This is the Thai Marriage visa application. If you are married to a Thai then you can stay in Thailand on your Thai marriage Visa. You will need to have a registered marriage and not a traditional marriage for this. You can see on this website the process to register your marriage in Thailand for more details as well as what is needed by an American when it comes to the Affirmation in Thailand be this civil or traditional Muslim marriages.

Thai Marriage Visa Application

You can apply for a Thai “O” visa or Thai marriage visa for Thailand at a Thai Embassy. Many in Asia will require to see that you have some money in a local bank account while some in the West would require you to show some money in your local bank account. This is new as many have used the three month visa to stay in Thailand and not extend the visa while in Thailand. You will need the following with the application:

• 1.       Your marriage certificate
• 2.       Your Thai wife’s Tabien Baan
• 3.       Your Thai wife’s ID card
• 4.       Copy of your bank account
• 5.       Completed application form

Note that at certain Thai embassies they also require that your Thai wife writes a letter in Thai in her handwriting asking to grant you the visa. This is normally an overnight process and in certain countries it can take 2-3 days to get the visa granted. If you have had more than one of these before and had not extended it they might provide you with a tourist visa for Thailand and you will then need to speak to an immigration lawyer in Thailand to convert the tourist visa into a marriage visa. This takes a few weeks to complete so it is best to have this done as soon as you arrive in Thailand.

You can now apply for the extension of the marriage visa in Thailand and for this you will need to show that you have 400,000 THB in a Thai bank account and that it has been there for at least two months before you submit your application. You will then also need to show photos of you and your Thai wife together with photos from around your house and apartment and also standing in front of your door where the address shows which matches you address on the application form. You will also need a hand drawn map to your location as they will not accept a proper map or a Google map. You will also need both originals as well as copies of your marriage certificate, your Thai wife’s Tabien Baan as well as her ID card. They will then get you to come back one months later and you have to show that the 400,000 THB is still in the bank account. So the money has to stay in the bank account for at least three months in total.

There is the option of a monthly income of 40,000 THB per month however this becomes very complicated as you need to show that the money came from abroad and this is not always possible. Many foreign banks don’t have a corresponding bank in Thailand so they send the money from overseas to a local bank who then might send it to your bank. That will show as a local transfer and not a foreign transfer. The income method is simply too difficult to do and impractical at best due to the banking system in Thailand.

Speak to a lawyer about your marriage visa in Thailand for assistance and any rules that might have changed since writing this. The rules do change as can be seen when people from African countries who wanted to extend their annual visa needed a police clearance certificate each year now to get their visa extended.