Marriage Visa Question

[dinger]

Sorry if this has been asked and answered before but was not really how to search for the answer.

My wife and I are currently in the U.S. I am a U.S. citizen she is Thai. She came here on a K-1 visa so we could get married here. We plan on returning to Thailand to live soon.

Question: Does the Thai Immigration recognize our U. S. marriage with regards to my application for a Thai marriage visa? Do we need to go through the entire marriage process in Thailand and have the marriage recorded there before I can apply for a marriage visa.

Thanks for any advise you can give.

[ubonjoe]

You will need to have your US marriage certificate translated to Thai then have the translation certified at the Ministry of Foreign affairs. Your would then go to the Amphoe (district office) to register the marriage. Your wife would then have the marriage entered in her house book and her ID card changed.

After this you can apply for an extension based upon marriage (it's not a visa) at immigration.

Before you travel to Thailand I suggest you get a non immigrant O visa based upon marriage at a Thai consulate before leaving the States. You can use your US marriage certificate for this. Using the pulldown menu on this page from the DC embassy website you can get a list of conulates. I suggest using an honorary consulate because they are normally easier to deal with and give faster service on mail in applications. Link: http://www.thaiembdc.org/AboutEmb/EmbDirect.aspx

You can get info on the requirements for an extension by looking at 2.18 of this police order.

Link: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/post-a70477-...ember-2008.html

[dinger]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like it shouldn't be all that difficult. I live about an hour away from the consulate in Los Angeles and they have been easy to deal with in the past.

Once again thanks

[ubonjoe]

Its not hard at all. Before you go immigration take some pictures of you and the wife in and around the house and make map to it. Some immigration offices will want these when you apply. Also your wife will need to go along for an interview.

For the translation and certification most companies will handle the certificaion for you for a small fee. It often is cheaper than taxi fare to the MFA and back twice. And you can even have them EMS it to you so you don't have to wait around Bangkok for it if you are not staying there.

[dinger]

Thanks Again

Already have plenty of photos so have that covered, map should be easy enough.

So now will start on my non-immigrant visa here.