@Tom *****

An appointment was required. I was able to get an appointment in a matter of just days, but I don't know if that is typical to be so quick.

@Logan ********

Ah, that's a whole different situation than what we had to do. As far as I know, you can ignore everything I said. 🤣 (But someone please correct me if we're overlooking something here.) Best wishes and best luck to you, Logan!

In my case, the initial 90-day was via the LA Consulate. They accepted a US bank for the funds. I imagine just about anywhere does, since you haven't yet moved to Thailand (if you had, you wouldn't be getting a 90-day). 🙂 But that last statement is just a guess on my part.

A question and some helpful advice: Was your marriage in the US, or were you married in Thailand? The standard of proof for a US marriage certificate is MUCH higher to get your 1-year extension in Thailand than it is the initial 90-day visa. And this isn't explained well, or at all, when applying for the 90-day visa. For the initial 90-day visa, we just needed a pic of our US marriage certificate. To get a 1-year extension, a lot of authentication/legalization needs to happen first with that marriage certificate, and much of it has to be done in the US. Here's what we had to do:

1: Get a certified copy of our marriage certificate from the county. (A pic of this is all we needed for the 90-day application).

2: Get that authenticated by our state Secretary of State.

3: Get that authenticated by the US Department of State in Washington DC.

4: Get that authenticated by the Thai consulate/embassy for our area (in our case, it was the Thai Consulate in LA)

---Come to Thailand---

5: Get it all translated in a "certified translation"

6: Take all that to the Department of Consular Affairs in Bangkok, and have that stack of papers approved/stamped.

Steps 1 through 4 above all had to happen in the US, and it took months.

Then we could take it to a local amphur and register our marriage and get a Kor Ror 22 form. Note: We also had to have a certified true copy of my passport to do this. That had to be done at the US Embassy in Bangkok. If you want info on that too, feel free to ask, and I'll share what I can.

I've seen a lot of people do only step 1, and then get a big shock when they went to a local amphur and tried to register their marriage and get a Kor Ror 22. In their defense, it is not always easy to find the steps, or even the need for those steps, clearly called out and explained.

@Anthony *****

Oh, interesting! Yeah, sounds like it could vary greatly from one to the next.

Yes, when applying for the initial 90 day visa, I had to show funds in my US bank. I don't recall the exact amount required, but it was somewhere around what they are asking you about. The only challenge is that they asked for 3 months of statements, but only allow uploading of a single file, and my bank's website could only provide a single month's statement in a single file. I had to download 3 PDFs (one for each month) from my bank's site, combine them into one PDF, and upload that to the visa application site.

But what you are going through is normal for applying for the 90 day visa: upload proof of funds in your current (non-Thai) bank account.

@Anthony *****

That's for the 1 year extension (for a retirement visa; spouse visa is 400,000) after being in the country on the 90 day visa. Mike Munger seems to be talking about the funds that have to be shown to get the initial 90 day visa. And that is a much lower value, not 800,000. (I post this not to be argumentative with you, but just in case Mike sees your response, I didn't want him to be confused.)

@Chris *****

Mai pen rai. It's quite a process, and it's not fun, but you'll get through it. In our case, even all that paperwork wasn't all we had to do. We still had to bring 2 witnesses with us to the amphur to sign one of the amphur's docs to register our marriage. I honestly don't know if that was just to witness the registration of the marriage (similar to witnesses of a marriage), or if the purpose was to attest "We know these people, and they really are married". But we got it done. Best wishes, and best luck to you!

You may also need to do the same with a copy of your passport. In my case, it was also required that I do the following. (I see you are from Sheffield, and I'm from the US, so I don't know if there are any differences in the process for your embassy in step #2 below)

1: Get a photocopy of my passport (just the biodata page, and we did the signature page above that too; it's all one photocopy when a US passport is opened to the biodata page)

2: Go to the US Embassy and have it notarized as a certified true copy

3: Get that translated into Thai (a "certified" translation, as we did with our marriage documents)

4: Get that approved/certified/stamped at the Department of Consular Affairs.

It was required for us to register our marriage and get a Kor Ror 22. I've heard of some say it wasn't needed, and others say it was needed. So it may be different in different amphurs. It was definitely needed in our case. Not optional.

So if you are going to the Department of Consular Affairs anyway for your marriage docs, you may want to get the passport copy done at the same time.

I haven't heard before of banks requiring a Thai phone number as a requirement for opening a bank account. Is that common? I haven't opened mine yet, so I wouldn't know from experience. Planning/hoping to do so later this year. 🙂

Steps 2-3-4 I completed all without leaving where I live now, because I mailed the documents. 🙂

Is your marriage certificate from Florida? Then it looks like you would want this for step 2:

And for step 3, you want this:

For step 4, was the document issued in Florida? If so, you would be served by the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington DC:

See here for information on legalization of documents:

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