i am making plans to marry a thai woman in thailand, and to stay there for a period of time. i do have a slightly tainted police record involving a DUI charge here in the states. Does anyone have any knowledge of what i might expect when submitting the required documents? Will this present an obstacle?

Presumably you are going for the one year extension of stay based upon marriage?...........your record will have no affect on your stay as it (or lack of it) is not a requirement for extension of stay when extending within Thailand.

A clean Police record is only a requirement when applying for an O-A visa before leaving home................even them i doubt a DUI would matter.

Edit............just to add if you intend to apply for just a tourist visa then once again your police record will not come into it.

I asked the same question in another thread, but it seems more appropriate here so forgive me for posting it here again: The "clean police report" in home country makes me think: will anything on the report automatically stop the process or will there be an evaluation of the actual incident? I can think up a lot of cases where one of us could end up with something on the report. Knocking down an attacker in self defense can even do that sometimes but could be many other cases.

Just wondering....

Cheers!

Below is an extract rom the Thai immigration act, that might give an idea:

Foreigners who fall into any of the following categories are prohibited to enter the Kingdom.

(6) Having been imprisoned by the judgement of the Thai Court; or by a lawful injunction; or by the judgement of the Court of foreign country, except when the penalty is for petty offense or negligence or is provided for as an exception in the Ministerial Regulations.

Thanks Axel. So it basically requires imprisonment - and even then it can be evaluated as a petty offense or negligence. Cheers!

i am making plans to marry a thai woman in thailand, and to stay there for a period of time.  i do have a slightly tainted police record involving a DUI charge here in the states.  Does anyone have any knowledge of what i might expect when submitting the required documents?  Will this present an obstacle?

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In a lot of the world police records are kept at the Federal level. Thailand does this, so does most of Europe. As an American, your drink-drive bust was probably prosecuted at the county or state level, and the fact of your crime probably rose no higher than your state's Department of Motor Vehicles.

Thailand obviously has relations with the American federal government not with your home state. So almost anytime you need to swear or affirm to a Thai authority that you've been a good boy, what you'll actually do is go to your US Embassy or Consulate and swear or affirm to this or that and without further checking they'll give you a paper akin to an affidavit that you'll give to the Thais.

In short, go ahead and lie as required to get what you want. There's almost no chance you'll ever get caught, unless you do something so stupid in Thailand that they need to make liason with the FBI. And should that be the case, you've got bigger problems than getting caught in a lie.

i am making plans to marry a thai woman in thailand, and to stay there for a period of time.  i do have a slightly tainted police record involving a DUI charge here in the states.  Does anyone have any knowledge of what i might expect when submitting the required documents?  Will this present an obstacle?

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Forget it. It isn't a question you need to answer here. Thailand exchanges super serious information on crime with friendly nations. DUI's from the US would be as big as the NY White Pages Enjoy your stay