Shipping Personal Belongings After Building New House In Thailand

[egeefay]

I am married to a Thai citizen

We live in the US

We are planning on building a house in Thailand

My wife plans to go back and forth to Thailand to oversee the building process while I remain in the States.

When the house is finished in a year or two, we both plan to move to Thailand to retire.

The rule for shipping personal belongings to Thailand for Thai residents like my wife states:

Returning Thai residents who have been abroad for one year or longer, for the purposes other than touring are eligible to bring in household effects acquired abroad free of taxes and duties.

Question: If my wife is traveling back and forth to Thailand to oversee the building of the house, does that mean at some point she will have to return to the States and remain there for another full year before we can qualify for duty free shipping?

Edited March 15, 2011 by egeefay

[dadisbell]

Short answer: NO...but make sure you have ALL of her old passports on your person.

Customs will verify that you have not used the exemption previously. We shipped a 40 foot container

back in 2005 and my wife's old (Thai and U.S.) passports were in a safe inside the container. It took

some high level intervention (not cash) to get custom to allow us to open the container and

retrieve the passports. No problem once the passports were produced.

AFTER...a gratuity was offered but politely refused.