# Marrying a Thai Lady, more rights for a foreigner?



## marvelsm

Hello all: Does marrying a Thai give me any more rights here? Can she make me a citizen and would I be able to buy land or house in my name? Can anyone help me here and were could I find out officially?
Thank you
Marvelsm


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## tod-daniels

Unfortunately (for you) when a foreign male marries a thai national other than the lower threshold for yearly extensions of stay you get no fast track to either permanent residence or thai citizenship (although the fee for a successful application for permanent residence is around 90K if you're married versus 191,000 if you're single).

To get either P/R status (or if you're married you can skip that and go right for citizenship) you need to be legally working here (work permit, paying into the thai tax system, filing income tax returns) and had 3 years of unbroken extensions of stay.. There are also a number of other criteria you must meet for thai citizenship; donations to charity, letters from hi-up people stating you contribute to thailand (not just the in-lawz & out-lawz that make up your thai extended family), proficiency in thai, etc.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news; BUT if you're on an extension of stay based on retirement or marriage and don't legally work here, at this time (and for the foreseeable future) you can't get either P/R or thai citizenship..


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## marvelsm

Thank Tod-Daniels, but I heard if you invest a least 3 million baht you can apply for retirement visa?


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## tod-daniels

marvelsm said:


> Thank Tod-Daniels, but I heard if you invest a least 3 million baht you can apply for retirement visa?


Yeah, that's wrong too. Again, don't hate the messenger, hate the message

The investment visa extension has been increased to 10million baht for quite a while now. Plus restrictions were put into place where only certain properties apply and some money hasta be tied up in bondz, etc. Unless I'm mistaken. Now the people who were grandfathered in at the 3 million baht amount are fine as long as they never let their extension of stay expire..

if you're 50 or over; have 800K in the bank or a letter from your embassy (stating you get that much where ever you're from) you can get a yearly extension of stay based on "being old", referred to as "retirement"...

It is interesting to note that NO WHERE in the thai language version of the Police Order (which is what immigrations follows when push comes to shove) is the thai word retire เกษียณ EVER used. It says ใช้ชีวิตในบ้นปลาย which means "use the end of your life". In fact the ONLY place the word retirement is used is when they stamp the extension into your passport...


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## Thai Bigfoot

Don't ever marry a Thai. for all practical purposes, she will own 51% of property you buy. As a result, the streets are littered with farangs who fell in love, got married, and then had the dear lady throw them out of the house. 
It's the common way for a Thai lady to provide for her Thai family. You will never be considered family ... just the family's ATM machine.


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## Thai Bigfoot

Todd's correct. But, it's practically impossible to be come a Thai citizen. There's a very restrictive quota system applied to each country. Many conditions you have to me, but, unless you know, and pay a lot, you will never be considered.


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## tod-daniels

I hate to disagree with someone named Thai Bigfoot, but

There is NO quota for citizenship, just a snail slow, multi-year paperwork intensive process. 

Also it is NOT a pay someone off sort of thing! It is a make sure you've crossed your t's and dotted your i's process, especially in the area of contributions to society, letters of recommendation along with working legally, paying into the thai taxation program and filing income tax for the requisite number of years.


Now it's far more a laborious process for a foreign male married to a thai female, than it is for a foreign female married to a thai male. For them (foreign women married to thai guyz) it's almost a walk in the park for them to apply for and get thai citizenship although it's still a snail slow process.

I think you're confusing citizenship with permanent residence applications which are limited to 100 per country or thereabouts.. FWIW: the quotaz for P/R applicationz NEVER come close to getting filled by people from US, Canada, New Zealand, UK, or most of the EU. Conversely they almost always max out for Chinese, Japanese, Koreanz and Indianz <- not American Indianz but India Indianz...

The O/P questions clearly lead me to believe they are as yet in their infancy in this country and still quite wet behind the ears.. Especially after perusing their posting history.. 

How about we let them get their sea-legs under them and see if they're still here in a few more years. Or if like all too many, get sucked in, used up and spit out by ever smiling, yet diminutive, indigenous natives that comprise the inhabitants of this country, along with the assorted riff-raff of in-lawz & out-lawz which make up the families of many thai women married to foreign guyz.. They'll have more "get rich slow" or really "never get rich" schemes designed to separate foreigners from their money than you can imagine..

Good Luck, make sure to post when it all goes sideways and comes off the railz...


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## axehead

*Pre-nuptial*



Thai Bigfoot said:


> Don't ever marry a Thai. for all practical purposes, she will own 51% of property you buy. As a result, the streets are littered with farangs who fell in love, got married, and then had the dear lady throw them out of the house.
> It's the common way for a Thai lady to provide for her Thai family. You will never be considered family ... just the family's ATM machine.


Thailand does have pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements, so no need to lose all your assets if you are smart and see a lawyer.


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## tod-daniels

axehead is correct and in reading Thai Bigfoot's post it seems more like first hand experience and/or "sour grapes"..

Don't get me wrong, I am a card carrying member of the "thai bashing faction". There's a lot of stuff these people do which make no sense, rile me up and push my buttons Still even I have trouble stomaching the broad brush stereotyping of ALL thai women.

Sure there're bad ones out there (just like there're bad ones in the west too), AND if you met your thai significant other in any of the P4P areas of the country which cater to foreigners you might indeed get milked dry and kicked to the curb. 

However, IF you have your head screwed on straight, set boundaries which NEVER move, you can do okay here. Believe me there are far more "normal thai women" out there than there are dark, dumb, 6th grade drop out, rice farmer's daughters from Nakhon Nowhere selling themselves to foreigners.

My advice would be; no matter what crock 'o **** story you're being fed by your thai significant other about what is the norm according to the mythical beast known as thai cultural; IF it doesn't sound right to your western sensibilities, don't buy into it. End of story. 

Contrary to what foreigners here spout as gospel (learned no doubt from their thai significant other);

all thai men are not bad and do not routinely beat their thai wives. (if this was true we'd see an exponential increase in the foreign/thai marriages and/or thai/thai divorces, which we do not see)
thai guyz don't pay crazy sin-sod for dumb up-country gurlz, they don't buy land in their name and/or build mansions in the middle of nowhere for them 
thai women are not expected to support their father/mother (that's ususally shared by all the children in thai families)
most thai women married to thai guyz actually work real jobs just like westerner couples do, meaning NO thai guy gives his wife a "salary" EVER..
it is NOT culturally acceptable to wander around hand in hand with a thai woman young enough to be your daughter or grand daughter and most thai/thai couples are close in age to one another.. The thaiz have a saying "ไม่ห่างกันหนึ่งรอบ" not different in age than one cycle (12 years)...
Now it's true an older thai guy may have a young thai g/f on the side, but he doesn't walk down the street acting like he's the cat who ate the canary with her.

Like I said, if something you're being told doesn't seem right to you, chances are it isn't.. Sorry that was harsh. 

Note to Modz, if that was just too hard core, feel free to delete it..


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## Asian Spirit

tod-daniels said:


> axehead is correct and in reading Thai Bigfoot's post it seems more like first hand experience and/or "sour grapes"..
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I am a card carrying member of the "thai bashing faction". There's a lot of stuff these people do which make no sense, rile me up and push my buttons Still even I have trouble stomaching the broad brush stereotyping of ALL thai women.
> 
> Sure there're bad ones out there (just like there're bad ones in the west too), AND if you met your thai significant other in any of the P4P areas of the country which cater to foreigners you might indeed get milked dry and kicked to the curb.
> 
> However, IF you have your head screwed on straight, set boundaries which NEVER move, you can do okay here. Believe me there are far more "normal thai women" out there than there are dark, dumb, 6th grade drop out, rice farmer's daughters from Nakhon Nowhere selling themselves to foreigners.
> 
> My advice would be; no matter what crock 'o **** story you're being fed by your thai significant other about what is the norm according to the mythical beast known as thai cultural; IF it doesn't sound right to your western sensibilities, don't buy into it. End of story.
> 
> Contrary to what foreigners here spout as gospel (learned no doubt from their thai significant other);
> 
> all thai men are not bad and do not routinely beat their thai wives. (if this was true we'd see an exponential increase in the foreign/thai marriages and/or thai/thai divorces, which we do not see)
> thai guyz don't pay crazy sin-sod for dumb up-country gurlz, they don't buy land in their name and/or build mansions in the middle of nowhere for them
> thai women are not expected to support their father/mother (that's ususally shared by all the children in thai families)
> most thai women married to thai guyz actually work real jobs just like westerner couples do, meaning NO thai guy gives his wife a "salary" EVER..
> it is NOT culturally acceptable to wander around hand in hand with a thai woman young enough to be your daughter or grand daughter and most thai/thai couples are close in age to one another.. The thaiz have a saying "ไม่ห่างกันหนึ่งรอบ" not different in age than one cycle (12 years)...
> Now it's true an older thai guy may have a young thai g/f on the side, but he doesn't walk down the street acting like he's the cat who ate the canary with her.
> 
> Like I said, if something you're being told doesn't seem right to you, chances are it isn't.. Sorry that was harsh.
> 
> Note to Modz, if that was just too hard core, feel free to delete it..


No need to change a thing Tod; your post is spot on---Thanks


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