Can I Extend A Visa O Based On Marriage?

[paulsh]

If his wifes home address is in the BKK area.

Otherwise, he has to have the extension done in her home province.

Why, who knows ???

What we did with my wife is that we simply changed her home address. It's super simple, we went at the local Ampur and gave 2000 bath (under the table) to one of the girls working there and the girl registered my wife into her own home in Chon buri. It's a 10 minutes process.

Edited May 26, 2013 by paulsh

[Maestro]

From the OP:

My Non-O VISA is valid for 1 year, but my permit of stay is only for 3 months.

paulsh, there is some confusion about the number of entries for which your non-O visa is valid. Can you scan and post a copy? Otherwise, please look at it and tell us what it says. Somewhere on the visa it should state for how many journeys or entries it is valid. What exactly does it say?

P.S. I am talking about the visa you got at a Thai consulate, not the arrival stamp you got on arrival in Thailand.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Maestro
added postscript

[paulsh]

From the OP:

My Non-O VISA is valid for 1 year, but my permit of stay is only for 3 months.

paulsh, there is some confusion about the number of entries for which your non-O visa is valid. Can you scan and post a copy? Otherwise, please look at it and tell us what it says. Somewhere on the visa it should state for for how many jurneys or entries it is valid. What exactly does it say?

P.S. I am talking about the visa you got at a Thai consulate, not the arrival stamp you got on arrival in Thailand.

Okay sorry I just looked at it, I actually got confused by the Thai Consulate who told me that the Non-O VISA they were going to provide me with will allow me to stay 1 year without the need for any extension, I knew he was talking bullsh*t and when I saw the stamp of 3 months stay permit at the arrival it confirmed my thought!

I have my passport in front of me and I can read:

"TYPE OF VISA: NON-IMMIGRANT"

"CATEGORY: O"

"NO. OF ENTRY: S"

"DATE OF ISSUE: 9 MARS 2013"

"ENTER BEFORE 4 JUN 2013"

The stamp I got upon arrival states:

"VISACLASS: NON O"

"9 MARS 2013"

"ADMITTED UNTIL 6 JUN 2013"

So my question remains, will I be able to extend it twice? Add 2 months now, and 1 year later.

By the way do I need to bring my wife with me for the 2-months extension? What documents do I need? Thanks!!!

[Maestro]

I see clearly now. The answers are yes, yes, and yes. You are doing a thr60ee-step process to get your one-year marriage extension, because you won''t have your financials ready before the expiration of your current 90-day permission to stay.

Step 1 you have already completed. You entered Thailand with a single-entry non-O visa.

Step 2: any time now before your current permission to stay expires, go with your wife to your local immigration and apply for a 60-day extension to visit your wife. It is not necessary but you can tell them that you need extra time to get everything ready qualify for the one-year extension. Take two passport photos with you, copy of your marriage certificate, and your wife with copies of her ID card and house registration. While there, ask them about their requirements for the one-year extension; they can vary from one office to the next.

Step 3: once you can meet the financial requirements go any time during the last 30 days of your extension of stay to your local immigration office and apply for your one-year extension.

After that, as you probably already know, repeat step 3 ad infinitum.

[paulsh]

I see clearly now. The answers are yes, yes, and yes. You are doing a thr60ee-step process to get your one-year marriage extension, because you won''t have your financials ready before the expiration of your current 90-day permission to stay.

Step 1 you have already completed. You entered Thailand with a single-entry non-O visa.

Step 2: any time now before your current permission to stay expires, go with your wife to your local immigration and apply for a 60-day extension to visit your wife. It is not necessary but you can tell them that you need extra time to get everything ready qualify for the one-year extension. Take two passport photos with you, copy of your marriage certificate, and your wife with copies of her ID card and house registration. While there, ask them about their requirements for the one-year extension; they can vary from one office to the next.

Step 3: once you can meet the financial requirements go any time during the last 30 days of your extension of stay to your local immigration office and apply for your one-year extension.

After that, as you probably already know, repeat step 3 ad infinitum.

AWESOME

Thank you SO MUCH for your clear and detailed answer!

Thank you and have a great night!

[lopburi3]

To confirm you can extend extensions of stay - that is what most people do - it is only the first extension that requires a non immigrant visa entry stamp.

So just do as Maestro advised above.

[keeniau96]

Glad to see the experts (maestro, lopburi3 ... where is mario & litebeer?) finally weigh in and give the OP definitive info. Can always count on those gents to know the right stuff.

[TerryLH]

OP, it looks like you really didn't know more than 'you guys'.

Anything to add?

“Just 1 other bit of useful info, as I found
out the hard way. You can only do extensions in the province that your wife is
registered in (as in house reg)”

That is your experience. My experience is that I extended with my wife

being registered in another province.

[Nisa]

I see clearly now. The answers are yes, yes, and yes. You are doing a thr60ee-step process to get your one-year marriage extension, because you won''t have your financials ready before the expiration of your current 90-day permission to stay.

Step 1 you have already completed. You entered Thailand with a single-entry non-O visa.

Step 2: any time now before your current permission to stay expires, go with your wife to your local immigration and apply for a 60-day extension to visit your wife. It is not necessary but you can tell them that you need extra time to get everything ready qualify for the one-year extension. Take two passport photos with you, copy of your marriage certificate, and your wife with copies of her ID card and house registration. While there, ask them about their requirements for the one-year extension; they can vary from one office to the next.

Step 3: once you can meet the financial requirements go any time during the last 30 days of your extension of stay to your local immigration office and apply for your one-year extension.

After that, as you probably already know, repeat step 3 ad infinitum.

AWESOME

Thank you SO MUCH for your clear and detailed answer!

Thank you and have a great night!

Keep in mind you will not be able to get another 60-day extension unless you leave the country. There are no back to back 60-day extensions. So, don't delay taking care of what you need to for step 3. I've gotten these countless times but it requires an exit/entry between them. I think the only extension you'd qualify after the 60-days is a 7-day.

PS. Thanks Maestro for explaining this process. I had always been a bit confused about it but this makes it very simple to understand.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Nisa

[ubonjoe]

You can extend your current permit to stay by 60 days with no problem and then do your one year extension near the end of this extension. You will be extending your non-o entry which is the reason you can do the extension based upon marriage.

Most important thing to have done is financial proof of 40K baht income or 400K baht in the bank for 60 days.

[CPH]

You can extend your current permit to stay by 60 days with no problem and then do your one year extension near the end of this extension. You will be extending your non-o entry which is the reason you can do the extension based upon marriage.

Most important thing to have done is financial proof of 40K baht income or 400K baht in the bank for 60 days.

What papers are needed for the extension based on marriage. Can the marriage be registered at the local ampur.

[ubonjoe]

If you are not legally married already your marriage can be registered at any Amphoe. You would need a Affirmation of Permit to marry from your embassy or consulate.

If married outside of Thailand you would need to have your marriage certificate translated to Thai and have it certified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

[paulsh]

You can extend your current permit to stay by 60 days with no problem and then do your one year extension near the end of this extension. You will be extending your non-o entry which is the reason you can do the extension based upon marriage.

Most important thing to have done is financial proof of 40K baht income or 400K baht in the bank for 60 days.

What papers are needed for the extension based on marriage. Can the marriage be registered at the local ampur.

I've done it so I can tell you exactly how it goes:

The marriage at the Ampur is a 10 minutes process maximum, then you are legally married in Thailand.

However, before you can go to the Ampur, you need a letter from your embassy stating your ability to marry (that you are not already married). Now the process to get this letter might be very long and very complicated depending on your embassy, it took me 7 months of pure craziness! In my case, I had to go to my embassy in Bangkok with my future-wife, and provide all kind of document including financial documents, proof of residence/address, tax payer information, proof of citizenship (basically my own country's ID card, or a biometric passport), and an excerpt of my birth certificate not older than 3 months delivered by the city where I was born. So to get this excerpt of my birth certificate I had to contact my home city and get them to send it to me in Thailand, it was quit easy but very long to receive (more than 3 months).

My future-wife also needed to provide some documents: ID card, house registration and birth certificate. However my embassy requires those documents to be translated by a limited list of certified translators, which are very expensive and might be available only in Bangkok.

Only then, after reassembling all those documents, we had to take an appointment, we got one about 2 weeks after booking. The appointment was annoying with stupid questions and because I didn't have my residence in my home country I had to register with the embassy as an expat before we could continue, so I had to come back another day to do that, wait for the my registration to be complete (a few weeks) and then rebook an appointment together with my wife. Finally, if everything is in order, all documents translated, certified, nothing's missing, then they will start the process of delivering this document, which for my embassy requires no less than 30 days during which they publicly display my intention to marry in both the embassy and in my home city hall (to see if there's anybody against that marriage).

It's not over, about a month after I got an email from my embassy telling me that the document is ready for me to pick up. When I picked up the document I was surprised that it was delivered to me in 3 languages, including Thai and English. If they can write/read Thai, why did they ask my wife's documents to be translated... I'll never understand.

So, now that I have this document saying that I am able to marry, I still cannot take it to the Ampur and marry, I first need to go to the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok in order to get it stamped. No matter where you are in Thailand you must travel to Bangkok for all those things, for me it was like 5 or 6 trips to Bangkok, sometime staying for the night before going back home.

When you finally get at the Ampur and see that the whole marriage process takes between 5 to 10 minutes, and that they barely look at your embassy's document, you just wanna scream and shoot out loud for anybody to hear that you just spent the worse 7 months of your life in order to get this very very precious document!!!

I hate my embassy so much ever since.

Considering the incredible amount of time, money (trips, translation, stamps, etc.) and efforts, if I had to do it again, I would just not do it.