TB Immigration Information Letter No. 020/23: Accompanying letter with new passport abolished
Reporter: RonnyLatYa
When you have a new passport, you must go to immigration with your old and new passport to have certain residence details transferred there. Normally this is free.
If the passport was issued by the embassy, immigration also required a cover letter from your embassy stating that the new passport replaced the old one.
Since October 22, that cover letter from the embassy is no longer necessary. For example, since October 22, 2022, the Belgian embassy no longer issues these accompanying letters and I think this will also be the case at the Dutch embassy. All immigration offices are also aware of this.
As you can see it's been a while and I had read it on different media, but I lost track of it and forgot to report it.
Fortunately, a reader drew my attention to it today because he had requested that letter from the embassy and he received an answer that it was no longer necessary. Thank you to the reader for reminding me of this. My apologies for this omission, but better late than never.
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About 7 years ago left my visa
transferring my old NL passport
to my new Dutch passport. There wasn't
asked for a cover letter. Seems to me
also completely unnecessary. You can see that the old
passport is about to expire.
It has been a requirement for a while and only if the passport was obtained through the embassy.
You can indeed see that the old expires, but that old actually has little importance in this one. Only the valid residence details in it.
He is mainly concerned about the new passport. Apparently there were reasons to doubt the authenticity of the new passports and people wanted to see additional confirmation.
Whether someone finds that superfluous or not is actually unimportant in this matter
It's what immigration wanted to see from the embassy.
Does this (transfer data) have to be done immediately after you have received the new passport? After all, your old passport is no longer valid… Or can you wait until the next 90-day notification or year extension?
You don't have to do that immediately, but as long as you don't do it you will have to keep walking around with both passports because your valid residence details are still in the old one.
Dear,
I entered on April 16 JL with a new passport issued by my municipality in the Netherlands.
A few days later I went to Immigration Jomtien Soi 5 to transfer my Non-O and my Retirement to my new passport. I also immediately had a new Notification of Address made and put in because my old one had a few large holes due to the invalidation of my old passport. Both passports were issued and nothing further was asked, and collected a day later.
Gert.
This accompanying letter was only required if the passports were obtained through the embassy.
If you received the new passport in the Netherlands, you did not have to.
By the way, as you can read, that is no longer necessary since October 22.
It is therefore not surprising that nothing was asked in your case, because in both cases it does not apply to you
I thought that was the case at the time because passports issued by the embassy had not yet been activated through an immigration post. Those who came to Thailand with a new passport issued at their Belgian municipality would have automatically had to go through immigration and the passport was thus activated with an inbound stamp.
That is no different now…
Indeed, but why was that letter needed in the past and apparently not anymore? Maybe because of the newer chips and or fingerprints?
Indeed, I also think that passports are now indeed better protected and therefore more difficult to forge, and people have decided to abolish that.
Such decisions come from immigration. The embassies themselves do not start abolishing such a thing, knowing that it will cause problems for their passport holders
One can indeed make the remark look I'm standing here with an old and new passport according to Western logic it is only normal to make an adjustment :
Were it not that:
Thailand begins where logic ends and unfortunately I have to conclude that many (Thais) are either sightless or walk around with fictitious horse glasses. In other words, you are lucky that there is an employee standing in front of you who has a positive mood, no problem, on the other hand you can stress again
What bothers me is the fact that Jan Modaal has to learn about all these changes in this case, no longer issuing a accompanied letter.
One would also logically think that changes, adjustments, etc. could easily be mentioned on the website. Everyone is immediately informed.
If no online report can be made for, for example, a 90-day report, everyone crawls into their pen and I read comments Everyone is now online, mobile, etc. I conclude that it is better for us to take a look in our own bosom …
Would this be an omission okay so far, but this is not the first time that I and others have found that this is not the case.
If you can state on the website when the embassy is open or closed, I think you can also state the changes – adjustments
that's how I think about it
Those who received a new passport at the embassy will also have received that letter when the passport was delivered by the embassy.
If your passport was obtained in the Netherlands or Belgium, this letter is also not necessary.
"Would this be an omission okay so far, but this is not the first time that I and others have found that this is not the case."
I assume you are talking about the embassy here….
I applied for a new Belgian travel pass in December 2022 and asked for that cover letter.
The embassy's answer was that this was no longer necessary. That the embassies were informed of this as well as the immigration offices. So you shouldn't hear it 'via via'. And put it on the website of the embassies: first ask yourself how many read those websites.
As you yourself write, they answer to you (and only you) that this is no longer necessary.
So you are aware and all other Belgians it is ” la même choose ” Nose in the air
I shouldn't ask myself how many people look at a government website
one can (should) assume that it is the first source of correct information.
Obtained both my penultimate and my last passport through the Dutch Embassy.
Accompanying letter is in your passport on page three in three languages Dutch/English/French with the old passport number.
The middle language [English] and the old passport should actually be enough to transfer your stamps.
A bit of a civil servant makes sure that the pages with valid stamps are not punched.
That accompanying letter in itself has nothing to do with die-cutting or transferring stamps.
The letter only had to confirm that your new passport, which was obtained through the embassy, is real. Apparently there were reasons to doubt this in the past.
Is something that was not specific to the Dutch or Belgians, but to every nationality.
The stamp in your passport that should replace this letter was also sufficient.
But actually if that passport were forged, then what's in it might as well be forged, just like a cover letter.
That's right Ronny, the embassy does the die-cutting after you have applied for a new passport so that the application is a one-off with that passport.
And the transfer of valid visa stamps does the immigration.
The Immigration Department would like to see confirmation that the new passport is based on the old one.
That statement is therefore in my new passport.
You can counterfeit almost anything with the right tools, that is also true.
That is why nowadays banks are already going a step further, for example to have your passport copy legalized by the embassy, I suspect.
I renewed 2 passports for my family and me in December 3 years ago and indeed immigration requested that so-called confirmation letter, the NL Embassy has an extensive policy document, and handing over this document was found to be sufficient without any doubt, of which deed, NK Immigration = strict but very fair!
Whose deed\