Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[simon43]

Looks like there are only 2 'westerners' on that list.....

[NewlyMintedThai]

Looks like there are only 2 'westerners' on that list.....

Correct.

The number of Westerners applying is tiny compared to the number of Asians from other countries applying.

Don't mistake it for some anti-Western conspiracy.

[samran]

Looks like there are only 2 'westerners' on that list.....

Correct.

The number of Westerners applying is tiny compared to the number of Asians from other countries applying.

Don't mistake it for some anti-Western conspiracy.

Though many will of course...

[Arkady]

In addtion there were at least four women who renounced Thai nationalilty in order to hold Australian nationality as their sole nationality. Presumably those four were not too bright, or has something changed in Australia?

Nothing has changed in Australia, but false assumptions still abound as you know that you can't hold dual citizenship.

A couple of thoughts:

- They thought that section 22 applied to them in the sense that they weren't taking the nationality of their husband, but naturalising of their own free will?

Section 22.

A person of Thai nationality who has been naturalised as an alien, or who has renounced Thai nationality, or whose Thai nationality has been revoked, shall lose Thai nationality.

- That they weren't too bright

- That someone at the printing office confused Australia with Austria, which does not, I believe, allow multiple nationalities.

Samran. After reading your post I had another look at these anoucements and now confess that the person who confused Australia with Austria was me. They were giving up Thai nationality in favour of being Austrian, not Australian.

Re Section 22:

"A person of Thai nationality who has been naturalized as an alien, or who has renounced Thai nationality, or whose Thai nationality has been revoked, shall lose Thai nationality."

My observation is that this section is just used for procedure, while the key sections for these renunciations are Sections 13:

"A man or woman of Thai nationality who marries an alien and may acquire the nationality of the spouse according to his nationality law shall, if he or she desires to renounce Thai nationality, make a declaration of his or her intention before an official according to the form and in the manner prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations."

and 15:

"Except in the case under Section 14, a person who has Thai nationality and other nationality, or who acquires Thai nationality by naturalization shall, if he desires to renounce Thai nationality, file an application with the competent official according to such form and in the manner prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations.

The granting or refusal of permission for renunciation of Thai nationality shall lie with the discretion of the Minister."

The wording of the announcements is generally to the effect that Mrs X has expressed her desire to renounce Thai citizenship in accordance with either Section 13 or 15 and that her Thai citizenship will consequently be annulled in accordance with Section 22. The difference between Sections 13 and 15 is that women who have obtained their husband's foreign nationality can automatically renounce their Thai citizenship, whereas the minister's approval is required for all others wishing to relieve themselves of the encumbrance of Thai nationality.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Arkady

[Arkady]

Looks like there are only 2 'westerners' on that list.....

Correct.

The number of Westerners applying is tiny compared to the number of Asians from other countries applying.

Don't mistake it for some anti-Western conspiracy.

Though many will of course...

From the names of successful applicants and from we hear from candidates who have been to the Interior Ministry interviews we can assume that vast majority of applicants have historically been of Asian nationality. The pattern might change a bit in future though, due to the 2008 legal amendment that permitted males married to Thais to apply without obtaining permanent residence first. Since the process now seems to take at least 3-5 years for those on a normal track (compared to 1-2 years in days gone by), most, if not all, of those getting naturalised in 2011 must have had PR. Given the large number of farangs married to Thai women and the fact that obtaining PR has been made virtually impossible in recent years, I think there are a lot more farangs now applying for citizenship. In the past they might have been happy just getting PR, which used to be a relatively fast and not too pricey process (before the fees were jacked up), and were not interested in going the extra mile for a Thai passport which they saw as inferior to their farang passports that allow visaless travel around the globe. Now increasing numbers of farangs see Thai citizenship, which also requires much less onerous documentation and comes with much cheaper fees, as their only realistic hope of ever being allowed to stay permanently in Thailand with their Thai families. When I was interviewed by the NIA the only other applicant waiting in the queue was another farang (with his fancy Thai lawyer girl to assist him, much to the disgust of the officer).

Edited January 1, 2012 by Arkady

[somchai74]

i got a few questions i think im in the right section for it

i am half thai half dutch with a dutch passport, my mother is thai and lives in thailand.

i was born in the netherlands lived in thailand for around 2 years when i was little then moved back to the netherlands and since then live there.

can i apply for thai citizenship based on my mother being thai and lives there?

also if i get a thai citizenship can i buy land on my own name or do i still be considerd as a foreigner and can only lease it?

or have to buy it on my mothers name

[NewlyMintedThai]

You are already Thai -- you don't have to apply for it.

You just have to present your birth certificate and mother's documentation to claim it.

Then you will have full rights, including land ownership, the same as any other Thai.

[somchai74]

thx alot MintedThai, im becoming a thai citizen soon

[skippybangkok]

Ok... Question.... I completed every thing with the police May 2010, interview I think July 2010 w ministry @ McDonalds ----- now waiting. Where do I call to get heads up on the status ? Must be some where in ministry

Thx

[Naam]

what happened to the OP "dbrenn's" application. is finally a Thai citizen after applying nearly 5 years ago?

[skippybangkok]

what happened to the OP "dbrenn's" application. is finally a Thai citizen after applying nearly 5 years ago?

Lol

Yeh, I know I am new to the que.... Just wondering where to enquire/ bug people

[samran]

what happened to the OP "dbrenn's" application. is finally a Thai citizen after applying nearly 5 years ago?

He was already a Thai citizen at the time of posting....

[Naam]

what happened to the OP "dbrenn's" application. is finally a Thai citizen after applying nearly 5 years ago?

He was already a Thai citizen at the time of posting....

it's the reading glasses, i swear. i clearly overlooked

now... I can get a Thai passport and visit countries like Laos and Vietnam visa free

lucky DBrenn!

[Arkady]

Ok... Question.... I completed every thing with the police May 2010, interview I think July 2010 w ministry @ McDonalds ----- now waiting. Where do I call to get heads up on the status ? Must be some where in ministry

Thx

The best place to start is by going back to Special Branch. If you haven't already got it, you will need a copy of the cover letter that Special Branch sent to the ministry when they forwarded your file, confirming that you had fulfilled all the legal requirements for your application to be considered by the minister. They will fax this to you, if you ask. There is no reference number on the letter but you need the date of it to follow up with the ministry. Special Branch can give you contact details of working level officials at the ministry's nationality division. Unfortunately these people can't tell you very much, except hopefully confirm that they have your file. If you try to press them, they will probably just tell you there is a big queue of applicants waiting for interviews at the ministry and that two years is not that long, so jai yen yen. I don't know if it helps to go and visit them in person but I doubt it. Getting some one senior at the ministry to follow up on your case would be more effective. Apparently the ministry's interview process was suspended during last year's floods and they only just started interviewing applicants again this month. I am also waiting to be interviewed and applied just ahead of you.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Arkady

[smedly]

I just see it how I read it.

Obviously someone from a poor nation would be more likely

to want Thai citizenship than someone from a rich country.

Disagree ... Then Do Tell.

Naka.

I think it depends very much on your age, if you are young married work here and intend to stay for a long time then why not, if you are over 50 hardly much point but well done to the OP

[Arkady]

I just see it how I read it.

Obviously someone from a poor nation would be more likely

to want Thai citizenship than someone from a rich country.

Disagree ... Then Do Tell.

Naka.

I think it depends very much on your age, if you are young married work here and intend to stay for a long time then why not, if you are over 50 hardly much point but well done to the OP

There are apparently around 100,000 Brits living in Thailand, of whom around 50,000 are retired and probably at least 25% of those working regard themselves as permanently settled. I would think that the vast majority of these people would love to have Thai nationality, if they could get it. That's without considering any other foreign communties here. Why do you need to be from "a poor nation" or under 50 to desire the huge convenience of having the nationality of the country in which you reside permanently? I don't see any logic to these comments.

[articut]

Congratulation, but is it true that before citizen application you should obtain the permanent residence permit which it cost 195000 baht? because i also would like to get the citizen cause i have all the requirement.

waiting for your reply

a wishing thai citizen!!!!

[Mario2008]

It depends on whether you are married to a Thai national or not. If married to a Thai national, obtaining PR first is not required. (But you will need to be registered on a tabien baan)

[Arkady]

An update on the statistics of Thai citizenship approvals announced in the Royal Gazette.

Although I didn't expect any more announcements in 2011 due to the change of government and the floods a batch of 9 people was listed on 28 December 2011, bringing the total for 2011 to 40 naturalizations and 4 women with Thai husbands. That is a bit below the average of naturalizations in 2005 to 2010 which was 100.7 per year but 2011 can't really be considered a full year due to the events mentioned above. The number of women approved to adopt the nationality of their Thai husbands was surprisingly low compared to the average of 82.7 per year in 2005 to 2010 and the bumper crop of 232 in 2006. Approvals of women with Thai husbands have in fact slowed to a single digit trickle annually since 2009. I wonder why.

In 2012 the wheels have continued to turn with the listing of a single name on 29 February and 12 more on 19 April.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Arkady

[aidenai]

An update on the statistics of Thai citizenship approvals announced in the Royal Gazette.

Although I didn't expect any more announcements in 2011 due to the change of government and the floods a batch of 9 people was listed on 28 December 2011, bringing the total for 2011 to 40 naturalizations and 4 women with Thai husbands.

Last time you published the names, Arkady. Do you have a link this time or are you willing to put up the names.

Thanks in advance.

[Arkady]

An update on the statistics of Thai citizenship approvals announced in the Royal Gazette.

Although I didn't expect any more announcements in 2011 due to the change of government and the floods a batch of 9 people was listed on 28 December 2011, bringing the total for 2011 to 40 naturalizations and 4 women with Thai husbands.

Last time you published the names, Arkady. Do you have a link this time or are you willing to put up the names.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry I haven't transliterated the names this time. The link for the Royal Gazette is below. You need to search for Thai nationality

สัญชาติไทย.

http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/RKJ/index/index.htm.

[Lonewolf77]

Congratulions well done:-)

[aidenai]

An update on the statistics of Thai citizenship approvals announced in the Royal Gazette.

Although I didn't expect any more announcements in 2011 due to the change of government and the floods a batch of 9 people was listed on 28 December 2011, bringing the total for 2011 to 40 naturalizations and 4 women with Thai husbands.

Last time you published the names, Arkady. Do you have a link this time or are you willing to put up the names.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry I haven't transliterated the names this time. The link for the Royal Gazette is below. You need to search for Thai nationality

สัญชาติไทย.

http://www.ratchakit...ex/index.htm.

Thank you very much, Arkady.

[Naam]

There are apparently around 100,000 Brits living in Thailand, of whom around 50,000 are retired and probably at least 25% of those working regard themselves as permanently settled. I would think that the vast majority of these people would love to have Thai nationality, if they could get it. That's without considering any other foreign communties here. Why do you need to be from "a poor nation" or under 50 to desire the huge convenience of having the nationality of the country in which you reside permanently? I don't see any logic to these comments.

in my case the logic is that my home country Germany does not allow dual nationality for German citizens. exceptions are children born after jan1, 1977 to one German/one foreign parent. trading my German passport for a Thai one would mean a big visa hassle when travelling to other countries except a few Asean ones.

[Arkady]

There are apparently around 100,000 Brits living in Thailand, of whom around 50,000 are retired and probably at least 25% of those working regard themselves as permanently settled. I would think that the vast majority of these people would love to have Thai nationality, if they could get it. That's without considering any other foreign communties here. Why do you need to be from "a poor nation" or under 50 to desire the huge convenience of having the nationality of the country in which you reside permanently? I don't see any logic to these comments.

in my case the logic is that my home country Germany does not allow dual nationality for German citizens. exceptions are children born after jan1, 1977 to one German/one foreign parent. trading my German passport for a Thai one would mean a big visa hassle when travelling to other countries except a few Asean ones.

I know of several Germans who have applied for or obtained Thai nationality. German law allows also allows dual nationality in other circumstances, if it not allowing it would cause hardship to a German citizen. Apparently they got exemptions by going to the embassy and explaining that they were businessmen and that, while they wished to retain their links with Germany and their German nationality, they needed Thai nationality to avoid the disadvantage of being forced to use Thai nominees to own their own businesses and the land they needed for their businesses or homes. On the other hand Thais naturalising as Germans are forced to show evidence that they have renounced their Thai nationality.

Edited June 8, 2012 by Arkady

[Michaelaway]

Wow. Does the U.S.A. allow dual nationality?

[NewlyMintedThai]

Wow. Does the U.S.A. allow dual nationality?

Yes.

[Naam]

I know of several Germans who have applied for or obtained Thai nationality. German law allows also allows dual nationality in other circumstances, if it not allowing it would cause hardship to a German citizen. Apparently they got exemptions by going to the embassy and explaining that they were businessmen and that, while they wished to retain their links with Germany and their German nationality, they needed Thai nationality to avoid the disadvantage of being forced to use Thai nominees to own their own businesses and the land they needed for their businesses or homes. On the other hand Thais naturalising as Germans are forced to show evidence that they have renounced their Thai nationality.

German law does not allow dual citizenship in the cases you mentioned and the German Embassy has no power whatsoever to make any decision.

Grundsätzlich verliert ein Deutscher mit dem Erwerb einer ausländischen Staatsangehörigkeit gemäß §25 Absatz 1 Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, automatisch seine Staatsangehörigkeit. (§§ 17 Nr.2, 25 Abs.1 StAG).

having said so, i admit there are uncountable cases where a foreign national has acquired German citizenship, did not qualify for dual nationality, relinguished the former one and then later applying again for a passport in his former home country. this works for those countries which allow dual nationality and do not inform the country which granted the other citizenship. should the German authorities find out, German citizenship is gone.

in the year 2000 an amendment of the law was introduced which makes dual citizenship theoretically and de jure possible. statistics however show that the conditions are that stringent that de facto only a few applications were approved.

[Arkady]

I know of several Germans who have applied for or obtained Thai nationality. German law allows also allows dual nationality in other circumstances, if it not allowing it would cause hardship to a German citizen. Apparently they got exemptions by going to the embassy and explaining that they were businessmen and that, while they wished to retain their links with Germany and their German nationality, they needed Thai nationality to avoid the disadvantage of being forced to use Thai nominees to own their own businesses and the land they needed for their businesses or homes. On the other hand Thais naturalising as Germans are forced to show evidence that they have renounced their Thai nationality.

German law does not allow dual citizenship in the cases you mentioned and the German Embassy has no power whatsoever to make any decision.

Grundsätzlich verliert ein Deutscher mit dem Erwerb einer ausländischen Staatsangehörigkeit gemäß §25 Absatz 1 Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, automatisch seine Staatsangehörigkeit. (§§ 17 Nr.2, 25 Abs.1 StAG).

having said so, i admit there are uncountable cases where a foreign national has acquired German citizenship, did not qualify for dual nationality, relinguished the former one and then later applying again for a passport in his former home country. this works for those countries which allow dual nationality and do not inform the country which granted the other citizenship. should the German authorities find out, German citizenship is gone.

in the year 2000 an amendment of the law was introduced which makes dual citizenship theoretically and de jure possible. statistics however show that the conditions are that stringent that de facto only a few applications were approved.

Anyway it might just be worth asking the embassy, if you were interested. I think some Germans have also gone ahead and done it without getting permission and taken the risk the German government won't ever find out. I can also well believe, as you say, that many naturalised Germans will take steps to recover their former nationalities. The UK for example (even though there is not much reason any more to want dual UK/German citizenship) obviously disagrees with the concept of disallowing dual nationality and will for a fat fee restore British nationality to any former citizen who can prove they were forced to give it up to obtain or retain another nationality. Thailand restores nationality to those who renounced it to obtain another nationality through marriage, which covers most of the Thais who become German, in the event they get divorced. Since divorce is cheap and easy in Thailand, it would be possible for them to come back to Thailand for a cheap divorce without bothering to notify the German authorities and reapply for Thai nationality which is worth hanging on to for many to buy a holiday home or inherit land or businesses. They can also remarry in Thailand for the modest fee charged by district offices.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Arkady

[Arkady]

I have attached for interest a masters degree thesis on the subject of dual nationality from Chula I found by chance. The thesis contains some glaring inaccuracies and I am not sure I would have given it a passing mark myself but there are nonetheless some points of interest. While the author eschewed rigorous research in favour of relying almost entirely on unverified interviews, she did get access to some government officials and got a good feel for their thinking. She makes the point that I that I have also heard attributed to Interior Ministry officials that dual nationality is regarded by some as a potential threat to national security and can be used by international criminals to evade justice. Most of the examples of this (Thaksin is not mentioned) relate to the insurgency in the Deep South, however, and she fails to point out that most of the dual Thai-Malaysian citizens have obtained their Malaysian citizenship through fraud and that dual citizenship is strictly illegal under the Malaysian constitution. This is of course a different situation to law abiding dual citizens who are legitimately entitled to both citizenships. Another interesting nugget is that a plan under Thaksin to set up a new citizenship department in the Interior Ministry that would have combined the Interior Ministry's "black hole" citizenship processing department, Immigration's citizenship verification department and (presumably but not mentioned) Special Branch's two citizenship application depts (there is a separate one for women with Thai husbands) and their citizenship renunciation/ revocation section floundered because the Immigration officials refused to give up their police ranks. Who knows what might have resulted if the new department had gone ahead with a new chief anxious to kick butt and get noticed? Perhaps Thaksin's subsequent multi-passported travels would have resulted in automatic revocation of his Thai nationality. LOL. She also details the problems of some look krung who came back to Thailand to claim their Thai nationality and the curious obstacles they had to clear to get their birthright entitlements.

On the legal front the author takes the view that dual nationality is specifically illegal under the Nationality Act but that successive governments have chosen not to enforce the law. This view seems somewhat flawed in not considering properly Section 14 of the Act that covers the situation of look krung who, since 1992 when Thai mothers won the right to transmit their citizenship have become the largest group of Thai dual nationals by a large margin. The wording gives the impression that they must retain only one nationality once they reach the age of 21 but has in fact been watered down so as to be only an option to renounce Thai nationality at the age of 20. This is actually redundant because Thai citizens have the option to renounce their citizenship at any age. Wording in the previous, short lived version of Section 14 clearly provided for automatic revocation of Thai citizenship for those who failed to make a declaration that they would renounce their foreign citizenship by the age of 21. Section 22 that provides for the renunciation of Thai citizenship for those who have naturalised as aliens was also similarly diluted in the current Act and made ambiguous compared to the previous Act that clearly provided for automatic revocation in these cases. The cases of dual nationals like Abhisit who obtained both nationalities at birth are not covered in the Act even by an ambiguous nuance. No doubt the people she interviewed were equally ignorant of the history of the legislation and hazy on how it has been appliled. If the author had taken the trouble to research the Royal Gazette, she would have come to a better understanding as to how the Act has been interpreted by the Interior Ministry over the nearly 50 years it has been in force. Conspicuously the thesis presents no meaningful statistics whatsoever.

Despite its obvious flaws, the thesis is thought provoking in parts and worth a quick read by serious students of the topic of dual nationality.

THAI NATIONALS WITH DUAL NATIONALITY STATUS.pdf

Edited August 19, 2012 by Arkady