Legalization of documents at MFA - trip report

[Lorry]

Near immigration, but on the main road.

If you combine it with a trip to immigration, eg for 90-day report, motorcycle from immigration to MFA consular division 3 minutes,  20 B.

 

You need an online appointment. People who didn't have one were sent home. 

The legalization service of MFA at MRT Khlong Toei has a better reputation,  but at this time you get only appointments at CW.

 

Once at MFA, you get  a queue number.  Your appointment time doesn't matter any more.

 

You can book appointments at times like 12.30 or 11.30.  Not recomended. They don't publish a fixed lunch break from 12 to 1, like immigration does. They just worked slower and slower (because staffers would disappear for lunch ) and stopped completely at 11.15. Counters were still open, so nobody dared to leave - you wouldn't know when they start working again (it was about 12.15, slowly gathering speed).

 

Waiting time was 2.5 hours. Its faster early morning. 

 

Express service (means same day, you still have to wait those 2.5 hours): ask actively for it. They do it for some documents (different from what they write on the website) for a 100% surcharge. Took 1.5 hours. You have to bring your receipt to the Express counters 1-5 when the time is due (they tell you how long it will take), then you are called by name.

 

Price 200B per sticker (1 sticker per legalized signature). Express 400.

 

Quite a few people's documents were not in order. Call the call center before you go.

[donmuang37]

Very useful info. Thanks for the update.

[Dogmatix]

Did this a couple of times at CW but never again. Horrendous wait. Once they insisted on an edit. So back to the translation agency and then repeat the whole thing. Once they lost the original document and made no effort to find it. Just shrugged it off. Their English is very poor. They let garbage through and insist on edits that make no sense to a native speaker but don’t bother trying to argue with them. They have the power.

 

in future I will pay the translation agency to do this tedious job. Well worth it if they require an edit. Let them sort it out for themselves.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Dogmatix

[Kalasin Jo]

1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

Did this a couple of times at CW but never again. Horrendous wait. Once they insisted on an edit. So back to the translation agency and then repeat the whole thing. Once they lost the original document and made no effort to find it. Just shrugged it off. Their English is very poor. They let garbage through and insist on edits that make no sense to a native speaker but don’t bother trying to argue with them. They have the power.

 

in future I will pay the translation agency to do this tedious job. Well worth it if they require an edit. Let them sort it out for themselves.

Agreed. I had a similar experience albeit some years ago. Very picky about the translations. Luckily an on the spot translator saw my difficulty and stepped up, for a fee of course. Think I'd have lost the will to live if I'd turned him down. The British Embassy were not helpful doing their bit either, but it got done in the end.