Hiya all

what visa is best for a UK national married to a Thai visiting Thailand for long periods and is it true that it helps later when staying in Thailand more often?

Let me know all.

Thanks The Lop

Hiya all

what visa is best for a UK national married to a Thai visiting Thailand for long periods and is it true that it helps later when staying in Thailand more often?

Let me know all.

Thanks The Lop

You should apply for a Non Immigrant O, which is for those married to Thai nationals or have family here that they wish to visit. Speak to the embassy, and they might tell you that you have to bring in your marriage cert before they issue it!

As already posted the best visa option for you is the Non Imm O visa.............

Within this visa category you have 2 options depending what you classify as a long period they are,

1.Apply for a single entry Non Imm O based upon visiting family and friends if you stay will not exceed 90 days.

or

2. Apply for a multi entry Non Imm O for same reason, this will give you stays of upto 90 days at time after which time you must nip out of the country and back in for another 90 day stay.........this visa will give you up to 15 months stay in total.

(Best to apply for the above visas from a Consulate in the UK as opposed to the Embassy ........Hull is a good choice and has it all laid out on their website)

If however you wish to stay in Thailand "forever" without having to border run then you could do so by extending the non imm o visa on the grounds of having a Thai spouse........this does require you meeting certain requirements the major one of which is to be able to show 400k baht in the bank here every year come visa renewal time..........again you could initially apply for a single or multiple entry 0 visa and apply for the year extension within the last 30 days of any of the 90 days granted................once granted the years stay you may still leave using re-entry permit (single or multiple available) to protect the exisiting date of "years stay" upon your return.

(Basically getting the multi in the above instance puts off having to bring in the 400k whereas with the single entry you would need to bring the funds in within the first 90 days to qualify for the years extension of stay).

Hope that helps.

Better add to the above post the "visiting family and friends" visa is currently available..........but who knows what may happen in the future given current changes.

Thank you Thaiflyer1 for your replies, that gave me a good insight into it. I will contact Hull and sort it out.

Thanks Again. Lop