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Thai Consulate Houston, Texas Not Taking Visa Applications by Mail

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Honorary Consulate in Houston, Texas and some specific information which I just found on their website. I will go ahead and have the producer throw this up on there but interestingly: "Per new instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand we are not accepting visa applications by mail or FedEx until further notice. All applications must be made in person."

So apparently that particular Consulate no longer will allow mail in applications obviously; reiterating what they just said. This can be problematic for those who are seeking visas to come to Thailand, especially non-immigrant status as in the past it was a convenience to be able to use a Consulate locally. Mail in one's application, go ahead and get the passport visa and then travel out presumably straight to the Kingdom of Thailand to go ahead and undertake whatever undertaking they were looking to do in the first place. For example it was possible to get a 90 day O Visa then go ahead and extend in country here in Thailand.  It was possible to get a 90 day B Visa, again by mail, then go ahead and extend in country here in the Kingdom.  

What I think is interesting also is this is part of a more broad trend because there was a time when it was possible to get a 1 year multi-entry visa through most Honorary Consulates in the United States and now that is not any longer the case and I think as things progress, we are going to see even more tightening of the restrictions and rules related to issuance of visas in the United States.  

We will keep you posted as things progress and the thing to take away from this video more than anything is, if you are going to go ahead and seek a visa I think it is pretty safe to assume it is going to take a couple of weeks to process a visa to Thailand because you are going to have to be using one of either the Consulates General or the Embassy and generally speaking their backlog is higher and therefore I think the wait time for getting a visa issued is going to be longer unless you're willing to go ahead and walk into one of these Honorary Consulates around the country.