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Thailand O Visa Based Upon Parentage of a Thai Child

Transcript of the above video:

In this video, we're going to be discussing Thai visas for those with children of Thai nationality. Strictly speaking, this visa category or the visa that would be gotten for somebody who's in these circumstances is going to be the old category visa which is also technically speaking, the visa category for those who are married to Thai nationals.

Now in this world, circumstances occur, events transpire, things changed so under certain circumstances, an individual may have been in the Kingdom of Thailand and had a spouse in Thailand, that couple went ahead and had children and perhaps they get a divorce, it's still possible for that foreign national to remain in Thailand in status, simply as the parent of a Thai child.

Now under those circumstances, one of the really important factors that's going to be analyzed by the immigration officers with respect to approval of that type of travel document or I should say, that type of status to remain in the Kingdom, the big thing that they're going to be looking at is that foreign national, a primary or one of two primary breadwinners with respect to that child. So they want to go ahead and see that in fact, that foreign national is supporting that child and it makes good policy sense from my point of view to go ahead and allow someone who's basically caring for and more importantly, providing for a Thai national. It's going to be a good idea to go ahead and keep that person in the country if they're gainfully employed and that seems to be the policy reasoning behind O visas for Thai children, in events where divorce is a factor.

Another factor that often comes up with respect to this type of category this specific set of circumstances pertaining to the O visa is when a Thai spouse of a foreign national and the couple will have children, the Thai spouse goes ahead and pre-deceases unfortunately the foreign spouse and you go ahead and you seek an O visa under that. And in fact, you need to go ahead and change the visa holder’s status over to O visa for the parent of Thai child. Quite frankly, in the instances where I've had dealings with Thai immigration under circumstances where a Thai spouse has passed away, they frankly been nothing but gracious and very easy to deal with respect to transitioning that visa status under what are oftentimes very distressing circumstances.

So that's another example of it and then occasionally there are just circumstances where you know an individual who just happens to have a Thai child. They may not have married the Thai parent but they just haven't had a child who is of Thai nationality. It is possible to go ahead and maintain an O visa. Again, the main prong for those circumstances for approval is going to be whether or not the foreign national acts as a provider for that child in the Kingdom. Basically, those are the three major circumstances where O visas are going to be utilized for the parent of a Thai child. Again, it's been my experience if you will that many times Thai immigration is much more willing to deal with assisting extension of stay in the Kingdom in O status when there's a breadwinner that needs to remain in the Kingdom to remain gainfully employed in order to provide for the Thai national child.