Can you get citizenship/permenant residency from ED-Visas?

[Arkady]

I have been through both the PR and citizenship processes.  The only routes to PR or citizenship for people who are not legally working in Thailand are either as the spouse or minor child of a PR or the wife of a Thai citizen.  Minor children can also obtain Thai citizenship by naturalisation, if they apply at the same time as a parent.  Husbands of Thai citizens now have a faster track to citizenship, although still not as easy as wives, and no longer need to obtain PR first but they do need three years working in Thailand on a salary of at least B40,000 a month to apply. 

 

Contrary to popular belief it is not hugely difficult for husbands of Thai citizens to obtain citizenship and I know of several teachers earning the basic minimum or not much above it, who have been successful.  You need to be able to speak reasonable but not perfect Thai, retain your qualifying employment status throughout the period of application which may take several years and have a high degree of persistence and determination to deal with the bureaucratic banana skins that fall into your path from time to time (often in the form of additional documentation unexpectedly requested).  The salary bar is higher for PR and for citizen applicants without Thai wives (B80,000 a month for citizenship and I think the same for PR).  Strangely enough the documentation required for PR is significantly more onerous than for citizenship and has got a lot worse in recent years (because applications go through Immigration which has good reason to belief that all foreigners are scamsters until proved otherwise, whereas citizenship applications go to Special Branch which has relatively few dealings with foreigners.)  Applications for citizenship are easier if you live in Bangkok or can finagle a tabien baan there because only Bangkok Special Branch has a dedicated citizenship applications department and you have to apply in your province.  For PR it doesn't matter where you live ecause all applications go through the dedicated PR applications department at Chaeng Wattana Immigration.

 

Anyone who is qualified and interested to apply for either is recommended to apply without delay because the current government and interior minister have a very positive policy of eliminating the inexplicable delays and logjams that had been allowed to develop by successive political governments that didn't want to approve anything, if they weren't going to get paid for it.  Applications for PR for this year opened on September 1st till the year end and applications for citizenship can be made on any working day in the year.  For more information on PR and citizenship, see the various threads on Thai Visa which are by far the best sources for this, as they are based on actual experience of applicants.  Beware of lawyers and brokers who often provide misleading and inaccurate information and will increase your costs significantly but won't necessarily improve your chances of success or speed things up, despite wild claims.  Immigration and Special Branch don't explicitly object to dealing with lawyers and brokers but clearly find some of them very annoying and prefer to deal with applicants direct.

[p_brownstone]

3 hours ago, Jujus said:

Exactly. By the way, I never quite understood what happens if you don't redo your Alien Registration after 5 years. It is required to issue the Non-Quota Immigrant Visa in case you want to leave and reenter the country, but besides that?

 

Not sure what you mean by the reference to a "non-Quota Immigrant Visa".

 

If you have PR and wish to exit the Country you only need to get an Endorsement in your Passport and a Re-entry Permit before you leave Thailand - and so long as you re-enter Thailand within 1 year of leaving your status as a Permanent Resident is maintained.

 

I did once forget to go to my local Police Station to renew my Alien Registration book but there was no real problem except that they would only renew it for 1 year (as opposed to the usual 5 years); apart from that small inconvenience I don't recall that there was any other sanction or fine and after the expiration of the 1 year renewal I was able to renew for another 5 years as usual.

 

Patrick

 

 

[Jujus]

1 hour ago, p_brownstone said:

 

Not sure what you mean by the reference to a "non-Quota Immigrant Visa".

 

If you have PR and wish to exit the Country you only need to get an Endorsement in your Passport and a Re-entry Permit before you leave Thailand - and so long as you re-enter Thailand within 1 year of leaving your status as a Permanent Resident is maintained.

 

I did once forget to go to my local Police Station to renew my Alien Registration book but there was no real problem except that they would only renew it for 1 year (as opposed to the usual 5 years); apart from that small inconvenience I don't recall that there was any other sanction or fine and after the expiration of the 1 year renewal I was able to renew for another 5 years as usual.

 

Patrick

 

 

Exactly, the reentry permit is called Non-Quota Immigrant Visa.

 

Ok and when you renewed it after that year, it was back to a 5 years cycle, or you have to do it every year from now on?

[Jujus]

1 hour ago, Arkady said:

I have been through both the PR and citizenship processes.  The only routes to PR or citizenship for people who are not legally working in Thailand are either as the spouse or minor child of a PR or the wife of a Thai citizen.  Minor children can also obtain Thai citizenship by naturalisation, if they apply at the same time as a parent.  Husbands of Thai citizens now have a faster track to citizenship, although still not as easy as wives, and no longer need to obtain PR first but they do need three years working in Thailand on a salary of at least B40,000 a month to apply.

Does a PR need to be working (and therefore paying taxes) as well at the time he applies for citizenship?

[ubonjoe]

1 minute ago, Jujus said:

Does a PR need to be working (and therefore paying taxes) as well at the time he applies for citizenship?

Yes

[Jujus]

4 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

Yes

So, if you are a PR but retired (not my case, I am still young), you can never apply for citizenship? Really? Sounds weird as the hardest part (obtaining PR) is already done...

[p_brownstone]

30 minutes ago, Jujus said:

Exactly, the reentry permit is called Non-Quota Immigrant Visa.

 

Ok and when you renewed it after that year, it was back to a 5 years cycle, or you have to do it every year from now on?

 

After the 1 year renewal (as a sort of penalty I guess!) I was back to the usual 5 year renewal cycle with no problems at all.

 

Patrick

[Jujus]

9 minutes ago, p_brownstone said:

 

After the 1 year renewal (as a sort of penalty I guess!) I was back to the usual 5 year renewal cycle with no problems at all.

Ok, good to know. I'll make sure not to forget to avoid that. Thank you for sharing!

[JackThompson]

3 hours ago, mike324 said:

The main requirement to gaining Citizenship / PR in Thailand is paying taxes, period. There is no way around it. I know folks who work as factory managers for over 20 years, they can't get PR / Citizenship because they haven't paid enough taxes. Don't think there is any country in the world which will give you PR/Citizenship from a ED Visa just because you lived in the country for X number of years without working.

 

I researched this a few years back, and off the top of my head, you have Belize and Paraguay - though you don't need to go to the trouble to get an 'ed' visa for either.  Very easy to get PR in either, and almost instantly in Paraguay.

 

I won't bother listing all those that give you PR (with a straightforward path to citizenship)  after working jobs such as those you listed (which don't accrue enough taxes to qualify here) and/or being married to a native.  The difficulty doing these things in Thailand is the unusual case.

[mike324]

19 hours ago, JackThompson said:

 

I researched this a few years back, and off the top of my head, you have Belize and Paraguay - though you don't need to go to the trouble to get an 'ed' visa for either.  Very easy to get PR in either, and almost instantly in Paraguay.

 

I won't bother listing all those that give you PR (with a straightforward path to citizenship)  after working jobs such as those you listed (which don't accrue enough taxes to qualify here) and/or being married to a native.  The difficulty doing these things in Thailand is the unusual case.

 

Yup belize is one of the easiest countries, a friend of mine bought a small plot of land over 20 years ago and they gave his whole family citizenship.

[mike324]

On 9/6/2016 at 4:19 PM, Soul Foam said:

What a great response. Honestly, thanks so much. It seems people here are extremely helpful or a circle jerk of off topic nit picking at my "working" situation in which they have no basis on besides me saying "I make money online", never did I say I was working, and people seem to think they know my situation based on 4 words. Clearly no one has ever made residual income from already created projects. Anyways, I think I will attempt to go this route, I'm definitley extremely close and good friends with a few of these Thai business owners, and as major of a hassle as it is, they would definitley be "compensated" :P. 

 

If you decide to go the work permit route through a friend....keep in mind that you will be paying over 100,000 baht of taxes per year. I have a friend who is staying in Thailand this way.

[JackThompson]

51 minutes ago, mike324 said:

 

If you decide to go the work permit route through a friend....keep in mind that you will be paying over 100,000 baht of taxes per year. I have a friend who is staying in Thailand this way.

 

I assume he is getting extensions from immigration, so needs to meet the min-salary requirements (for non-teachers) to get that extension.  An alternative is a Multi-Entry B, with work permit from the DOL, in exchange for 90-day border hops.  He would never need enter a local immigration office.  This is what lawyers / agents set up through Thai companies.  It is more expensive than an Ed Visa or Tourist Visa solution, but still far less than the Elite, and payable one year at a time.

 

Also, depending on the OP's current taxes and a possible bilateral agreement to prevent double-taxation, he may simply be shifting tax payments to Thailand which he currently pays somewhere else.  In that case, he could do the annual-extensions with a higher salary, avoid the visa runs, and the taxes would cancel, costing him net-nothing.

[simon43]

The salary bar is higher for PR and for citizen applicants without Thai wives (B80,000 a month for citizenship  ...

 

Arkady, forgive me if I'm reading your comment incorrectly,  I was under the impression that a single male could not apply for citizenship unless he had PR.

 

My Thai ex-wives have offered to marry me again if it makes me eligible to apply for Thai citizenship, but committing hari-kiri would be a less-painful option.  Hence my interest in your comment.

[ubonjoe]

3 minutes ago, simon43 said:

 

 

 

Arkady, forgive me if I'm reading your comment incorrectly,  I was under the impression that a single male could not apply for citizenship unless he had PR.

 

My Thai ex-wives have offered to marry me again if it makes me eligible to apply for Thai citizenship, but committing hari-kiri would be a less-painful option.  Hence my interest in your comment.

 

On 9/7/2016 at 0:43 PM, Arkady said:

The salary bar is higher for PR and for citizen applicants without Thai wives (B80,000 a month for citizenship and I think the same for PR). 

Reading the entire line made it easier to understand what you were asking about.

You have to be married to apply for citizenship if you don't have PR.

Unless you went back to work (for 3 years) getting married again would not help you to apply for citizenship.

[LazySlipper]

On 9/6/2016 at 4:19 PM, Soul Foam said:

What a great response. Honestly, thanks so much. It seems people here are extremely helpful or a circle jerk of off topic nit picking at my "working" situation in which they have no basis on besides me saying "I make money online", never did I say I was working, and people seem to think they know my situation based on 4 words. Clearly no one has ever made residual income from already created projects. Anyways, I think I will attempt to go this route, I'm definitley extremely close and good friends with a few of these Thai business owners, and as major of a hassle as it is, they would definitley be "compensated" :P. 

 

Oh! Very interesting. Didn't know certain jobs were forbidden, but I definitley would be handling "other things" in the business I'd be working for ;). Again, thanks for a great helpful response. 

 

Thanks! I will take a look through all of these posts and read up.

 

I'm not sure about 3 years, but 2 is for sure do-able (told to me by the owner the school, he seemed very confident and at ease).  But yes I will have to leave the country to get the new 1 year Ed visa. But that's just a small little hassle, once a year, I can live with that. 

 

As soon as you leave the country you begin the whole process again. It won't work... thought about it myself. That is why they no longer extend ed visas for more than a year. Your school director is misleading you as a bar stool lawyer would. 

 

If you manage it I will do the same thing. Maybe learning muay thai would help me lose a few pounds...