Hey guys, I think I will get faster response on the forum then I will get an alive person to pick up the phone at the immigration bureau. So here is my current status: I have one more week left on my 60 days tourist visa and I am going on Monday to submit all my papers at the immigration bureau for changing my status to non-immigrant type "O"--married for a Thai wife. Is one week will be enough for those guys at the immigration to process all the paperwork, so I do not have to be out of status for awhile, or is it better to extend my tourist visa for another 30 days, so the things can be all good.

Thank you for your help..

Here is a joke from yesterday.

I call the immigration bureau yesterday here in BKK and after 25 minutes going back and forth with the voice menues, I finally got a human being to pick the phone . So I am all happy and I am asking the guy on the phone to help me with some information regarding some paperwork. Here is the answer: I am not listening.... --- translation for everybody- he do not speak English, ok that is fine with me, so please at least one person at the immigration can speak English, I did hope so, I guess it was too late, the guy hang up on me . Oh well I quess, I got to spend another 30 minutes on the phone today as well.-- he-he.

Hey guys, I think I will get faster response on the forum then I will get an alive person to pick up the phone at the immigration bureau. So here is my current status: I have one more week left on my 60 days tourist visa and I am going on Monday to submit all my papers at the immigration bureau for changing my status to non-immigrant type "O"--married for a Thai wife. Is one week will be enough for those guys at the immigration to process all the paperwork, so I do not have to be out of status for awhile, or is it better to extend my tourist visa for another 30 days, so the things can be all good.

Thank you for your help..

Here is a joke from yesterday.

I call the immigration bureau yesterday here in BKK and after 25 minutes going back and forth with the voice menues, I finally got a human being to pick the phone  . So I am all happy and I am asking the guy on the phone to help me with some information regarding some paperwork. Here is the answer: I am not listening....  --- translation for everybody- he do not speak English, ok that is fine with me, so please at least one person at the immigration can speak English, I did hope so, I guess it was too late, the guy hang up on me  . Oh well I quess, I got to spend another 30 minutes on the phone today as well.-- he-he.

you need to forget about calling on the phone. take wifey down to immigration and apply for a one year extension. depending on who you talk to in person, it is possible to go from a tourist visa to a non immigrant O visa stamp from thai immigration. i have had it done, but it required a few extensions for everything to get processed. your end result should be the one year extension which will expire one year from your last entry into thailand. after the first one, each one year extension will expire every year on the same day

note: there is no guarantee thai immigration will give you a non immigrant O visa while they process your extension. they may tell you to go to a thai consulate and come back.

As huski says your situation is not clear in your post. Do you meet the extension of stay for support of a Thai wife provisions? If so they can probably change your visa and start process for extension of stay. If not you should probably just make a trip to Penang or another Consulate and obtain non immigrant single entry visa using marriage certificate and copy of her ID card. You then will have 10 weeks or so to get money into bank/find job/whatever you need to qualify for extension.

Thannks for the info. Actually, it takes about three weeks to process all the paperwork in the immigration for the change of status.

Thanks

If they accept your papers for processing,

there is no need to extend your Tourist Visa.

They will give you a "Being Considered" stamp

in your passport to return by a particular date.

So unless you are wanting to go outside the Kingdom in the

interim - it doesn't really matter how long it will take.

Roger