A friend of mine has recently arrived in the UK with a 12 month 'O'. He has enquired about turning this into a full marriage visa at Chiang Mai. He was told that because his wife comes from Khon Kaen (spelling?) then they have to apply there. Is this correct? They intend to live in Chiang Mai where they own land and are about to build a house.

Your friend and/or wife need some form of proof that they are living in Chiang Mai before he can use the local immigration office. His "O" visa, with 90 day border runs, is good for 12 months before he has to get an extension of stay based on marriage, what's the rush.

Your friend and/or wife need some form of proof that they are living in Chiang Mai before he can use the local immigration office. His "O" visa, with 90 day border runs, is good for 12 months before he has to get an extension of stay based on marriage, what's the rush.

What are the benefits of a marriage Visa... I hear you need to show only 400K bt in Thai bank, compared with 600K bt on others O and B.

Also you do not need to go do the border run every 3 months- correct?

Like above said 'What's the hurry'- pressured or luv ... Convert near the end of current Visa or if you do not wish to do border runs. Also on ED Visa u do not need to do border runs I am told- yet u cannot work.

There is no such thing a marriage visa. There is the non-O visa to travel to Thailand for the purpose of visiting your spouse. There is the annual extension of stay for the reason of living in Thailand with your Thai spouse, the “marriage extension”, for short.

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Maestro

You must apply for extensions of stay in the area you live and part of the process for marriage will be submission of wife home register - so if you want to apply in Chiang Mai she should get herself onto a blue book there. Should not be hard to do - but most Thai just take the easy road and leave on parents until required to change it. Am not sure Chiang Mai Immigration would require this change or not - but some do it seems.