Marriage Based Visa

[scn]

I am married to a citizen of thailand and am currently living in India Our marriage was registered in india. We have a daughter aged 1 year old. We wish to travel to thailand and stay there long term as I also wish to aplly to study there. What is the best way we can apply for a visa for me as well as for our daughter. What are the documents that we would have to provide to obtain the long term visas. All help is greatly appreciated.

scn

[singa-traz]

I am married to a citizen of thailand and am currently living in India Our marriage was registered in india. We have a daughter aged 1 year old. We wish to travel to thailand and stay there long term as I also wish to aplly to study there. What is the best way we can apply for a visa for me as well as for our daughter. What are the documents that we would have to provide to obtain the long term visas. All help is greatly appreciated.

scn

That's all I needed:

- http://www.thaivisa.com/304.0.html

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Singa has given you a valuable link for when you are in Thailand, but you must get a Non-Immigrant O class visa in India first. Take your wife when you go to the Thai Embassy, together with her Thai passport , ID card and marriage documentation translated into Thai.

[Mai Shai Satroo]

I strongly recommend that you have every document you think you might need translated to Thai. If your wife has been married before and is divorced, you better have the divorce decree translated as well (applies to yourself as well). Also any other sort of name changes on your or your wife's part should be documented. Wouldn't hurt to translate the cihld's documents as well, proving parentage and birthdate etc. Have certified copies of the original documents AND the Thai translations approved by the issuing authority there in India, or at the Thai embassy in India, before coming to Thailand -- and be sure to get an official looking, preferably multi-colored , stamp on every document including the translations. Do not fail in this, it will cost you later. The officials rarely, if ever, actually READ the translations, they just look them over and see if there is a stamp on it. If so, it's approved. Helps to make photocopies of everything, after having been stamped, or you'll have to make copies once you're there at immigration which is not a big hassle nor a big expense but a delay.

I had some bizarre dealings with several Ministries here. I married a Thai woman in the States 9 years ago. She'd been there 25 years or so, had been divorced in 1983. We finally decided to relocate here last year. When we moved here, even with our "legalized" and accepted and STAMPED (by the Thai Embassy AND the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs no less) marriage certificates, every official we ran across wanted to see the divorce papers from 20 years ago! We had a translation of the settlement, but, alas, NO STAMP. We had the original court decree with the raised seal of the secretary of state of Minnesota and it was obviously real, they official we were talking to had lived in the US for 12 years, he knew it was obvioulsy real, but it had NO STAMP (he said, grinning ). I had to send all the papers to the Thai Embassy in Chicago, get a purple stamp on the papers, then take them back to Bangkok and ram them up the minister's ... Well, I'm sure you've all had these kinds of things too.

Even after all that, though, the process was actually fairly simple if you've got all your "stuff" ready. Thus far it's been quiet, I report by mail every 90 days to Immigration, a cop drops by for a beer once in a while to see if I'm still alive and reports to immigration, that's about it.