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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing marriage registration in Thailand and O Marriage Visas. Now a question kind of arises rather frequently, I get people that ask "What's better? I am married to a Thai National but I don't know, do I get an O Retirement Visa or do I get an O Marriage Visa?”

Now there are those out there that say the answer is simple, you just do an O Marriage Visa because the financial obligations are lower and that is true. O Retirement Visas require 800,000 Baht in a Thai Bank Account or 65,000 Baht per month pension income whereas the O Marriage Visa requires 400,000 baht in a Thai Bank Account and only 40,000 Baht in pension or otherwise income in order to meet the financial requirements for that. That is not the end of the story. O Marriage Visas in my opinion have a higher threshold of scrutiny associated with them especially in the past few years since there were a number of scams associated with sham marriages to Thai women resulting in O Marriage Visas being issued. There was kind of a ring of this that got busted up and ever since then the scrutiny associated with an O Marriage Visa, in my opinion quite a bit higher than the scrutiny associated with an O Retirement Visa. There is also work component. O Marriage Visas can act as a platform for Thai Work Permits and for that reason I think there is an extra level of scrutiny attached to it as well. So that is something to bear in mind. Now again if one has the financial resources it is possible to be in an O Retirement Visa and be married; there is no conflict there. The other thing to think of and I know it's not something anybody really wants to think of, but unfortunately when an O Marriage Visa, when the Thai spouse passes away, it essentially causes the immediate extinguishing of the O Marriage Visa itself, so that is something to bear in mind where an O Retirement Visa may not necessarily have that problem. 

Now with respect to marriage registration, a lot of people have been asking me lately "well what's better? Do I get married abroad and then get an O Marriage Visa or what?" Well if you are going to keep up an O Marriage Visa you have got to remember if you are married abroad there is a lot of document certification issues associated with that marriage to prove it up to the satisfaction of Thai Immigration. So again, you may want to look at the underlying facts in your case. You may want to even contact a legal professional because there may be pros and cons to getting married abroad as opposed to getting one one's marriage registered here in the Kingdom of Thailand.