Notification: Walter
Subject: Immigration Ubon Rachathani
Update Extension of stay at Ubon Ratchathani Immigration. Today we went to immigration office Ubon Ratchathani for “extension of stay retirement”. My situation is that I hold a non-immigrant visa “O” with extension of stay retirement previously obtained based on income. This year I had to submit:
- form TM7 (new form Ubon, different from the TM7 that you can download on the immigration website).
- form “Acknowledgment of penalties for overstay visa”.
- copy of passport (copy must be 100% equal to actual size passport, no print of photo passport or other reduced or enlarged copy; think that this "measurement" depends on the person you come to).
- affidavit income delivered by the Belgian embassy with attached certificate of pension payment with digitized signature of the Belgian pension service.
- passport photo.
- update bank book Thai bank account + print out transactions last year because my pension is paid into a Belgian bank account (they want to see that I transfer money to Thailand and that there is movement in my Thai bank account).
- copy yellow book.
- copy of my wife's Thai identity card where I am staying.
Everything was carefully and kindly explained and after 2 hours processing time a new extension of stay Retirement was issued.
At the end we had a short conversation with the head of the Ubon immigration office. She gave the following advice for the future (depending of course on what the government will decide and the rising / falling exchange rate of the baht): if you are married to a Thai partner who works for the government and you absolutely want to be able to live in Thailand permanently stays based on extension of stay. Change your extension of stay from retirement to marriage (more flexible extension conditions and easier to meet any new health insurance conditions in the future).
Again this is only her personal advice in my personal situation and nothing has yet been changed or established by law with regard to extension or stay retirement conditions.
I can only confirm that Ubon is a friendly helpful immigration office.
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Regards,
RonnyLatYa
That's strong! On November 19 at IO Udon Thani I received exactly the opposite advice. I wanted to change my retirement extension from retirement to “marriage”. I was strongly advised against this because it was much more work for both IO and me. As an example, the officer showed a stack of forms. I had everything with me and I said that's just a lot of work the first time. No, he said, that is every year and every year we have to investigate again and come to your house. So just a “retirement” done. Everything was arranged within fifteen minutes. Furthermore, a friendly and professional handling.
Ubon is not Udon.
In Udon people would rather not touch it. They think too much work.
I also tried last year but it was so difficult that I just leave it at that.
Are you registered at the home address/do you have the yellow booklet? Like Walter has.
Therefore the process may be more work for you with home visits etc.
Years ago I first requested a length of stay (top Scrabble word) based on “marriage” in Nan. I was (still am) of the opinion that this is less legally uncertain than “retirement” because Belgium (also the Netherlands) and Thailand mutually recognize each other's marriage law by treaty. This creates additional (residence) rights.
The then IO then very assertively entreated me to go for “retirement”. He argued that “marriage” is much more difficult for both of us: more administration, IO itself not authorized to validate (must be higher up), coming back after period under cosideration, home visit by immi, …
To avoid tension with that IO and because I had +800 K thb in the bank I followed his advice. So far without any problems at immi Uttaradit.
Yet I still think that “marriage” legally gives more right of residence if they would come here on the unfortunate side of wanting to evict farrang long-stayers for some irrational reason.
Although? Are there legal certainties in a country where a de facto military junta continues to rule?
That would be a disaster for me and my Thai wife (as for many long-stayers) because we both have strong ties (family, circle of friends, property, financial, ...) in both countries.