Thai passport renewal

[Cmmum]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone knew of the quickest way to get a thai passport renewed? My daughters thai passport has 5 months left on it, and we are needing to go back to australia in just under two weeks. We went to the chiang Mai office today, and we're told that they are booked up until the end of the month unless we arrive at 3 am and wait for a cancellation (with a two year old and five year old?!). They also said it would take ten working days - by which time we were hoping to have already left. Does anyone know if elsewhere is quicker? (I have tried ring bkk and no answer to any of the ph numbers I can find on the internet). Any suggests or will we just have to change our dates?

Thanks

Anna

[Mario2008]

With the curent political crisies here are long delays. There is some hope it will all go quicker soon, as the main paspsot office can now be used again.

Do they also have Australian passports? You can book the tickets on them.

Edit: Contact Number for Department of Consular Affairs 02 203 5000 press 1

[ubonjoe]

Does you daughter also have a Australian passport? She could leave Thailand with the Thai passport she has if she does.

Edit: She can also enter Australia with her Thai passport.

Passport required.

- Passport and/or passport replacing documents must be valid

on arrival.

Source: http://www.staralliance.com/en/services/visa-and-health/#

[Cmmum]

They do have Australian passports, but the lady at the Thai passport office told us that they would be unable to leave Thailand if they do not have 6 mths on their thai passport. They can't leave on their Aussie passports I don't think as they are here on thai passports as thai citizens. Or have we got that wrong?!

[Mario2008]

They can leave on their Thai passports, as they have their Australian paspsorts for entry into Australia.

Thailand requires the Thai passport to be valid to leave, which the passports are.

[Cmmum]

That's awesome, thanks very much. I should know by now not to take everything everyone says in a gov department as accurate!

[ubonjoe]

If for some reason you don't get her a a new Thai passport before her next to trip she can enter Thailand on an expired passport.

[Cmmum]

Just another question, she is then able to re-enter Thailand with less than 6 months on her thai passport right? It would still have about 1 month left before expiry when we arrive back in Thailand.

[Cmmum]

Ok, that's answers my above question, thanks very much!

[ubonjoe]

We posted at the same time. See my post just before yours.

[rwdrwdrwd]

We applied for a first passport at Surat Thani last Tuesday, was sorted out and passport delivered to us via EMS by Saturday, so a 4 day turnaround. It was reasonably painless, we got there at about 7.30am and were ticket around #50 in the queue, but were out by 11.30 - looks like different offices are taking different amounts of time.

Obviously Surat Thani is a long way from Chiang Mai, but you could try one of the other offices.

[evadgib]

+1

The previous poster beat me to it:)

[seabass69]

We applied for a first passport at Surat Thani last Tuesday, was sorted out and passport delivered to us via EMS by Saturday, so a 4 day turnaround. It was reasonably painless, we got there at about 7.30am and were ticket around #50 in the queue, but were out by 11.30 - looks like different offices are taking different amounts of time.

Obviously Surat Thani is a long way from Chiang Mai, but you could try one of the other offices.

Same same at Udon...less than 10 mins start to finish. Passport arrived in less than a week.

[tingtong]

My son also just had the passport made 10 days ago...in Khon Kaen. Total time about 1 hour?

EMS 40 thb, arrived in 6 biz. days....they promised 9 days as guideline ( non biz days), so, right on track.

If current political situation is unfriendly, they sure dont know about it in Khon Kaen passport office.

[Mika123]

I'm going to tag along this post, since I have a question on the same topic:

Anyone have recent experiences for renewing (apply for new) Thai passport in Bangkok? Which office/branch did you go to? and how long did it take (branch wait time, the time you arrived, time it took to get the passport in your hands)?

Any recent experience in the Chiang Mai office?

I plan to renew some time in May. I'm hoping that the political situation will improve and that they would eventually allow you to pick up your passport like in the past.

[ubonjoe]

I'm going to tag along this post, since I have a question on the same topic:

Anyone have recent experiences for renewing (apply for new) Thai passport in Bangkok? Which office/branch did you go to? and how long did it take (branch wait time, the time you arrived, time it took to get the passport in your hands)?

Any recent experience in the Chiang Mai office?

I plan to renew some time in May. I'm hoping that the political situation will improve and that they would eventually allow you to pick up your passport like in the past.

By May the backlog for getting passports hopefully will of improved. There is info about getting appointments online in Thai here http://www.consular.go.th/main/