A good place to start is with a Thai Consulate. You should try to renew your Thai passport here in the US. If your name is still on a valid house registration (Tabian Bann), you should be able to renew your passport with the Thai Consulate. If your name is not on a house registration (i.e. the house is torn down or your name is taken out of the registration), you will not be able to renew your passport outside of Thailand. The consulate should be able to help you look this up in their database. In the situation where your name is not on a house registration, you can reestablish your citizenship in Thailand. You should be able to enter Thailand (use your expired Thai passport to enter), and arrange to put your name on a house registration. Once you have your house registration, apply for your Thai ID. Best wishes
Please look into LTR-Wealthy Pensioner Visa (LTR-P). If you can meet the financial requirement, this is a pretty good deal for a 10 year visa. You can be the applicant and your wife can apply as a dependent. The cost is 50,000 thb for 10 years per applicant. You can search on this site for more info as there’s been some people with LTR-P Visa approved. We’ve considered O/A and non-O visa and decided LTR-P was a better deal for us overall.
Since your daughter was born outside of Thailand, a Thai birth certificate can only be done by the Thai Embassy/Consulate in the country where she was born (the UK). I know in the USA, you need to get a birth certificate from the originating authority (the state), and then authenticate the birth certificate at the state and federal level before it's presented to the Thai Embassy. They will also need two passport photos of your daughter. Some other documents you'll need are your marriage certificate, your wife’s Thai ID card, Thai passport, and Thai house registration info, both your wife and your UK passports, and another form of identification card such as a driver’s license. There were a few forms to fill out (in Thai). We did not have to physically visit the Embassy, we were able to mail notarized copies of everything (except the original authenticated birth certificate). The process was pretty easy if you have above documents. I’d imagine the process would be similar in the UK. The Thai Embassy in UK should have some instruction in English, or give them a call. The Thai Embassy in USA has always been very helpful!
One small note: The Thai birth certificate contains height and weight at birth, but our state does not have those on the birth certificate! The Embassy had us provide a document from the hospital with this information to put in the Thai birth certificate.
Hi Jennifer, you are a sweet daughter helping your mom transition back to her home country. Get her Thai passport photos before you go to the consulate - CVS, Costco, Walgreens, etc. The same specification as a USA passport photo. After your visit at the consulate, I believe officially is 4-6 weeks, best to plan for about two months to get the passport. You can pick it up at the consulate or have it mailed to your house.
Do you have your mom's Thai ID and house registration to get the Thai passport? Just to cover all bases, Thais have several important documents that you should locate and save if your mom has them here in USA with her:
1. Thailand birth certificate - I'm guessing your mom is a permanent resident of USA, so she must have a Thai birth certificate translated to English. If she has the Thai birth certificate in Thai (original/copy) then even better.
2. Thailand house registration - Each Thai person needs to belong to a house (and only one house) to prove where they live. Sometimes if the person has moved abroad for many years, the family moves, home changes owners, gets torn down, etc. and the person gets removed from the house registration by the current owner. The removed name moves to a "central database" of people not on a house registration. It's not a problem for the Thai person abroad until they try to renew a Thai ID and can't do it, because they are not on a valid house registration, and this can only be fixed in Thailand not outside the country.
3. Thai ID card - the national ID. Thai ID has a 13 digit identification number, which is used in many instances, much like the American SSN. Must be on a valid house registration to renew or re-establish a Thai ID card that is expired.
4. Thai Passport - normally the Thai passport issued requires a valid Thai ID. I see the Thai Consulate in LA requires "Original of Thai Identification Card or proof of Thai residency with address, name and a 13-digit identification number". Which means they will look up the Thai ID via the 13 digit number, and look up the Thai house registration via the address.
If you don't have your mom's Thai ID card and Thai house registration info, contact the Thai Consulate in LA and explain the situation, and get their advice. I know you said you have emailed them before, give them a call during their office hours if you don’t get a reply. I have communicated with the Thai Consulate in Washington DC numerous times and they were very good communicating in English, helping answer my questions, and connecting me with the right person. I was quite impressed with how much they were willing to go out of their way to assist me. I don’t have experience with the consulate in LA, but I hope they give the same good assistance. Again you are a very caring daughter, helping your mom. I hope all goes well for you both.
My husband just bought a policy with AXA, the policy plan is called EasyCare Visa Plan 1. You can choose high/low deductible. Was very affordable with high deductible. Not the best policy, but meets the LTR requirement. Took less than two weeks to process. The AXA representative’s name is Niranut Wisetwongsa (NID), +66 77 205 300-2 ext 115,