Married in the UK, returning to live in Thailand.

[ProdigalSon]

My Thai wife and I recently got married in the UK (I'm British). We will be returning to live in Thailand very soon and my wife will want to use my surname.

We have contacted the Thai embassy in London to find out what documentation we need to do this (including a translation of the marriage certificate into Thai and copies of documents legalized by the FCO), and it seemed quite expensive just to get a few pages officially authorized to take back to Thailand.

I was wondering if anyone else has had experience doing this and if we can just wait until we get back to Thailand to do translations get all the necessary paperwork which will surely be much cheaper.

Thanks in advance for any relevant experience or information you can share.

[apb1919]

Hi,

Documents can be translated in Thailand very easily it just depends if you need them certified and what they are needed for.

Not sure what the embassy in the UK charges but i think the translation services in the Trendy Building (for Visa's, Passports etc) are about 200-300 bht a page.

[steve187]

Get it done here, but no requirement to change name. no benifits, no down side.

If you will be going the married mans yearly extension route, then a few hoops to jump through required, to have the marriage registered in thailand.

Edited January 12, 2015 by steve187

[mikebell]

My wife changed her Thai ID card to her married name quickly & cheaply here in Thailand + a new passport @ 1000 baht, I think.