird choice), but they both cost the same... so I took 6 years - 2015 to 2021... Last time I was doing update of address, the lovely police lady asked me to come back next year to extend the red book.

 

 

I think you will find that it is only when the book is first issued that you get 6 years which is actually 1 + 5 years. From then on you can either renew for 1 or 5 years at a time.

[tomazbodner]

3 minutes ago, thedemon said:

 

I think you will find that it is only when the book is first issued that you get 6 years which is actually 1 + 5 years. From then on you can either renew for 1 or 5 years at a time.

That's great to know, thank you.

[DrTuner]

I stopped looking at it after discovering one requirement, also for married / investment, was three years of working and tax receipts. I have no intention of working in a Thai company, the loss of sanity isn't worth it.

[HampiK]

3 hours ago, DrTuner said:

I stopped looking at it after discovering one requirement, also for married / investment, was three years of working and tax receipts. I have no intention of working in a Thai company, the loss of sanity isn't worth it.

When you checked about that last time?
My last check not showed the need of working with the Humanitary Reason. But I am also not sure 100%

[DrTuner]

3 minutes ago, HampiK said:

When you checked about that last time?
My last check not showed the need of working with the Humanitary Reason. But I am also not sure 100%

Quite a while ago. I think in 2012 or so. Lost interest in it after that and now on an exit trajectory already.

[Captain Monday]

I thought Permanent Residency meant something in Thailand.

Then we found that Permanent Residents have no right to enter the Kingdom.

Foreigners who had been locked down with Thais for months could not get on 

an inter provincial bus, complete medical nonsense.

 

Nothing short of a Thai passport constitutes a legal residence in Thailand.

Good luck qualifying for a Thai passport if you are non Asian and not married to a Thai man.

[Purdey]

On 8/16/2020 at 12:32 AM, tomazbodner said:

The rest of paperwork is more or less the same, except that you need to submit the paper, certified by foreign ministry of your home country, stating that you'll give up your original citizenship if you're granted Thai one.

This is interesting as some like former Prime Minister Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva has refused to give up his British nationality while also holding Thai nationality. I would like this issue clarified by others as I have heard from some that you have to give up your British nationality, and by others that it is voluntary, like in Mark's case.

[thedemon]

1 hour ago, Purdey said:

This is interesting as some like former Prime Minister Mark Abhisit Vejjajiva has refused to give up his British nationality while also holding Thai nationality. I would like this issue clarified by others as I have heard from some that you have to give up your British nationality, and by others that it is voluntary, like in Mark's case.

There is no requirement to give up any other nationalities you may have. If there was, few westerners would apply. 

 

Some of the provisions in the 2008 Nationality Act, including references to revocation of Thai citizenship only apply to naturalized Thai citizens, not citizens by birth so wouldn't apply to someone like Abhisit in any case.

[Peterw42]

4 minutes ago, thedemon said:

There is no requirement to give up any other nationalities you may have. If there was, few westerners would apply. 

 

Some of the provisions in the 2008 Nationality Act, including references to revocation of Thai citizenship only apply to naturalized Thai citizens, not citizens by birth so wouldn't apply to someone like Abhisit in any case.

I recall someone mentioning that you sign a document saying you intend to give up other citizenship etc but its not enforced and nobody is ever made to.

[tomazbodner]

8 minutes ago, thedemon said:

There is no requirement to give up any other nationalities you may have. If there was, few westerners would apply. 

 

Some of the provisions in the 2008 Nationality Act, including references to revocation of Thai citizenship only apply to naturalized Thai citizens, not citizens by birth so wouldn't apply to someone like Abhisit in any case.

It's not a requirement. The letter is a statement of intent. I intended to do it, but...

Technically, your Thai citizenship could be revoked if you refuse to give up your original citizenship. I don't know anyone who had it revoked though. I know some who were reminded on passport renewal (Indian) and excuse that it wasn't yet done but would be was sufficient.

[tomazbodner]

2 hours ago, Captain Monday said:

I thought Permanent Residency meant something in Thailand.

Then we found that Permanent Residents have no right to enter the Kingdom.

Foreigners who had been locked down with Thais for months could not get on 

an inter provincial bus, complete medical nonsense.

 

Nothing short of a Thai passport constitutes a legal residence in Thailand.

Good luck qualifying for a Thai passport if you are non Asian and not married to a Thai man.

Now that's not true. You can apply for Thai citizenship after 5 years on Thai Permanent Residence. Without being married to a Thai... or to anyone. If you are married to a Thai (man or woman since 2008) you can apply for citizenship directly. It is more economical than PR, and receives about the same amount of scrutiny. Has about same requirements. And takes about the same time to process. Just final approver is different, and Thai language test is significantly more serious. And then, if you're coming from PR, there's national and royal anthem singing, not required if you're married to a Thai national.

 

PR does constitute legal residence in Thailand. I am no longer resident of my former country, nor am I a tax resident there. Apart from things like not owning real-estate there and staying in that country below 180 days in a year, PR in another country was a requirement to move my tax residency out of EU, so I don't have to pay tax on earnings in Thailand again there.

 

Finally, for a while even Thais were not allowed back into the country. PR is always a weird category because very few people have it, many businesses and sometimes even government offices don't know what to do with you. They're used to dealing with tourists and non-immigrants. But once you are even just in the process of PR application, both immigration and labour department start treating you very differently. They are far nicer and helpful to deal with.

 

As such... most of your post above is incorrect, Captain.

[thedemon]

10 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

It's not a requirement. The letter is a statement of intent. I intended to do it, but...

Technically, your Thai citizenship could be revoked if you refuse to give up your original citizenship. I don't know anyone who had it revoked though. I know some who were reminded on passport renewal (Indian) and excuse that it wasn't yet done but would be was sufficient.

 

Yes and I think that is one reason that some foreigners with PR don't go on to apply for citizenship. As I recall the (translation of) wording in the act says something like "making use of a former nationality" is grounds for revocation. As is often the case in Thai law, that could be open to different interpretations and though that doesn't seem to be an issue now it is conceivable that a nationalistic government in the future could make it so.

[tomazbodner]

1 minute ago, thedemon said:

 

Yes and I think that is one reason that some foreigners with PR don't go on to apply for citizenship. As I recall the (translation of) wording in the act says something like "making use of a former nationality" is grounds for revocation. As is often the case in Thai law, that could be open to different interpretations and though that doesn't seem to be an issue now it is conceivable that a nationalistic government in the future could make it so.

That was the wording yes... it was one of the grounds naturalised Thais could be stripped of citizenship. So technically... if you flew out of Thailand to say Europe (where you'd need a visa on Thai passport) but use your foreign passport at the other side, then return on Thai passport but have no stamps, you could have it revoked.

 

Complications however could be at the other side as well. Foreign ministry of my birth country told naturalised citizen, originally from China, that she has to give up Chinese passport as although country allows dual citizenship, BOTH of them have to be inside EU. I wonder if that would apply to me as well... or if my birth country would force me to give that citizenship up...

 

Bluntly honestly - they are already half way there. After moving PR to Thailand, I now must register temporary residence in home country if I visit... like TM28 in Thailand... within 48 hours I think. I can NOT get ID card nor driver's license there. Using old paper license which I could not renew into the plastic card one I had to get international license (it's just 1 year valid translation of original license) to be able to apply in Thailand, else I'd lose it completely.

 

Once you move PR out of EU, they literally couldn't care less about you anymore. Fair. But maybe worth considering for anyone applying for PR to make sure you get your stuff extended BEFORE you tell them you got PR in Thailand.