How To Renounce Thai Citizenship?

[motoji]

I am very new to this forum and would like to get some help from Thailand expat experts. I am from EU country and my wife is Thai, and has Thai citizenship, she has sucessfully naturalized to my nationality for a few years as well.

She has tried to renounce her Thai citizenship many times, but asking around Thai foriegn ministry, immigration, embassies, all the bureacratic institutions and get all different procedures and answers, and really mind boggling procedures as well. Does any one know the exact procedures to renounce Thai citizenship, she is born Thai but she really hates her native country for so many ideological reasons, I am no Thai expert, only been there once, so any expact familiar with Thai bearacracy can help my wife on this matter, seems like the Thai foriegn ministry does not offer her much help.

[Mario2008]

Thai nationality act:

Chapter 2. Loss of Thai Nationality.

Section 13. A woman of Thai nationality who marries an alien and may acquire the nationality of her husband according to the nationality law of her husband, shall, if she desires to renounce Thai nationality, make a declaration of her intention before the competent official according to the form and in the manner prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations.

The ministry responsible is the Thai interior ministry. Your wife should contact them.

[ballbreaker]

She should maintain dual citizenship in my opinion.

[Heng]

Just shred your Thai id card, passport, house registration, and birth cert. if she has it. When entering/exiting Thailand, just present foreign passport. She'll have to go through the visa hoops the same as all foreigners. When planning on voting or purchasing property, just present foreign passport as only identification. "Sorry, no can." Fast forward a few years and log onto ThaiVisa and warn other foreigners on the perils of Thailand.

Sorted.

[mgjackson69]

I am going to make a generalization here:

If she goes through with the formal renunciation, at some point you and/or she will regret that she did so.

And it will be your fault.

What is the harm of keeping it?

[NHJ]

there's no point in losing a nationality, would you want to lose your EU nationality because you got thai national...???

certainly not cause you have advantages on both sides especially when it comes to asian countries where the restrictions are enormous against foreigners.

[Slip]

If you have kids (or maybe more importantly plan to in the future) what impact might this have on them if they someday want to visit/live/own land etc in their ancestral home country?

[Maestro]

I am not familiar with the procedure for the renunciation of Thai nationality in a case like that mentioned in the OP beyond what the Thai Nationality Act says, from which Mario2008 has posted the relevant text from the English translation. In case the OP’s wife has not yet seen the original Thai text of this law, it can be downloaded here.

The OP has not submitted for discussion his wife’s reasons for wanting to give up her Thai nationality and I would like to add only that I can see no disadvantage or inconvenience in her keeping her Thai nationality in addition to the second one she acquired through marriage.

From the English translation – and perhaps also from the original Thai text – it is not quite clear whether the declaration of the intention to renounce Thai nationality will automatically result in the loss of Thai nationality or whether the competent official (Minister of the Interior) will have to make a decision either to accept or to reject the declaration.

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Maestro

[wasabi]

If she wants to renounce it can I have it?

[dbrenn]

She should maintain dual citizenship in my opinion.

Agreed - there is no downside whatsoever to Thai/US dual nationality. You might both want to live in Thailand some day, so don't burn any bridges.

[Naam]

She has tried to renounce her Thai citizenship many times...

...she is born Thai but she really hates her native country for so many ideological reasons

why do i smell a t-r-o-l-l?

[Naam]

Agreed - there is no downside whatsoever to Thai/US dual nationality. You might both want to live in Thailand some day, so don't burn any bridges.

i had no idea that the U.S. joined the EU. when did it happen, was the Dollar abandoned and the €uro adopted?

quoting the OP: "I am from EU country and my wife is Thai..."

[Heng]

There's no downside, but when irrational (or rational) hate (or love) of one's home or host country is concerned, how many people are thinking that far ahead? Have met more than a few Thais who actually hate Thailand. Not to generalize, but an awful lot of them are 'mia farang' (and a few 'pua farang') types who have nothing but a list of less than enviable experiences with Thailand: poor upbringing, limited free gov't education, labor type work since a young age, cheated in business or other life experience, broken marriage with kid in tow, etc. This sometimes evolves into a dementia where everything "Thai" is BAD. It's similar to what some bitter expats develop in their feelings towards Thailand, sometimes long after they have left Thailand.

It's hard not to sympathize with both groups to some extent.

[motoji]

I post this question and no one gives any specific answer, and lots of joking around, I am new to this forum, so I do not know the opeartion of the forum.

By the way my wife is not from poor family, she has a master of political science from a top school in germany, and later work for a top logistic company where we met. She told me many times her parents were out spoken intellectuals, and were oppressed by the rulers so much, and her father died in jail in 70's as a thought prisoner.

I do not have much knowlege of this country to make any comment. The process to renounce Thai citizenship was a joke given by the thai embassy. Including me making a trip to Thai minitsry to make a declaration with her, and a prrof of good citizentry of her family and her, its just a heache to listen to all the beauracratic requiememnts .

[madjbs]

Well what did you expect? That you could just ring the embassy and say "I don't want to be Thai any more" and that's it, she is no longer Thai?

Edited August 4, 2008 by madjbs

[roygsd]

She should maintain dual citizenship in my opinion.

Great advice, nothing to loose be keeping dual nationality, unlees ofcouse she has some skeletons hiding in the cuboard

back in LOS, very unusual for a thai to be so hostile of the place of thier birth in my experience?

Not got the Police after her at home by any chance?

roy gsd.......

[Maizefarmer]

I am very new to this forum and would like to get some help from Thailand expat experts. I am from EU country and my wife is Thai, and has Thai citizenship, she has sucessfully naturalized to my nationality for a few years as well.

She has tried to renounce her Thai citizenship many times, but asking around Thai foriegn ministry, immigration, embassies, all the bureacratic institutions and get all different procedures and answers, and really mind boggling procedures as well. Does any one know the exact procedures to renounce Thai citizenship, she is born Thai but she really hates her native country for so many ideological reasons, I am no Thai expert, only been there once, so any expact familiar with Thai bearacracy can help my wife on this matter, seems like the Thai foriegn ministry does not offer her much help.

er ..................care to share with us just why your wife wishes to re-nounce her heritage/birthrights/culture - the only country in South East Asia never to have allowed its self to be subjected to the humiliation of being colonised by the West - and one of the free-est and most liberal cultures in South East Asia??

Why??

[KhaoNiaw]

er ..................care to share with us just why your wife wishes to re-nounce her heritage/birthrights/culture - the only country in South East Asia never to have allowed its self to be subjected to the humiliation of being colonised by the West - and one of the free-est and most liberal cultures in South East Asia??

Why??

I think the OP's second post elaborated to some degree. Easy to forget that it's not really been very long since political prisoners were held and died in Thai prisons.

She told me many times her parents were out spoken intellectuals, and were oppressed by the rulers so much, and her father died in jail in 70's as a thought prisoner.

[dbrenn]

Agreed - there is no downside whatsoever to Thai/US dual nationality. You might both want to live in Thailand some day, so don't burn any bridges.

i had no idea that the U.S. joined the EU. when did it happen, was the Dollar abandoned and the €uro adopted?

quoting the OP: "I am from EU country and my wife is Thai..."

Oops - not wishing to offend and you are quite right and sorry for the oversight - but speaking as a Thai/EU dual national the advice remains the same

Ideological reasons or otherwise, why on earth would anyone bother wading through an incredible amout of bureacracy to try to renounce something that carries absolutely no disadvantage? Just putting the ID card and passport in the bin, or keeping them on your mantlepiece as souvenirs of a past life, would save an awful lot of bother when compared with trying to petition the Interior Minister...

[samran]

Agreed - there is no downside whatsoever to Thai/US dual nationality. You might both want to live in Thailand some day, so don't burn any bridges.

i had no idea that the U.S. joined the EU. when did it happen, was the Dollar abandoned and the €uro adopted?

quoting the OP: "I am from EU country and my wife is Thai..."

Oops - not wishing to offend and you are quite right and sorry for the oversight - but speaking as a Thai/EU dual national the advice remains the same

Ideological reasons or otherwise, why on earth would anyone bother wading through an incredible amout of bureacracy to try to renounce something that carries absolutely no disadvantage? Just putting the ID card and passport in the bin, or keeping them on your mantlepiece as souvenirs of a past life, would save an awful lot of bother when compared with trying to petition the Interior Minister...

very true. The minister also has the discretion, if you read the Thai nationality act, not to allow for the renunciation to occur.

If your wife has a well known surname (it will be on her birth certificate) then if you come across an unsympthetic minister, then the application to renounce is likely to go nowhere. So all the work you put in will be for nought.

If you are in it for the symbolism, then by all means harass to embassy for the correct documentation. But if not, then I'd just burn all the relevant ID's and be done with it.

[Heng]

.

Nice avatar. Did you get one too? I thought it was a bit cheesy when I received mine, but decided to keep it after seeing the movie again.

[Maestro]

...I post this question and no one gives any specific answer...

Aren't you being ungrateful? You have had very specific answers, all the information you need. Could it be that you are a troll, as one post hints?

I am now closing this topic.

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Maestro