Low income thai girl - Visiting Canada?

[LionhMG]

Hey guys,

I'm a Canadian currently living in Thailand, and I'm looking to bring my girlfriend who is from Thailand to visit Canada. We would be traveling together from Thailand, and returning back to Thailand together. She is now applying for a tourist visa (TRV).

In some aspects her application is strong, in others very weak. I'm looking for what you think her chances of approval are, and any advice would be appreciated. We haven't submitted it yet.

What we have, the positives:
- She's registered in a 5 week full-time English program at the University in my city, deposit paid and she has the acceptance letter. It's s short-term program, so a tourist visa is needed.
- Flights for both of us, fully paid including return flights back to Thailand.
- We both work at the same company here in Thailand. She is my assistant. The company will provide an employment letter/history for both of us, and approval of the travel.
- We'll be staying with my family in my city. My uncle will provide financial support, with his financial documents. Him and my mom will be providing the invitation letter. (I'm in my 20's and my monthly income is inconsistent).

And the negatives:
- She doesn't have a lot of money. She's an English teacher (currently looking for a teaching job while employed at the company mentioned above) with a bachelor's degree, but her salary has never been high. She has around 20000B in her bank account as of now to be exact.
- Not many ways to show ties to home. She doesn't own property. No investments. Basically just the job at my company and her family who live in a village in Mae Hong Son. She's very close with her family, but we don't know how to show that with documentation.

So what do you think? I'm hoping the positives are good enough. Plane tickets are bought and she's paid/registered for the school, too late to turn back now! (and she couldn't magically have a lot of money, even after a year or two).

Any replies would be great, thank you.

[cdnvic]

The embassy in Bangkok can be very arbitrary in these decisions. One piece of advice I can give is not to give up if you initially get a rejection. I've had to go over the head of the initial interviewer more than once. Always with a positive result.

They will look at her ties to you and your ties to Thailand. Anything that gives the impression that you are highly unlikely to abandon Thailand such as property here (vehicles, established businesses, etc) will help if your relationship with her is firmly established. Bring any photos of you with her family, the two of you vacationing together and evidence of previous travel with her. You never know what kinds of questions will pop up so be prepared.

[LionhMG]

The embassy in Bangkok can be very arbitrary in these decisions. One piece of advice I can give is not to give up if you initially get a rejection. I've had to go over the head of the initial interviewer more than once. Always with a positive result.

They will look at her ties to you and your ties to Thailand. Anything that gives the impression that you are highly unlikely to abandon Thailand such as property here (vehicles, established businesses, etc) will help if your relationship with her is firmly established. Bring any photos of you with her family, the two of you vacationing together and evidence of previous travel with her. You never know what kinds of questions will pop up so be prepared.

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't planning on using the relationship information (I wasn't sure if that'd help or hurt us). But considering I'll be traveling with her and showing that I need to return to Thailand (so more likely that she will), it makes sense.

I was wondering, what is the difference between applying in Bangkok or online at CIC? We had planned to apply online, hoping that may increase our chances. I have read a lot of horror stories about the Bangkok visa office.

[dan1]

Think you want to check if you are allowed to study on a tourist visa ?

[LionhMG]

Think you want to check if you are allowed to study on a tourist visa ?

You can if it's less than 6 months (In Canada at least).

[dan1]

Ok mate was just checking

[kkup]

From my experience having any money saved or not isn't a big issue, they'll be more interested in who's sponsoring her, you being the best option, someone in the family (uncle) maybe ok. A solid work history with proof goes a long way + a reference / confirmation from the employer. I think if the employer is a reputable company / organisation this also helps. 2+ Years full time employment would be advisable.

[bark]

As mentioned before. Any pictures of the two of you together will help a lot. Vacations, Birthdays, Both of you with her Family.

Also make sure, she knows all info. about your Uncle and any other family you plan to visit. I would also suggest that she talk on the phone to your family. It will make her more relaxed and comfortable during the interview. Even places you plan to visit.

As a fellow Canuck from Toronto: I wish you good luck.

P.S go in the summer or she will freeze her butt off

[blazes]

I have recent experience of this, wanting to bring in my wife (!) on a tourist visa for a short holiday while her Permanent Visa application was being considered.

I was her (officially approved) sponsor, but she was refused a Tourist Visa!!! (She is now living with me in Canada, since there was no problem with the Permanent Visa that came later.)

My point is: everything is changed. All Tourist Visa applications are now channelled through VFS (which makes a nice little profit from the scheme - they also provide the same service for the Brits). VFS merely checks that all your required documents are in order (including the cost of the visa, paid in advance and NOT refunded if your application fails).

After that, it is a total lottery. She may or may not, purely at the whim of some unknown bureaucrat in Bkk, get the nod. . (And you cannot any longer communicate intelligently (or at all) with a bureaucrat in the Bkk embassy.)

As far as I can make out from my own experience, my wife made the mistake of saying on the form that she wanted to stay with her husband for six months (but her bank account showed that she did not have sufficient funds to stay for that length of time....) --- the fact that she was married to me and I was funding her entire trip was not taken into consideration.

So, a crap shoot.

I asked an immigration lawyer in Canada and he told me that 75% of all applications for Tourist Visas (from all over the world) are rejected, for no particular reason (though having a healthy bank account will probably be the best positive you can advance.)

Edited November 4, 2015 by blazes

[LionhMG]

As mentioned before. Any pictures of the two of you together will help a lot. Vacations, Birthdays, Both of you with her Family.

Also make sure, she knows all info. about your Uncle and any other family you plan to visit. I would also suggest that she talk on the phone to your family. It will make her more relaxed and comfortable during the interview. Even places you plan to visit.

As a fellow Canuck from Toronto: I wish you good luck.

P.S go in the summer or she will freeze her butt off

Haha yes... she wanted to see snow, but after the initial excitement, I don't think she'd enjoy a month of Winnipeg winter. We'll be visiting Toronto for a few days too as I have family there. Wonderland, the new Aquarium, maybe Niagra Falls if there's time, can't wait.

My Uncle will be visiting Thailand in January, so I think I'll include his flight itinerary and travel plans along with his financial support documents to show he'll be meeting her.

Well it looks like it may be a crapshoot in any case, hoping we get lucky.

[bark]

As mentioned before. Any pictures of the two of you together will help a lot. Vacations, Birthdays, Both of you with her Family.

Also make sure, she knows all info. about your Uncle and any other family you plan to visit. I would also suggest that she talk on the phone to your family. It will make her more relaxed and comfortable during the interview. Even places you plan to visit.

As a fellow Canuck from Toronto: I wish you good luck.

P.S go in the summer or she will freeze her butt off

Haha yes... she wanted to see snow, but after the initial excitement, I don't think she'd enjoy a month of Winnipeg winter. We'll be visiting Toronto for a few days too as I have family there. Wonderland, the new Aquarium, maybe Niagra Falls if there's time, can't wait.

My Uncle will be visiting Thailand in January, so I think I'll include his flight itinerary and travel plans along with his financial support documents to show he'll be meeting her.

Well it looks like it may be a crapshoot in any case, hoping we get lucky.

Winnipeg ! ouch ! Great city but too cold for her. Years ago, a friend of mine moved out there. The first morning he went outside to start his truck.

The truck wouldn't start and he thought someone had let the air out of his tires. This was 25 years ago( old tube tire) The air in the tires would freeze and it looked like they were flat.

Really, it's a roll of the dice with any Embassy. The employee's act like they are Gods. Sad really.

Hope she makes it there.

Just remember, the longer she stays there; the more she will become like the Canadian girls. And that is not a good thing.

" Not tonight I have a headache " You don't need that !

[reduxionist]

I'm also a Canadian, and my girlfriend was (twice) granted a tourist visa despite not having a job, property, parents, or money in the bank based on the length of our relationship and the fact that I have a good job here with established work history -- as others have observed, they want evidence that she's got more of a reason to come back than to stay. In our case since I support her and had a letter from work mentioning explicitly that I would be have to be back on such-and-such a date to continue work (along with copy of my work permit non-imm. b visa & etc.) that seemed to be enough. I wouldn't hide the relationship as long as it's got some history to it (we submitted copies of photos over the course of several years as evidence of this).

TLDR; we got one with less, I think your chances are good.

[Bigstef]

Look it's sad to say but the truth is if you not apply for permanent residence, you will spend all that money on ticket and all....for nothing..............i know i've been there even if my wife had car,condo wich was only 30% paid at the time........

Good luck and don't bring her in winter.....

[theoldgit]

Offensive post and responses removed.

[farangmick]

Not a Canadian so I can't help you, but I want to wish you luck. Can't be harder than the hoops I jumped through to get my GF (now wife) to England for six months. Worth it though, although on a bad day......!

[Ulic]

A retired dentist friend of mine from Canada wanted to bring his 35 year old girlfriend to Canada

from Columbia. Jumped through all the paperwork hoops, letter of invitation etc... etc......

Just a four week trip. He had plenty of money and was paying for everything.

He/she was denied. no reason just the Heisman. The most important thing is to establish

ties to Thailand that give her a reason to return. Children, a good job, a house etc... etc...

They just want to make sure she will return.

[nithisa78]

The embassy in Bangkok can be very arbitrary in these decisions. One piece of advice I can give is not to give up if you initially get a rejection. I've had to go over the head of the initial interviewer more than once. Always with a positive result.

They will look at her ties to you and your ties to Thailand. Anything that gives the impression that you are highly unlikely to abandon Thailand such as property here (vehicles, established businesses, etc) will help if your relationship with her is firmly established. Bring any photos of you with her family, the two of you vacationing together and evidence of previous travel with her. You never know what kinds of questions will pop up so be prepared.

Young Sir, Sounds like you're Golden. Canada is an enlightened society. The only part that seems iffy, tourist VISA and going to school.

If there is a problem at entry, Supervisor.

[HaleySabai]

The two main points that the Consulate officials tend to look at is; A) does she have enough money to support herself for the trip and (most importantly) does she have strong enough reason to come back to Thailand....as if Canada is the promise land!

For the past 8yrs my Thai wife and I have spent 4 months each year in Canada.The first visa she applied for on her own...the temp.visitor visa. We were not married yet and I padded her bank account (100,000) for the proof of funds,she was running her own business at the time so she had a business registration and a property lease document to present with her application.

The Consulate called her to Bangkok for an interview which was given by a matter-of-fact-Thai women that lasted about 20mins. My wife told her that we were planning to get married and that it was essential she meet my parents and see if Canada would be to her liking et... She got the green light.

We thought to play it safe and limit our duration of stay to 30 days,hoping that she would get an automatic 6-month stamp in Vancouver. Nope, got a brow-beaten interview from immigration instead and received only the exact duration we had stated on the application.

Every year she had to go through the same basic application process (without the interview) and has been granted a visa without issue....of course being married and now with a daughter pretty much makes our case for a visa air tight.

Three years ago the Consulate in Bangkok started to contract out the work of processing the visas to a private company,this has greatly improved the turn around time by cutting through all that bureaucratic crap. Hopefully this has taken the edge off the decision-making process as well.

Since the visa process was privatized the Consulate introduced a 'fast-track' for regular visitors to Canada by offering a one time payment (equivalent to a single visitor visa) for a multi-year visa ,valid for 6 months per year and based on the expiry date of the passport. This has been a real nice convenience and a sign of relaxing the rules.

Most likely you have a fair amount of anxiety at this point. But the good news is the visa application process has changed and even though we have not had to go through that process for a few years I suspect it is a lot less stressful than before. Hopefully you will get feed back from recent applicants to verify.

Also, the Vancouver immigration(if that is your port of entry) has soften the edges for arrivals by opening up a separate que for non-Canadians and dropping the face to face-fifth-degree schtick. For the last few years we just get the nod,smile,stamp.....again, having a kid in tow sure seems to help.

I would say Go For It! -Get the visa, you have the airfare booked ,,,go through the process and see if it's meant to be. Just make sure that ALL you paper work -digital or mailed- is meticulous.

Chok-Dee!!

Edited November 4, 2015 by HaleySabai

[chilli42]

The people making the call will be the clerks in the Philippines processing center. It's very arbitrary. The education angle is a good one but maybe she should be applying for a student visa - I would check. Under normal circumstances they are looking for things that will convince them that the applicant will return to Thailsnd at expiration of the visa ... job, business, land ownership etc

[Rusty53]

LionhMG

I wish you good luck. As another person posted; you now go through VFS office. This eliminates any opportunity to voice your case to an immigration officer. VFS only checks to make sure your paperwork is correct; nothing else. Unfortunately now it is much easier for immigration officers to reject applications because they do not have to look you in the eye when they decide. I do not mean to be downer but you need to understand reality. The previous government in Canada took the personal side out of immigration and hopefully the new government will bring some of it back.

My wife now lives with me in Canada and has her PR. Her first visit TRV was given when you still went to the embassy. This past summer we attempted to bring her niece over for a visit. We were turned down. She is 26 years old and is single. We were paying for the complete trip and I even put $1000 CAN in her bank. We were turned down because of her work and lack of travel history. She works for BMW and we had a glowing letter from her boss but because she had only been there for a year and a half they said it was not as stable job. Also they rejected her because of no travel history; she has never travelled outside of Thailand. We also had a ticket bought but that didn't matter.

Unfortunately the fact that you have her registered in a class and it is paid for along with the ticket really won't carry any weight. I really wish you the best and truly hope you are successful. Please keep us informed.

If you would like to talk more about Canadian immigration please PM me.

Good Luck

[Canuk23]

Please keep us informed as I am Canadian too and would like to bring my Thai girlfriend to Canada maybe next year.

Thanks and good luck hope you are successful.

[chrisdodd]

This has been a good posting. I'm a Canadian with Thai girlfriend wanting to get her a Thai tourist visa also....please kindly keep me informed of your results..Thank you and best wishes

[LionhMG]

I've learned that you don't need to apply for the visa until around 2 months before your travel date. Our travel date isn't until May, so for the next few months we'll prepare all of the documents and try to make sure everything is perfect. We'll be applying by mail to VFS Thailand (We're in Chiang Mai).

From advice I've received I'm going to be leaning partially on the fact that I live in Thailand, I have a job here, and that I need to return (I'll have a letter from my company authorizing the travel). I'll be including a scan of my work permit and non-imm B visa.

I'll keep you guys updated, thanks for the advice and well wishes.

[dsj]

Everything looks good. One thing the CANADA Embassy wants to see is that she has at least 100,000 Baht in her bank account, it doesn't have to be in her account very long. Since she will have a letter from her employer then your changes are pretty good. My wife and I got a TVR for our nanny and I just made up pay stubs for her on my computer and deposited 100,000 Baht into her bank, and she received the visa on the first try.

You have to fill the forms online and save them, then you can print them out and submit the application forms in person.

[dsj]

Everything looks good. One thing the CANADA Embassy wants to see is that she has at least 100,000 Baht in her bank account, it doesn't have to be in her account very long. Since she will have a letter from her employer then your changes are pretty good. My wife and I got a TVR for our nanny and I just made up pay stubs for her on my computer and deposited 100,000 Baht into her bank, and she received the visa on the first try.

You have to fill the forms online and save them, then you can print them out and submit the application forms in person.

[sandyf]

I have recent experience of this, wanting to bring in my wife (!) on a tourist visa for a short holiday while her Permanent Visa application was being considered.

I was her (officially approved) sponsor, but she was refused a Tourist Visa!!! (She is now living with me in Canada, since there was no problem with the Permanent Visa that came later.)

My point is: everything is changed. All Tourist Visa applications are now channelled through VFS (which makes a nice little profit from the scheme - they also provide the same service for the Brits). VFS merely checks that all your required documents are in order (including the cost of the visa, paid in advance and NOT refunded if your application fails).

After that, it is a total lottery. She may or may not, purely at the whim of some unknown bureaucrat in Bkk, get the nod. . (And you cannot any longer communicate intelligently (or at all) with a bureaucrat in the Bkk embassy.)

As far as I can make out from my own experience, my wife made the mistake of saying on the form that she wanted to stay with her husband for six months (but her bank account showed that she did not have sufficient funds to stay for that length of time....) --- the fact that she was married to me and I was funding her entire trip was not taken into consideration.

So, a crap shoot.

I asked an immigration lawyer in Canada and he told me that 75% of all applications for Tourist Visas (from all over the world) are rejected, for no particular reason (though having a healthy bank account will probably be the best positive you can advance.)

That is not quite true, I am from the UK and did a visa for my Thai wife earlier this year and it was all done online. The only contact with VFS was to have the visa put in the passport, biometrics were not required.

Link for online applications is http://www.cic.gc.ca/ctc-vac/getting-started.asp

The process is quite straightforward once you get started. My wife did not provide any financial information, I declared that I would meet all costs incurred.

Doing it this way the application is dealt with Canadian Immigration directly.

Edited November 5, 2015 by sandyf

[sandyf]

I posted the following back in March.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/812992-short-visit-visa-for-canada/

You can take the test any time to find out what documents are required and then redo the test before making an application.

[LionhMG]

I posted the following back in March.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/812992-short-visit-visa-for-canada/

You can take the test any time to find out what documents are required and then redo the test before making an application.

Yes I was wondering about that, whether to do it online directly with the CIC website or through VFS Bangkok. It's difficult to know which option would give a greater chance of success. I feel like doing the application in Thailand through VFS Bangkok might be better, being able to add Thai language documents (My girlfriend's motorbike green book, her family book register pages). The online process doesn't accept those, everything needs to be in English. But maybe I'm wrong and the VFS application needs everything to be in English too.

Also I'll be including my need to return to Thailand to continue my job here as a factor, along with my Thai work permit and non-B visa. I'm not sure the online application would even recognize or give much weight to that.

I have a feeling the online application would be more of a straight line approach from whoever is reviewing it. I don't know, I still can't decide which route to take.

Edited November 5, 2015 by LionhMG

[theoldgit]

But maybe I'm wrong and the VFS application needs everything to be in English too.

This may help:

Translation of documents

Any document that is not in English or French must be accompanied by:

the English or French translation; and

an affidavit from the person who completed the translation; and

a certified copy of the original document.

Translations may be done by a person who is fluent in both languages (English or French and the unofficial language). If the translation is not provided by a member in good standing of a provincial or territorial organization of translators and interpreters in Canada, the translation must be accompanied by an affidavit swearing to the accuracy of the translation and the language proficiency of the translator.

The affidavit must be sworn in the presence of:

Outside of Canada:

a notary public

[jerojero]

I posted the following back in March.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/812992-short-visit-visa-for-canada/

You can take the test any time to find out what documents are required and then redo the test before making an application.

Yes I was wondering about that, whether to do it online directly with the CIC website or through VFS Bangkok. It's difficult to know which option would give a greater chance of success. I feel like doing the application in Thailand through VFS Bangkok might be better, being able to add Thai language documents (My girlfriend's motorbike green book, her family book register pages). The online process doesn't accept those, everything needs to be in English. But maybe I'm wrong and the VFS application needs everything to be in English too.

Also I'll be including my need to return to Thailand to continue my job here as a factor, along with my Thai work permit and non-B visa. I'm not sure the online application would even recognize or give much weight to that.

I have a feeling the online application would be more of a straight line approach from whoever is reviewing it. I don't know, I still can't decide which route to take.

VFS simply makes sure the minimum required documents are submitted, signatures in correct places, fee to Canada Embassy accurate. If don't need biometrics, do it online. Found VFS waste of time and money. They are simply clerks and have absolutely nothing to do with Application decisions. That's done exclusively by an Embassy Immigration Officer. VFS isn't allowed to know or see whether an Application was approved or rejected.