Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, Fritsie said:

No, you need to be married to be able to apply directly for citizenship. Having a child together only means that you can apply one year after the date of marriage. Without children this period is three years.

 

Absolutely correct.  If you were to marry the mother, you would be eligible to apply one year after registering the marriage.  Otherwise, contrary to popular belief, it makes very little difference if you have Thai children or not, except that you have to provide documentation on them, if you have them. Most of the applicants who apply on the basis of being permanent residents don't have Thai families and it doesn't make any difference to their applications.

[khongaeng]

So I just had an interesting experience at the Special Branch, which maybe I am thinking about too much based on the discussions on this forum.  The officer I talked with as soon as I walked in the door (there must have been 10 sitting there with no one to help) was very friendly and very helpful.  I went there only to confirm which documents would be required, and he gave me a list that is not available for download (the list is generally the same, but I found it odd that it is different). He explained that witnesses do not have to appear at the office but if they get called, they need to rehearse an answer that they went to the office to give witness (I thought this was strange too).  He said that most of my documents will not require jumping through hurdles to get legalized and that I can change my Tabien Bahn to a friend in Bangkok, and just tell them during the interview that I moved in order be more convenient for work (strange that this answer would be acceptable in lieu of staying with my wife and children in a neighboring province.)

 

In the end, the officer was a breath of fresh air compared to immigration, but it makes me worry a little bit.  If I received this treatment at any other Thai government office, I would expect to be taken to some secluded area at some point in the process and be asked for a bribe.  The office gave me his phone number and acted like I would be working with him when I come back.  Is this normal?  Should I be worried?

 

I will upload the documents I received today just for everyone's information when I have access to my scanner tonight.  

[Arkady]

On 4/26/2017 at 1:09 PM, khongaeng said:

So I just had an interesting experience at the Special Branch, which maybe I am thinking about too much based on the discussions on this forum.  The officer I talked with as soon as I walked in the door (there must have been 10 sitting there with no one to help) was very friendly and very helpful.  I went there only to confirm which documents would be required, and he gave me a list that is not available for download (the list is generally the same, but I found it odd that it is different). He explained that witnesses do not have to appear at the office but if they get called, they need to rehearse an answer that they went to the office to give witness (I thought this was strange too).  He said that most of my documents will not require jumping through hurdles to get legalized and that I can change my Tabien Bahn to a friend in Bangkok, and just tell them during the interview that I moved in order be more convenient for work (strange that this answer would be acceptable in lieu of staying with my wife and children in a neighboring province.)

 

In the end, the officer was a breath of fresh air compared to immigration, but it makes me worry a little bit.  If I received this treatment at any other Thai government office, I would expect to be taken to some secluded area at some point in the process and be asked for a bribe.  The office gave me his phone number and acted like I would be working with him when I come back.  Is this normal?  Should I be worried?

 

I will upload the documents I received today just for everyone's information when I have access to my scanner tonight.  

 

Well each officer has his own working style and things change over time, as officers and, the section head and the director rotate.  I think this officer might have been a bit more straightforward than the ones I met in my initial contacts at SB but he has given you very practical tips without standing on formality for which you should be grateful.  As you observed, they are not very busy a lot of the time and they prefer to be working on applications, rather than doing nothing, and they like to make a good initial impression with potential applicants, so they can be their case officer throughout the application period, if they are not transferred somewhere else during that period.  Compared to Immigration which should not be referred to in the same breath (apart from the PR section where they are mainly all very nice too), SB is night and day.  They want to be helpful and they want you to succeed in your objective of obtaining Thai citizenship.

 

 

[khongaeng]

Arkady, I appreciate your reply.  I was just taken back by the helpfulness at the office.  I guess this is a sign I have been jaded by too many experiences in asia where helpfulness = scam

 

In any case, I have uploaded the documents that I was given today.  Nothing new or shocking, just the latest data point for anyone looking to apply in the near term.  Sorry they are in Thai.  As has been stated over and over by the stalwart members on this thread, it is recommended that you go directly to the office if you seriously want to start the process.

 

On a side note, the Officer mentioned that His Majesty the King (Rama 10) has not countersigned any applications yet.  He also said that only now people in the system for the past 6 years are getting their citizenship, so I shouldn't expect anything quickly.  This of course is no surprise to me after reading this thread, but I suspect he just wanted to make sure to manage my expectations.  Based on comments on the forum, I am happy to hear that at least the process doesn't appear to be getting stuck at MOI committee anymore.

Personal Data Form.pdf

List of Documents.pdf

[Big Guns]

Just got the date for the oath its in 2 weeks time. Woo hoo!

[tomwct]

I've lived in Thailand for 15 years and never "ONCE" thought about getting Thai Citizenship! Why would anybody want it unless they have decided to never travel again and just live out your life in the village. Getting Visas for my wife to travel almost everywhere

is a complete pain in the ass. Thank God the US Embassy gave her a 10 year Tourist Visa, but getting Shengen Visas every time we

want to go to Europe for taking cruises is a complete pain in the butt, so I don't get it about the Thai Citizenship.

[NewlyMintedThai]

You don't have to give up your original nationality in most cases, so you don't lose anything. Only gain. Huge advantages.


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[ubonjoe]

1 minute ago, tomwct said:

I've lived in Thailand for 15 years and never "ONCE" thought about getting Thai Citizenship! Why would anybody want it unless they have decided to never travel again and just live out your life in the village. Getting Visas for my wife to travel almost everywhere

is a complete pain in the ass. Thank God the US Embassy gave her a 10 year Tourist Visa, but getting Shengen Visas every time we

want to go to Europe for taking cruises is a complete pain in the butt, so I don't get it about the Thai Citizenship.

You can get Thai citizenship and still have your home country passport unless they do not allow dual nationalities. Leave and re-enter here with your Thai passport and enter other countries with you non Thai passport.

[Big Guns]

As I can hold dual nationality there are massive advantages & zero disadvantages to Thai citizenship

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, Big Guns said:

Just got the date for the oath its in 2 weeks time. Woo hoo!

Congratulations.  Not long to go now.

[Arkady]

48 minutes ago, tomwct said:

I've lived in Thailand for 15 years and never "ONCE" thought about getting Thai Citizenship! Why would anybody want it unless they have decided to never travel again and just live out your life in the village. Getting Visas for my wife to travel almost everywhere

is a complete pain in the ass. Thank God the US Embassy gave her a 10 year Tourist Visa, but getting Shengen Visas every time we

want to go to Europe for taking cruises is a complete pain in the butt, so I don't get it about the Thai Citizenship.

 

Please understand that this thread is probably the best resource for people interested in applying for Thai citizenship and we want to kept that as its primary purpose.  Since you do not want to obtain Thai citizenship, you are lucky that you already have your wish and do not need to take any further action.

[Arkady]

I have removed a nonsense post and a post that summarised some personal details of members and threatened to take the thread in an unconstructive direction.  The orphaned responses have also been removed just because they were orphaned.  As per my comments to tomwct above, I will remove anything that detracts from this thread's usefulness to those interested in applying for Thai citizenship.  Those who are uninterested in applying for Thai citizenship may state their reasons in a rationale way, if they feel the need to do so, but nonsensical or insulting comments will be removed.

[skyaslimit]

I am a PR for five years now, planning to go for the citizenship in near future, my blue thabian baan is not from Bangkok and I do know that I can transfer it to one which is registered here in Bangkok to speed things up, do I have to transfer my red police book too?

[Arkady]

25 minutes ago, skyaslimit said:

I am a PR for five years now, planning to go for the citizenship in near future, my blue thabian baan is not from Bangkok and I do know that I can transfer it to one which is registered here in Bangkok to speed things up, do I have to transfer my red police book too?

Yes, you will need to transfer your red book too and there is a time limit of 15 or 30 days for doing this but the fine for being late is modest (don't ask me how I know this).  Take all your docs with copies to your current police station and they will fill in some forms for you and will send the red book to your new police station.  For some reason, it will take at least 3 weeks to arrive there and you will probably have to make a couple of visits to find out, if they have received it yet.  Once they have got it, they will enter the change of address details in your book and you are done.  If you are close to the endorsement time, they will do that for you in advance to save you another trip.  I can't remember if I changed my tabian baan first but I think I did.  The procedure was similar but didn't involve them sending the book to the new district office for me.  I was only transferring within Bangkok but I imagine the procedure from upcountry to Bkk is the same.

[aidenai]

Just got the date for the oath its in 2 weeks time. Woo hoo!

Congratulations.

For your information, after my oath it took a little less than 4 months before it became published in the Royal Gazette.

Best of luck.

[sas_cars]

Big guns, how long it took for you from application till oath?

[Big Guns]

I applied in late August 2014.

[onthemoon]

I have two questions:

 

1.) I got my PR in October 2012 and believe I can apply for citizenship in October this year. Is that correct? If so, I need to start looking for the documents.

2.) Is it still necessary to choose a Thai name? Or is it optional?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[Big Guns]

I had to register a Thai name. In fact it's just a paper exercise as my ID card and passport will be in my original name. I can't help with your other question.

[Arkady]

3 hours ago, onthemoon said:

I have two questions:

 

1.) I got my PR in October 2012 and believe I can apply for citizenship in October this year. Is that correct? If so, I need to start looking for the documents.

2.) Is it still necessary to choose a Thai name? Or is it optional?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

Yes. you should be eligible to apply in October 2017.  You should visit SB now for guidance on the documents you need to get.

 

The Thai name selection seems to be a left over from when it was compulsory to adopt a Thai name on becoming Thai, basically an orphaned piece of regulation that you still need to comply with, even if you have no intention of using the Thai name.  I am not sure exactly when or why they dropped the requirement to adopt a Thai name but friends who got their citizenship about 20 years ago had to take Thai names, while those who got it 10 years ago didn't.  If you change your mind later on, you can still take a Thai name, since it is the right of every Thai citizen to change their name. Having one might help avoid the arguments I have had from time to time with idiots that say I am not a real Thai but those people can still point to your face as evidence that you can't be Thai.

[onthemoon]

11 hours ago, Big Guns said:

I had to register a Thai name. In fact it's just a paper exercise as my ID card and passport will be in my original name. I can't help with your other question.

Thanks; I understand you got your citizenship recently, so the requirement is still in place.

[onthemoon]

9 hours ago, Arkady said:

 

Yes. you should be eligible to apply in October 2017.  You should visit SB now for guidance on the documents you need to get.

 

The Thai name selection seems to be a left over from when it was compulsory to adopt a Thai name on becoming Thai, basically an orphaned piece of regulation that you still need to comply with, even if you have no intention of using the Thai name.  I am not sure exactly when or why they dropped the requirement to adopt a Thai name but friends who got their citizenship about 20 years ago had to take Thai names, while those who got it 10 years ago didn't.  If you change your mind later on, you can still take a Thai name, since it is the right of every Thai citizen to change their name. Having one might help avoid the arguments I have had from time to time with idiots that say I am not a real Thai but those people can still point to your face as evidence that you can't be Thai.

Thanks for confirming that I should start collecting the documents now. Will visit SB next week or so.

 

Are you saying that 10 years ago, it was not required any more to choose a Thai name? 

 

In any case, I'll find out at SB and advise here what they say these days.

[dbrenn]

10 hours ago, Arkady said:

 

Yes. you should be eligible to apply in October 2017.  You should visit SB now for guidance on the documents you need to get.

 

The Thai name selection seems to be a left over from when it was compulsory to adopt a Thai name on becoming Thai, basically an orphaned piece of regulation that you still need to comply with, even if you have no intention of using the Thai name.  I am not sure exactly when or why they dropped the requirement to adopt a Thai name but friends who got their citizenship about 20 years ago had to take Thai names, while those who got it 10 years ago didn't.  If you change your mind later on, you can still take a Thai name, since it is the right of every Thai citizen to change their name. Having one might help avoid the arguments I have had from time to time with idiots that say I am not a real Thai but those people can still point to your face as evidence that you can't be Thai.

Right - in the eyes of some , even a Thai name will never make you 100% Thai. I chose a Thai name when I applied, and never had to use it. Having two names might make travelling on two passports more difficult, so I kept my original name and it appears on all my Thai ID documents.

 

As you say, I also have friends who applied a long time ago who had to take Thai names.

 

[onthemoon]

39 minutes ago, dbrenn said:

Right - in the eyes of some , even a Thai name will never make you 100% Thai. I chose a Thai name when I applied, and never had to use it. Having two names might make travelling on two passports more difficult, so I kept my original name and it appears on all my Thai ID documents. 

 

As you say, I also have friends who applied a long time ago who had to take Thai names.

 

So, if you do choose a Thai name, it is up to you whether you want to use it in the Thai passport? 

[GarryP]

1 hour ago, onthemoon said:

So, if you do choose a Thai name, it is up to you whether you want to use it in the Thai passport? 

If you elect to use the Thai name you reserve, that name will appear in your id card, passport, house registration documents, driver's license, etc. That is, that will be your identity going forward as far as Thailand is concerned. You cannot pick and chose which of those documents use your Thai name and which use your home country name. I chose not to use the name I reserved and continue to use my English fore and family names. I was hesitant to change a name I had used all my life and believe that difficulties could be encountered if you use both, one on your home country documents and another on Thai documents. As dbrenn mentions, one thing that immediately sprang to mind was when traveling and showing two passports at the check-in counter. If the passports you are showing bear the same name and picture, you are likely to have less of a problem than if, say, your British passport shows Joe Bloggs while your Thai passport shows Somchai Na Klong Toey.  

[GabbaGabbaHey]

16 hours ago, onthemoon said:

I have two questions:

 

1.) I got my PR in October 2012 and believe I can apply for citizenship in October this year. Is that correct? If so, I need to start looking for the documents.

2.) Is it still necessary to choose a Thai name? Or is it optional?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Re 1) My understanding is also that if you have enough points by calculation and you've been married with a Thai wife for 3 years, you can apply right away under marriage, not PR. That's actually my situation now, I applied after Songkran this year and I have only 4.5 years of PR. I also read earlier that this makes the singing step optional.

 

FYI at a normal pace I could compile all my documents in about 4-5 weeks. One hint: to save time regarding the letter of intention (to drop your current nationality after you get Thai citizenship), I recommend you to go and ask your embassy if they have any template used by previous applicants. I lost time preparing a draft for them and was later happy to find they just had to print the existing document.

 

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

Re 1) My understanding is also that if you have enough points by calculation and you've been married with a Thai wife for 3 years, you can apply right away under marriage, not PR. That's actually my situation now, I applied after Songkran this year and I have only 4.5 years of PR. I also read earlier that this makes the singing step optional.

 

FYI at a normal pace I could compile all my documents in about 4-5 weeks. One hint: to save time regarding the letter of intention (to drop your current nationality after you get Thai citizenship), I recommend you to go and ask your embassy if they have any template used by previous applicants. I lost time preparing a draft for them and was later happy to find they just had to print the existing document.

 

Of course, that is right.  I assumed from onthemoon's question that he has no Thai wife and therefore has to be a PR for 5 years before applying.  If you have been legally married to a Thai for at least 3 years (1 year, if you have a child together), there is no need to have PR for 5 years and you will not be asked to sing at the MoI. You can opt to sing in front of SB, if you want, but the MoI will not want to hear anyone singing, if they don't have to. In most cases it must be a fairly excruciating experience for them. 

 

One point, you should be aware of, if you have PR but opt to apply on the basis of having a Thai spouse, is that you cannot switch from one status to the other during the course of your application. For example, if you applied on the basis of having a Thai spouse but were to get divorced before your MoI interview, you would be considered as no longer qualified and your application would be rejected, in spite of the fact that you are qualified in your own right through PR.  In this case, you would have to apply again from scratch on the basis of having PR.

[GabbaGabbaHey]

In such case does the singing at SB (without MoI) provide points? Also do you know how much time after an application start does the MoI interview happen on average?

[Arkady]

27 minutes ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

In such case does the singing at SB (without MoI) provide points? Also do you know how much time after an application start does the MoI interview happen on average?

 Yes, the  point of singing at SB, if you are applying on the basis of marriage to a Thai, and therefore will not be asked to sing at the MoI interview, would be merely to try to get full points for Thai language.  This could be either because you needed the points or just for personal satisfaction. Note that the points you score will not be recorded in the covering letter from SB to the MoI.  They will just state that you got at least the required 50 points.  So getting close to 100 points doesn't improve your chances or speed things up, compared to just scraping through with minimal points.

 

The time interval between the time SB has completed your application including all the bits and bobs from other departments and forwarded it to the MoI for consideration is the most variable part of the process.  In the past it has varied from 6 months to about 10 years.  You will probably be somewhere between the two.  My wait was just shy of 3 years, which was considered quite good at the time but not outstanding.  Things have apparently speeded up a smigeon under the military government but that is unlikely to last.

[onthemoon]

10 hours ago, GarryP said:

If you elect to use the Thai name you reserve, that name will appear in your id card, passport, house registration documents, driver's license, etc. That is, that will be your identity going forward as far as Thailand is concerned. You cannot pick and chose which of those documents use your Thai name and which use your home country name. I chose not to use the name I reserved and continue to use my English fore and family names. I was hesitant to change a name I had used all my life and believe that difficulties could be encountered if you use both, one on your home country documents and another on Thai documents. As dbrenn mentions, one thing that immediately sprang to mind was when traveling and showing two passports at the check-in counter. If the passports you are showing bear the same name and picture, you are likely to have less of a problem than if, say, your British passport shows Joe Bloggs while your Thai passport shows Somchai Na Klong Toey.  

I understand that you have to choose ("reserve") a Thai name, but you don't need to use it but can have all docs issued in your original name. Thanks.