Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[khongaeng]

2 hours ago, Neeranam said:

I'd feel safer taking my translated birth certificate. I needed that when adding my parents name to my yellow housebook. Remember, it is illegal to use your  other passport in Thailand.

I suppose that could work too.  I'm curious if they will accept any document, or even take your word for it, if you don't bring your old passport.  It maybe doesn't happen very often, but if someone wants to "change" their place of birth because their original birth place may cause issues when traveling to certain places (like a birth place in Israel when traveling to Iran, or a birth place in the US when traveling to North Korea).  If your shiny new Thai passport had a more neutral birthplace, this would allow you to avoid getting singled out or possibly harassed when traveling to certain areas of the world if you come from certain other areas of the world.   

 

Apparently birth location is not a mandatory field on whatever international requirements govern the data including in E-Passports, because some countries still do not include the birthplace, or rather include a place of origin which is nothing more than where your family name comes from.  It seems to be an unimportant piece of data when compared to name or birthdate, but it is a piece of data that can single you out.

 

Right now the Thai passport is not very powerful or respected, but who knows in the future, maybe it will be more like a Singaporean passport. In which case, having a Thai passport with a birthplace that doesn't have any enemies, might be the safest thing to have for international travel ????

Edited May 7, 2020 by khongaeng

[samran]

2 hours ago, khongaeng said:

I have a question for those of you that have a gotten a Thai passport.  When you get your first Thai passport, how do they know where your place of birth is?  It is not shown on your ID card or House Registration.  I think I remember reading 100+ pages back that the passport office asked to see someone’s other national passport (many nationalities list place of birth on the passport).  What if you don’t bring your other nationality passport, or if your other nationality passport doesn’t list your birthplace? 

It will be on your house registry, so don't stress about it. They don't get too specific anyway - it only states the country you were born in on the Thai PP.

[khongaeng]

8 minutes ago, samran said:

It will be on your house registry, so don't stress about it. They don't get too specific anyway - it only states the country you were born in on the Thai PP.

I agree that the birthplace is undoubtedly in the House Registry system, and I assume the Passport system and House Registry system are linked too, but your birthplace is not printed in your house registration book, and it is curious that they want to see your old passport to find out your birthplace.

Edited May 7, 2020 by khongaeng

[samran]

10 minutes ago, khongaeng said:

I agree that the birthplace is undoubtedly in the House Registry system, and I assume the Passport system and House Registry system are linked too, but your birthplace is not printed in your house registration book, and it is curious that they want to see your old passport to find out your birthplace.

Probably for another level of cross checking is my guess as that (as well as your foreign BC) are the 'original' documents for when it comes to confirming your place of birth.

 

There are indeed some strange quirks on it all. For instance, our three children are born here and are Thai citizens, based of being born to me, a Thai citizen. They were born before my wife naturalised as a Thai citizen a few years back and their birth certificates state that their mother is not a Thai national.

 

As such, when we go and get new Thai passports for our kids, my wife has to show the passport of her original nationality as ID before the kids can be issued Thai passports. Her current Thai ID card doesn't cut it. Strange but true. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by samran

[echrist]

In my case, old passport was requested to see place of birth. My house reg does not list my country of birth, but list the nationalities of my parents which I simply told them (no proof needed). In my Thai passport, country of birth is written in English not Thai. 

[GarryP]

6 hours ago, Barty said:

In my case I used my original passport to prove my place of birth. The passport office actually asked for the old passport.

I too was asked for my British Passport by the Thai passport office. 

[khongaeng]

22 hours ago, samran said:

Probably for another level of cross checking is my guess as that (as well as your foreign BC) are the 'original' documents for when it comes to confirming your place of birth.

 

There are indeed some strange quirks on it all. For instance, our three children are born here and are Thai citizens, based of being born to me, a Thai citizen. They were born before my wife naturalised as a Thai citizen a few years back and their birth certificates state that their mother is not a Thai national.

 

As such, when we go and get new Thai passports for our kids, my wife has to show the passport of her original nationality as ID before the kids can be issued Thai passports. Her current Thai ID card doesn't cut it. Strange but true. 

Very interesting.  Last time I got new Thai passports for my kids, I mentioned with a smile to the nice supervisor lady helping us with the process that next time I see her, I would be getting my own Thai passport.  

 

Noticing that our house registration and birth certificates are a mess with kids being born different places and even my name being written slightly differently for different children, the official said that when I get my Thai citizenship that I could get it all fixed, and that in the house registration it will state my name correctly for all kids and that my kids’ father is Thai and not the previous nationality.  She then said the next time we all got passports together, it could all be re-aligned so I wouldn’t have to show my previous nationality passport.  

 

I don’t know how true this is since I haven’t gone through the process myself, but she seemed to be very convinced that this would be possible.  I myself was surprised that anything in the House Registration could be changed, but maybe it is possible if you can show that the information was entered incompletely years ago.  

 

Hopefully later this year I can give everyone an update on this.

[Neeranam]

On 5/8/2020 at 12:21 PM, khongaeng said:

Hopefully later this year I can give everyone an update on this.

I look forward to hearing about that.

[travel museums]

Hi, 

Apologies if this has been answered recently, but I gave the last 357 pages a quick scan and couldn't see a list of requirements, costs, and approximate time for obtaining residency visa AND Thai passport for foreigners. 

 

A friend in the Philippines had residency visa canceled in the wake of Covid-19. He's allowed to stay but will have to apply again. I encouraged him to look at Thailand since there's an actual path to citizenship. He didn't believe it was possible anywhere in Asia. I told him the only other Asian country I ever met a passport waving foreigner in was Japan. A woman there got hers after working in Japan for a whopping 15 years. 

 

I told him I've occasionally met foreign retirees in Thailand who waived their Thai passports to prove to me they got it. From talking to them it seemed like a 6 year process. 

 

He likes to travel and I told him one of the main benefits is no more visa runs for all the ASEAN countries such as Indonesia which has terrible restrictions for exit. 

[GabbaGabbaHey]

6 hours ago, travel museums said:

Hi, 

Apologies if this has been answered recently, but I gave the last 357 pages a quick scan and couldn't see a list of requirements, costs, and approximate time for obtaining residency visa AND Thai passport for foreigners. 

 

A friend in the Philippines had residency visa canceled in the wake of Covid-19. He's allowed to stay but will have to apply again. I encouraged him to look at Thailand since there's an actual path to citizenship. He didn't believe it was possible anywhere in Asia. I told him the only other Asian country I ever met a passport waving foreigner in was Japan. A woman there got hers after working in Japan for a whopping 15 years. 

 

I told him I've occasionally met foreign retirees in Thailand who waived their Thai passports to prove to me they got it. From talking to them it seemed like a 6 year process. 

 

He likes to travel and I told him one of the main benefits is no more visa runs for all the ASEAN countries such as Indonesia which has terrible restrictions for exit. 

The two main routes to Thai citizenship -beside others such as having Thai relatives or merit given to the country- are for male applicants:

 

- Through Permanent residency (PR), for which you need 3 years working and paying taxes in Thailand to be able to apply, get approved (count one or two more years for that) then after 5 years of PR you can potentially apply to citizenship and get it 3+ years after initiating the process. Total is 12 years minimum. Cost: around 200,000 THB for the PR fee, plus 5,000 THB for the citizenship fee.

 

- Through marriage to Thai woman. If you do that and have a baby, then you can apply to citizenship after just 1 year after marriage (after 3 years otherwise)... but it's still mandatory to have had 3 years of working and paying taxes in Thailand before applying. Total (best case) around 6-7 years. This path also has lower requirement on salary (40,000 THB per month, compared to min 80,000THB per month for PR path if I am not wrong). Cost is 5,000 THB for the fee.

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by GabbaGabbaHey

[david143]

any movement for oath ceremony for anyone

[cmsally]

House registration and ID card all successfully achieved. Now the only thing left is to cancel my Thai visa in my foreign passport. Bet that will cause some confusion !!! Can't wait!

[GabbaGabbaHey]

19 minutes ago, cmsally said:

House registration and ID card all successfully achieved. Now the only thing left is to cancel my Thai visa in my foreign passport. Bet that will cause some confusion !!! Can't wait!

Congratulations!

 

I'd first assume you can leave it like this until it expires, after all you will no longer use the foreign passport in Thailand right? but maybe from an immigration point of view something opened has to be closed... that would make sense to me. The good thing is: this will be the last time you will ever have to deal with immigration. Good luck.

[yankee99]

2 hours ago, david143 said:

any movement for oath ceremony for anyone

I wss hoping you had some insight. 

[GabbaGabbaHey]

2 hours ago, david143 said:

any movement for oath ceremony for anyone

A batch of 40-50 people was approved last month. I guess all of them -including me- are done with their oath and en route to the RG normally for July. If the trend continues by that time I'd expect another group to have been called for the oath because it's 2-4 month interval normally between each.

Edited May 18, 2020 by GabbaGabbaHey

[david143]

No this time they all keep quite.

can't reach them.

[david143]

today i called MOi and ask for updates,

officer said my name/file is already in the King office for signature, but she said don't know how long it will take back to SBP , but it took time from 6 month to 1 year.

027917332
if anyone like to know can call this number MOI.

[echrist]

20 hours ago, cmsally said:

House registration and ID card all successfully achieved. Now the only thing left is to cancel my Thai visa in my foreign passport. Bet that will cause some confusion !!! Can't wait!

Take all your citizenship docs to immigration originals and copies. write a statement that you have been granted citizenship on the date that is was granted and state that it was announced the RG on that date and state that it was granted by the king.  Also, state that you no longer require a visa and wish to cancel it. You'll have to wait in the same queue as those applying for a visa...at least this is how it is done in BKK. CM may be different. 

 

[Neeranam]

On 5/19/2020 at 10:13 AM, david143 said:

today i called MOi and ask for updates,

officer said my name/file is already in the King office for signature, but she said don't know how long it will take back to SBP , but it took time from 6 month to 1 year.

027917332
if anyone like to know can call this number MOI.

I think you should be called for the oath in August or September. but you might be pleasantly surprised ???? 

[Neeranam]

On 5/18/2020 at 4:04 PM, cmsally said:

House registration and ID card all successfully achieved. Now the only thing left is to cancel my Thai visa in my foreign passport. Bet that will cause some confusion !!! Can't wait!

Congratulations. Good luck at immigration! 

[Neeranam]

On 5/18/2020 at 4:24 PM, GabbaGabbaHey said:

I'd first assume you can leave it like this until it expires, after all you will no longer use the foreign passport in Thailand right? but maybe from an immigration point of view something opened has to be closed... that would make sense to me. The good thing is: this will be the last time you will ever have to deal with immigration. Good luck.

This has probably been discussed before but isn't it illegal to use your passport with the visa in Thailand after gaining Thai citizenship? 

 

Could they give you an overstay fine(as a Thai) if you let it expire? How would they find out if you never use it? 

 

 

 

[cmsally]

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

This has probably been discussed before but isn't it illegal to use your passport with the visa in Thailand after gaining Thai citizenship? 

 

Could they give you an overstay fine(as a Thai) if you let it expire? How would they find out if you never use it? 

 

 

 

I was told by the SB officer that handled my case from the beginning , that if I didn't cancel my visa , my foreign passport details would go on some sort of blacklist.

[khongaeng]

9 hours ago, cmsally said:

I was told by the SB officer that handled my case from the beginning , that if I didn't cancel my visa , my foreign passport details would go on some sort of blacklist.

I think that is probably the case.  One of my children was born overseas and entered Thailand on a foreign passport.  While in Thailand, we got a Thai passport for the child, but when we exited, it was technically an overstay.  Immigration actually wrote in the foreign passport under the exit stamp that because she was less than 15 years old, it was ok that she overstayed.  They didn't stamp the exit in the Thai passport. Then, on arrival back in Thailand, In the Thai passport was handwritten that she exited Thailand on a foreign passport.  The assumption at immigration is that there is always an exit (triangle stamp) as a Thai before there is an entrance (rectangle stamp) as a Thai.  If you exit as a foreigner and enter as a Thai, this will undoubtedly raise flags if you go through a people desk.  I'm not sure if there are any flags raised if you go through the automatic channels.  

 

I have thought about this situation many times, and have just concluded that it would be best just to spend an extra half day at immigration getting the visa cancelled.  I'm a little concerned about the whole pile of documents you have to bring and the letter that you apparently have to write attesting to the fact that you are now a Thai, as I am always a fan of limiting the paper trail in the conversion from a foreigner to a Thai. But in the end, after all of the anguish in waiting, and all of the hoops I have had to jump through, what's one more hoop at the end of the process? Fortunately, I am friends with the immigration folk in my province, and actually look forward to saying one last farewell ???? 

[GabbaGabbaHey]

15 hours ago, khongaeng said:

One of my children was born overseas and entered Thailand on a foreign passport.  While in Thailand, we got a Thai passport for the child, but when we exited, it was technically an overstay.  Immigration actually wrote in the foreign passport under the exit stamp that because she was less than 15 years old, it was ok that she overstayed. 

I'm just curious why you decided to use her Foreign passport to exit (knowing the technical overstay) instead of her Thai passport, was it something you didn't think about?

Edited May 21, 2020 by GabbaGabbaHey

[Neeranam]

15 hours ago, khongaeng said:

The assumption at immigration is that there is always an exit (triangle stamp) as a Thai before there is an entrance (rectangle stamp) as a Thai.  If you exit as a foreigner and enter as a Thai, this will undoubtedly raise flags if you go through a people desk.  I'm not sure if there are any flags raised if you go through the automatic channels.  

On getting Thai citizen, if you exit as a Thai, they wouldn't ask for your entry as a foreigner, or be able to link the two passports, would they? 

You could, in fact, burn your old passport as a party piece on getting your Thai passport. 

 

[khongaeng]

55 minutes ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

I'm just curious why you decided to use her Foreign passport to exit (knowing the technical overstay) instead of her Thai passport, was it something you didn't think about?

At the time, I was concerned that if she didn't close the loop by exiting on her foreign passport, that there would be a perpetual overstay linked to her foreign nationality.  Because she was a child, she wouldn't be penalized for an overstay anyway (as far as I know only 18 and older have to pay the overstay penalty).  She probably would never need to enter Thailand (nor should she ever) using her foreign passport, but just in case, I wanted to clear everything up when she was a child.  Now she enters and exits Thailand like any other Thai person and her new passport of course shows no evidence of this previous mistake.  

[khongaeng]

31 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

On getting Thai citizen, if you exit as a Thai, they wouldn't ask for your entry as a foreigner, or be able to link the two passports, would they? 

You could, in fact, burn your old passport as a party piece on getting your Thai passport. 

 

Historically, yes that would most likely be the case that the passports would not be linked.  I know someone who while waiting the 30 days of review after submitting for the 1 year marriage visa extension, exited Thailand using one passport and came back and exited another time on another passport (dual national) and then finally re-entered on his first passport (2 trips outside the country in 30 days) in order to avoid paying an extra 1000 baht for a re-entry permit, and there was not any issue.

 

However, nowadays with the fingerprinting, I do not think this is possible anymore, and if you have flown in and out of Thailand anytime in the past year, they have a record of your "foreign" fingerprints.  I'm not sure if the system would flag you at the automatic gates or not, but at the minimum there is definitely evidence in the Immigration system that links your two identities.

[saakura]

Today 21st May 2020, i submitted to SB, all the required documents for naturalisation as a Thai citizen. I was told to come back for an interview and written test with the same police department on Tuesday 26th May and i have to practice writing my name in thai script for the test. Any advise on what to expect at this interview will be greatly appreciated. I was also told that the next step after the Tuesday interview with SB is another interview with the NIA (National Intelligence Agency). What is that for? 

[david143]

14 hours ago, saakura said:

Today 21st May 2020, i submitted to SB, all the required documents for naturalisation as a Thai citizen. I was told to come back for an interview and written test with the same police department on Tuesday 26th May and i have to practice writing my name in thai script for the test. Any advise on what to expect at this interview will be greatly appreciated. I was also told that the next step after the Tuesday interview with SB is another interview with the NIA (National Intelligence Agency). What is that for? 

NIA interview is 2 officers will ask same questions and see original documents just like WP, Visa, Residence Book, actually they try to match statement of Candidate and his wife, how you met blah blah blah.
but you guys will sit on different chairs about 3 meter space, nothing to worry anything , but i heard in Feb my friend gave NIA interview and now they Note down every word in Computer.
I gave NIA interview on 19 May 2018 SUNDAY morning 9:00 AM and it was only 2 min i set time on my mobile. there was no computer ,they  just saw all the original documents, ask some personal question from wife , kid and off course from me. Total time spend 2 min and 45 seconds, take a family photo and bye bye . this was my Experience , *** Others May Vary***.
SB interview is general questions, personal how you met WHY YOU WANT TO BECOME THAI.
Test i don't know ,i don't gave any written Test for name or anything, i deal all process in Thai ???? .*** Others May Vary***.
 

[BKKBike09]

14 hours ago, saakura said:

Today 21st May 2020, i submitted to SB, all the required documents for naturalisation as a Thai citizen. I was told to come back for an interview and written test with the same police department on Tuesday 26th May and i have to practice writing my name in thai script for the test. Any advise on what to expect at this interview will be greatly appreciated. I was also told that the next step after the Tuesday interview with SB is another interview with the NIA (National Intelligence Agency). What is that for? 

Are you applying on basis of PR or marriage to a Thai?

 

SB - straightforward. Interview for me there was with section chief at back of office where you file the application. Only question he really wanted an answer to was "you understand you must give up your current nationality if you become Thai". Then an interview (short) upstairs with a more senior officer and the multiple choice Thai knowledge test. Ironically turns out I know more about Thai ephemera than my wife (I could have applied via PR but chose to go the wife route). Never had to sign my name in Thai but I write Thai well enough and had written stuff on various forms downstairs IIRC.

 

NIA - straightforward. Sat next to the missus; no kids came along. One person interviewed us. Were there about 30 mins because I like to talk. Plus I figured: "we had to make all this effort to come over here, so why hurry?". General chit chat about us, our backgrounds, what we each do. I sense that if you speak Thai clearly and well, they *may* spend more time talking to you because it's more interesting for them. But, hey, maybe also it was just a quiet day and the interviewer wanted to stretch it to lunchtime. When I did my PR Thai test a buddy of mine was in and out in about 30 seconds - I took 20 minutes. 

 

This was mid 2018 - still waiting for MOI interview. I guess it will happen when it happens. I run my own company and have PR so I'm not kicking my heels in a job I detest, unable to quit because I need the continuity of employment.