Swiss Embassy Does Not Issue Income Certificates For Marriage Visas?

[patrickl]

I need a letter to certify my income (40,000 Baht + per month) for a marriage visa. According to Thai Immigration, I need the Swiss Embassy to certify the income. When I contacted them, they said "we cannot issue an income certificate because we cannot confirm that you really have this income", even with bank statements and other evidence provided they said that it's not their job to go and try and confirm my income.

What they say they can do is have me translate the letter from my company, confirming the income, into Thai, and they will then "certify the translation".

So, in other words, they will confirm the translation is correct, but they will not state by themselves that they guarantee that I have this income.

Will this be enough for Thai Immigration?

[Lite Beer]

We have had a few reports about the Swiss Embassy in the past and members have reported that they have been successful

[patrickl]

Successful with the "certified translation"? Or successful in getting an income certificate? Because they told me that it's their rule that they never (in their own words) issue income certificates except for pensions of retirement visas.

[Lite Beer]

Successful at Immigration with whatever the Swiss Embassy will provide.

Hang on a while and hopefully a Swiss National will confirm.

[patrickl]

Thank you very much Either way I will confirm back with my experiences in a few weeks.

[kriswillems]

My experience with all kinds of documents is that Thai officials are happy if there's a stamp on there, what exactly the stamps means is less important. I think you'll have a 99.999% chance a certified translation will be fine.

[Maestro]

...even with bank statements...

Bank statements are not proof of income.

...letter from my company, confirming the income...

Such letter from your employer, on the other hand, is proof of income, but the embassy is correct in stating that it is not their job to verify and certify your income. The embassy will, though, for a fee, authenticate your signature on an affidavit, written by you, stating what income you have and affix the embassy's seal to this authentication. It is then up to your immigration office whether they want to ask you for supporting documents that serve as proof of the stated income. This is the procedure followed by most embassies, as far as I understand. A few embassies have a printed form for this affidavit, the Swiss embassy and many others have no form.

[Maestro]

You will probably be speaking German, French or Italian with the consular employee. To avoid any confusion when asking for the authentication of your signature on your affidavit, ask for Beglaubigung/légalisation/legalizzazione of your signature. The current fee for this service seems to be THB 1,360 as per the embassy's list of fees:

http://www.eda.admin...nuebersicht.pdf

With this authentication of signature it is customary that you sign the document in the presence of the consular official, after having identified yourself with your passport. Therefore, please do not sign your affidavit in advance.