Hi, me and partner are planning to move to Thailand from UK. However, we have not yet confirmed our work placements and by the looks of it will have to enter Thailand on a tourist visa and convert it later.

The question is: will our 10 year old daughter be able to attend a local international school without our residential status?

Many thanks..

This may not be exactly the answer to your question, but it might still be helpful to you and/or someone else:

I know for a fact that if a married foreign couple has kids in a school in Thailand, at least one of the parents is entiteled to some kind of guardian- or parent-of-student visa. The reason I am not sure if both parents are entiteled to this visa, is because one of the parents (this is a couple I know) already has a retirement visa, so only one of them needed to get this visa.

As far as I know their visa status was never an issue when enrolling the kids in a private international school in a town with a substantial expat community in Thailand, but if you want I could ask them for you.

I’m not quite sure about an answer here. But in order for other forum members to answer this question correctly, they will need some more information from you:

a) Are you or your partner Thai?

You need to be more specific about your ‘work placement’. You cannot enter Thailand and start with any type of work if you are on a tourist visa. You will need a different type of visa (non-o or ED). There is a lot of information on here about that…

I think in order to convert your tourist visa you will have to make a border run.

So, please give us some more information…

As far as I know their visa status was never an issue when enrolling the kids in a private international school in a town with a substantial expat community in Thailand, but if you want I could ask them for you.

My children are both enrolled in an international school in Bangkok and both were required to show a valid Non-Immigrant "O" or "ED" visa prior to their first day of classes.

1. The child can obtain an ED visa with paperwork from the school so that will not be a problem.

2. You can come on tourist visas and apply for a work permit and then leave to obtain the non immigrant visa so that is also not a problem. Finding work might be.

3. One, and only one, parent can obtain one year extension of stay to take care of child in school if they have a local bank account with 500k in it.

You definitely need either a Thai parent or guardian

OR

if you are a foreigner, you need a valid one year visa + show that you have money on your bank account [in the form you'll be asked how much you do spend for the child].

The children need an ED 3 months visa (to be obtained in the Thai Embassy in your county). It means you have 3 months to obtain the 1 yr extension. Be careful, it's not so long.

It's difficult the first time, then, the 1 yr extension in kind of automatic.

To be more specific : you need a lot of documents to obtain the "magic letter" from the Ministry.

Then, with this letter + a couple of other documents easy to obtain at school, you go to immigration with the children and you obtain the visa extension within a couple of minutes.

Edited July 15, 200916 yr by geovalin

I don't have much money to pay international school here in Thailand so I enroll my son to a Thai private school..Im working here and i have yearly visa so my son have yearly visa Non- O...

Mighty

Hi, me and partner are planning to move to Thailand from UK. However, we have not yet confirmed our work placements and by the looks of it will have to enter Thailand on a tourist visa and convert it later.

The question is: will our 10 year old daughter be able to attend a local international school without our residential status?

Many thanks..