Change Regarding Obtaining A New Thai Passport In Canada?

[Taggart]

My Thai wife has been living in Canada for over thirty years now. Every time she needed a new Thai passport in the past, when her previous one expired she just had to go to the Thai consulate near where we live and they would send her old passport along with the paperwork to the Thai Embassy in Ottawa. Now she's being told that she has to travel all the way to Ottawa at great expense and inconvenience to us, and visit the Thai Embassy (by appointment only) in order to get to obtain a new Thai passport.

Can't believe they are making all Thai's living across Canada do the same thing for a new passport? Anyone else being told the same thing?

[samran]

Since the introduction of biometric passports, special equipment to scan finger prints and digitalise photo's have been required.

Most embassies have this equipment permanently, but what they should be doing is a couple of times per year having a 'mobile passport office' come to the regional consulates so that the passports can be processed there and sent in the mail to your house when done.

Best to re-check with the embassy and consulate to see if there is a time when they are coming out to your neck of the woods.

Alternately, if going to Ottawa is an issue, your wife CAN enter Thailand on her expired Thai passport and simple have a passport renewed when there next time very efficiently, which takes 3 days and costs 1000 baht.

[Taggart]

Since the introduction of biometric passports, special equipment to scan finger prints and digitalise photo's have been required.

Most embassies have this equipment permanently, but what they should be doing is a couple of times per year having a 'mobile passport office' come to the regional consulates so that the passports can be processed there and sent in the mail to your house when done.

Best to re-check with the embassy and consulate to see if there is a time when they are coming out to your neck of the woods.

Alternately, if going to Ottawa is an issue, your wife CAN enter Thailand on her expired Thai passport and simple have a passport renewed when there next time very efficiently, which takes 3 days and costs 1000 baht.

Thanks very much for the reply Samran. I'm wondering if the airline she flies with from Toronto to Bangkok (via Hong Kong) will allow her to fly on an expired Thai passport though? I think to be on the safer side she may have to use her Canadian passport with a ticket showing thirty days stay or less and get the airline ticket extended in Thailand. She wouldn't have time to get an extended Thai Visa (for over 30 days stay) here in Canada since one of her elderly parent's has been seriously ill for the past couple of years, and she's expecting an emergency call to fly over there at any time.

[samran]

Since the introduction of biometric passports, special equipment to scan finger prints and digitalise photo's have been required.

Most embassies have this equipment permanently, but what they should be doing is a couple of times per year having a 'mobile passport office' come to the regional consulates so that the passports can be processed there and sent in the mail to your house when done.

Best to re-check with the embassy and consulate to see if there is a time when they are coming out to your neck of the woods.

Alternately, if going to Ottawa is an issue, your wife CAN enter Thailand on her expired Thai passport and simple have a passport renewed when there next time very efficiently, which takes 3 days and costs 1000 baht.

Thanks very much for the reply Samran. I'm wondering if the airline she flies with from Toronto to Bangkok (via Hong Kong) will allow her to fly on an expired Thai passport though? I think to be on the safer side she may have to use her Canadian passport with a ticket showing thirty days stay or less and get the airline ticket extended in Thailand. She wouldn't have time to get an extended Thai Visa (for over 30 days stay) here in Canada since one of her elderly parent's has been seriously ill for the past couple of years, and she's expecting an emergency call to fly over there at any time.

All she needs to do is depart Canada with her Canadian passport. If required, she might need to show it again in HK.

When she gets in Bangkok she shows Thai immigration her expired Thai passport, which they'll stamp her in on. I certainly have been stamped in my expired Thai passport a couple of times when it expired overseas - despite the fact that I had the replacement on me. (If there are any problems - say she gets a junior offical who doesn't know the rules, she should ask to see a senior offical who'll get her stamped in. However, I highly doubt it will come to it, and if it does, she can simply say that she couldn't renew it in time in Canada).