The ultimate guide to Thai Permanent Residence
After moving to Thailand, expats regularly ask this simple question: ‘How do I apply for Thai permanent residence so I can stay in Thailand forever?’. This article will take a look at how you might be able to make Thai PR possible – by demystifying a process, that in reality, isn’t as hard as people make it out to be.
Thai permanent residence – is it for you?
There are a couple situations where Thai permanent residence is going to be the preferred option for those wishing to stay in Thailand indefinitely. These include:
- You are not married to a Thai citizen, so having Thai permanent residence is a necessary step before being eligible to apply for Thai citizenship*;
- Your current country of citizenship does not allow you to hold dual citizenship. While Thailand and most western countries have no issues on holding dual citizenship (see this article here on Thailand stance ) there a number of countries which won’t let you keep your original citizenship if you naturalize as a Thai. As such, if you want to stay in Thailand permanently, then PR is the best status for you to have.
*If you are already married to a Thai citizen, you can check out our article here on how you can skip PR and go directly to citizenship.
What are the benefits of holding Thai PR?
- Peace of mind. Your stay in Thailand is permanent. Your Thai permanent residence does not expire – and only in very rare circumstances – can it be revoked. As such, if you need to take a break between jobs or retire, you can do so without having to find another visa class to let you stay in Thailand;
- No need to do annual extensions of stay, 90-day reporting, TM 30’s or other visa related requirements needed for those on non-immigrant visas;
- You can be registered on the blue house registration ‘Tabieen Baan’ alongside of other Thai nationals, which makes it much easier to deal with government offices, banks, etc.;
- Thai banks are generally happy to lend money to PR’s on the same basis as locals;
- You are no longer required to bring in funds from overseas to purchase a condominium in Thailand;
- You can apply for extensions of stay for your non-Thai family members;
- You are eligible to use the e-Passport automatic gates and Thai passport lanes at all airports and international borders; and
- After 5 years of holding PR you are eligible to apply for Thai citizenship.
Key requirements (hint…you need to be working!)
So, you’ve gotten this far, and you are still interested. Before we go any further, if you aren’t currently working in Thailand, then you probably aren’t eligible for Thai Permanent Residency. That rules out retiree’s, those here on educational visa’s or the Thai Elite visas. However if you are working, then read on…
While there are a number of different categories for applying for Thai PR most of the paths to PR require you to be working for a number of years before you apply.
The rules around PR applications are pretty straight forward, but at the very minimum you will need to be:
- A holder of work permit (and valid non-immigrant visa) for at least 3 consecutive years up to the date of application submission;
- Have been working in the current company for at least 1 year, up to the date of application submission;
- Earn a work based salary at least 80,000 baht per month for a period of at least 2 years, up to the date of application submission, or have been filing tax return for the amount of annual income of 100,000 baht per month for at least 2 consecutive years, up to the date of application submission.
- If married, then you can apply after 2 years of records showing 30,000 baht per month, tax returns and annual extensions of stay.
As said earlier, there are other categories you can apply under (including investment, supporting family, being a recognized expert in your field), the reality is these categories also require you to have consecutive back-to-back work permit and visa extensions and a minimum taxable income. Additionally – the paperwork requirements for these other categories will be higher, and as such most applicants for PR will take the path of least resistance, and apply for the simplest category – the one based on work.
We won’t bother outlining ALL the documentation needed for the application, as they are comprehensively outlined in this link (in Thai only for the moment) and in the announcement issued by immigration in September 2020 (in English here but less detailed). Needless to say, you will need to provide a range of documentation confirming your work, visa, tax and educational history, as well as other documents from your home country, such as criminal background checks.
When and where to apply for Thai PR?
Where to apply is easy – the immigration department handles applications, but like most things to do with PR and citizenship, Bangkok is the place to do it. The immigration office at Chaengwattana has a PR desk staffed year around and they are very helpful in advising potential applicants. This is a link to their website.
When to apply is the tricky bit. For applications to be accepted, the immigration department has to make an official announcement that applications are being accepted for that year – and this is largely at the discretion of the minister of interior.
Up until the mid-2000’s, it was common practice for applications to be accepted for a good portion of the year. However, after that point, the window for applications changed to being mainly in December, and very often in the last two weeks of December. In some years, no applications were accepted at all, which caught out applicants who became eligible that year.
At the time of writing, the current government has been pretty good at giving applications a large window, and in the case of 2019 and 2020, applications have been open since July. This doesn’t guarantee that the same will happen in subsequent years, but so long as the current Minister of Interior stays in place (Gen. Anupong Paochinda), then based on his track record since 2014, applications will be accepted and processed with some level of predictable regularity.
The cost?
- There is a non-refundable application fee for 7,600 baht, when you formally submit your application.
- If successful, you’ll be required to pay 191,400 baht. However for those with a Thai spouse, or applicants under 20 who has a parent with Thai citizenship or PR, then the fee is 95,700 baht.
nb: now you know the fees, for those who are married to a Thai spouse, at this point you may want to reconsider PR and instead apply directly for citizenship which only costs 5,000 baht and can be done all year round.
So I want to put in an application, what now?
Four words: Head down to immigration!
Four more words: And do it early.
We strongly recommend that before you apply, you go down to the PR desk at your immigration office and discuss your case with them. By ‘early’ we mean, going in June of the year you want to apply.
They are generally less busy that other immigration officials and by all accounts are very helpful in guiding applicants on putting in a successful application and organizing all the right documentation to support it – if they go well ahead of the formal application window.
We’ve received many reports of people leaving it till late December and being caught out on certain pieces of documentation being incomplete – and in recent years, the harried immigration officials have been less than nice to those who have left their application to the last months.
Be warned however that these officials will be very hesitant to accept an application which they know will have little chance of being accepted by the consideration committee. Its unlikely they will be rude about it, but they will certainly counsel you about perhaps holding off your application until a subsequent year.
The upside of this is that, for the most part, if an application is accepted, then you can feel confident, other things being equal, that so long as your bona-fides check out, then PR for you is a likely outcome.
The interview
A few months after your successful application being lodged, you’ll receive notice to attend a formal interview at immigration. The format is fairly standard year to year, and will consist of a panel of 7-10 officials from various related ministries, who will make recommendations to the Minister of Interior who ultimately signs off on each application.
The format largely consists of semi-formal chit-chat (all in Thai) around your background and why you want to remain in Thailand. For anyone who has spent a few years in Thailand, this stage won’t be daunting. The whole process is as much a Thai language skill check as it is to let the officials take the opportunity to ask you about any lingering questions they may have about your application, though by this stage, there shouldn’t be many questions as the people at the PR desk are generally quite thorough in ensuring your application is self-explanatory.
The whole meeting will be filmed, and with any luck, will only take 5-10 minutes if they don’t have too many questions (which is generally a good sign that the paperwork speaks for itself!). Following that, you’ll need to wait for the formal approval from the minister.
The Ministry of Interior Black Hole
Once the application is accepted by immigration, and your interview has been completed, it will be sent off to the Ministry of Interior. At this point, like Thai citizenship applications, the approval process becomes more obscure, given that it is totally at the discretion of the minister of the day to sign Thai Permanent Residency approvals. In the mid 2000s till about 2013, approvals took years, sometimes up to 5 or 6 years. Since the coup however, the military government has been pretty good at making things happen. The backlog of PR and Citizenship approvals has been dealt with, and we know based on anecdotal evidence that approvals are coming through about 18-20 months following your first application. So long as the current minister remains in place, then we don’t expect this to change.
The one upside from the black hole…(and its a MASSIVE ONE)
Despite the uncertainty which comes from not knowing when your application will finally be approved, there is one huge upside. While you wait, you will automatically be given an extension of stay every 6 months while you await the outcome of your PR application.
The picture on the left is an example of the 6 monthly extension, and while you are waiting for you PR to be approved, you will need to keep getting this extension of stay stamped in your passport every half year. Based on the current rate of approval, this shouldn’t be too long. However, even if the government or minister changes and they are less forthcoming in granting PR on a regular basis, your stay in Thailand won’t be affected until a decision is finally made.
So really, are they going to accept me?
The honest answer is probably ‘yes’, so long as you’ve done the things migrants normally do when they move to a new country – work in a decent job, contributed though paying taxes, and picked up enough of the language.
Unlike citizenship, there is no publicly available points system which you can check your skills and background against. Having said that, we do understand there is an internal points system that the immigration officials do use, which give preference to higher income/tax payments, time spend in Thailand and language skills.
If you are interested in understanding what the officials look for when you are applying for a permanent visa, you could do worse that checking out what they look for when applying for citizenship (see here). We stress though, only use this as a guide, as it isn’t the criteria immigration use to assess your PR eligibility.
Based on lots of anecdotal information however, you stand a pretty good chance of being accepted for PR if the following apply to you:
- Meet the basic income, tax and visa thresholds outlined above;
- Have a decent educational background and/or have a reasonable skill set;
- Speak, at a minimum, polite and passable Thai for the interviews with the immigration department and be able to explain your background and current situation with them;
- Have shown a reasonable commitment to Thailand in terms of work history, family or other activities;
- To be able to show that you genuinely intend to make Thailand your home.
I work for myself, do I have a chance?
If you are working as an employee for a mid-sized to larger company, Thai or foreign, your chances of gaining Thai PR will be pretty good.
However, we understand that many people work for themselves, via their own companies which are essentially small businesses.This need not be a hindrance.
We understand unofficially that immigration will consider self-employed applicants whose company’s have a paid up capital exceeding 2 million baht, though some reports say this is 5 million baht. It is also fair to say that they will be looking applicants who’s own companies are legitimately trading profitably, with a good track record over a number of years. Immigration officials will want to examine your company documents, and will see through (and reject) applicants who have set up a company simply to get the work permit, PR and citizenship.
If successful, what happens next?
Once the Minister of Interior signs off on your Thai permanent residence application, immigration will invite you back where you will receive your approval letter. After paying your fee, you’ll receive detailed instructions on how to obtain a blue ‘Certificate of Residence’ book. Once you have obtained this, you will be directed to your local police station where you’ll be given a red ‘Alien Registration’ book which only needs to be renewed every 5 years for a minimal fee at the police station. From then, you’ll be allowed to register on a Blue Tabieen Baan at your local district office.
Traveling with Thai Permanent Residence
One of the peculiar aspects of having Thai permanent residence is that while your permission to stay in Thailand never expires – this is only the case if you never leave the Kingdom.
To travel, you must apply for what is known as a 1 year ‘non-quota Immigrant’ re-entry visa. These come in single trip (1,900 baht) and multiple trip (3,800 baht) and is stamped into your passport. In addition, you’ll need to apply for a one year endorsement of your Residency Book (1,900 baht). Without these, your PR will lapse upon exit and there is absolutely no way to get it back again without going through the whole application process again. Similarly, if you stay outside of Thailand for more than 1 year (364 days to be precise) and arrive back after the expiry of your re-entry permit, you will not be allowed to enter Thailand as a PR, and your status is lost in this case as well.
While this isn’t ideal, it is the legacy of a law which was written in 1979. Most PR holders simply automatically renew the re-entry permit and residency book annually to take into account any potential travel and minimize any hassles.
Myths, Misunderstandings and Misconceptions
Myth: Thai Permanent Residence isn’t really ‘PR’ as you need to reapply for a visa each year.
Reality: Not true. Once granted PR, you never have to apply for another visa if you never leave the country again. A re-entry permit is all that is required so you can travel in and out of Thailand without losing your PR.
Myth: The limit of 100 successful applicants per nationality per year means that you’ll never be eligible.
Reality: While it is true that there is a cap of 100 applicants per year, the reality is that most nationalities will never have that number of applicants for PR. The only nationalities that we are aware of which may get close to hitting that number are Chinese and Indian applicants.
Myth: You need to be fluent in Thai, and a well connected high flier.
Reality: Far from it. In the nicest possible way, many people who have PR are normal people you’d meet back home who have pretty normal jobs but who have decided that Thailand is going to be their home.
The level of Thai needed to pass the PR interview is a basic conversational level of Thai. If you are confident in talking about yourself for 10 minutes to government officials, then you’ll be fine.
Hello, thanks a lot for this helpful information!
Could I ask you one question, I heard what at Immigration Changwattana they have a special PR Desk where I can get the support in order to prepare all my documents, could someone give me the direction how can I find it there?
Thank you.
R.
Hi Roman,
There is a desk there, and when you arrive at the immigration department, just tell them you are there to apply for PR and they will give you a queue number and direct you to the correct desk.
Cheers
Chris
Thanks a lot, Chris! I was there, just thought there is another special desk for initial preparation. Cheers, Bordo.
Hi Chris, very good article. I have PR status myself but get very confused about admission fees to musea, temples, national parks and other attractions. Sometimes they let me in at the Thai citizen rate, sometimes I need to pay the tourist price depending on the person at the ticket counter. Is there an official guideline as to which entrace fees apply to PR holders ?
Dear Johan,
Thanks for reading! I don’t profess to be an expert on this, but I think the hard and fast rule is that discounts are only for Thai citizens and I’ve never seen anything in reference to PR holders (or indeed other long termers here). Obviously over the years exceptions have been made, but they have always been variable in their application and in recent years they have become stricter in making no exceptions at government run locations, such as national parks.
If it is a private organization and business, again it is hit and miss when it comes to double pricing/two tier pricing. Some are enlightened and broaden their scope to those who can prove they are resident in Thailand, normally hotels and the like (usually via a Drivers License or non-immigrant visa), while others are the opposite and I think there is a website out there by Richard Barrow which outlines all of those places.
Hi Chris,
Definitely the most in depth resource regarding the PR (even better than the immigration site). Thanks so much for this. The COVID situation is making me worry about my job situation and therefore I think that I should quickly apply for a PR in case I get laid off. I noticed that there’s about a 100k difference between getting the PR as a single and as a married person. I’m planning to get married next year. What happens if I apply as a single and then when it’s approved, I’m already married. Which amount do I pay? Any ideas? Also, I’m on a non-b visa renewed yearly currently. If I apply I understand that I’ll be getting a 180 day automatic visa. Is this concurrent with my non-b or will my non-b get cancelled?
Cheers,
Alex
Hi Alex,
Yes, the current situation has certainly made a lot of people look closely at how they can lock in their stay here in Thailand. In terms of your situation, it doesn’t hurt to ask, but I suspect if you applied as a single person you’ll be charged as such, even if your status changes.
In terms of your visa status, yes, you’ll switch over to the automatic 6 month PR in waiting extension.
Overall getting married helps you get on the express route to citizenship – after 3 years if you don’t have kids, 1 year if you do. Having said that, getting yourself PR at the moment is very prudent as it at least allows you to stay here without restriction, and as you say, you qualify right now.
Good luck with it all!
Thanks Chris. I remember that previously you had a pdf checklist of the documents required. Don’t see it anymore. The immigration website lists the documents required in Thai but it’s not available in english. Could you upload that again? Thanks!
Hi Alex,
The links and announcements are here https://www.thaicitizenship.com/thai-permanent-residency/. For the moment, the current checklist is only available in Thai on immigration website (see the PDF here), but if you go down they have an English version at their offices (go figure!). Having said that, you should be able to use google translate to translate the Thai checklist for you. Sorry I don’t have it on me and I’ll try and upload it shortly.
Thanks again Chris. I’m putting in my application tomorrow! It’s been a painful month of visiting various government offices (multiple times) and collecting the relevant documents but I’m glad it’s finally done! One thing I would suggest adding to your site is a warning regarding how difficult the process is if you decide to gather all the documents yourself instead of going through an agent.
Cheers man. You’ve been a great help!
Hi Alex,
Good luck tomorrow though I’m sure you’ve been to see the PR people a couple of times and know what is expected. In terms of the paperwork, thanks for sharing your experience. I think my main message is that for what they charge, agents provide no value to, what is, essentially a paper gathering exercise. Having said that, I’ve always said having a good assistant to do some of the more mundane running around is probably the best (and value for money!) option.
In any case, all the best and I’m sure you’ll be fine. Please let us know how it all goes.
Cheers
Chris
Hi
Can I ask which counter is the PR Counter please? For instance, M, N or another counter? The last time we went to Counter M in Cheangwattana immigration to ask, they all seem confused.
Or if anyone has used an agent to handle this successfully, can you recommend to me please?
Thank you very much for your help,
Peter
Hi Peter, normally there is a dedicated PR desk. I haven’t been there in a while so can’t answer you with certainty, but there will be one there. Maybe ask for the desk where you apply for ถิ่นที่อยู่ (Thin Thi You).
Hi Chris
Thank your for making very helpful article.
If you could let me know about the educational certificate for PR, I appreciate you.
I graduated at US university and have an official transcript in English from them.
My question is that can I use that ENG transcript without translate into Thai?
And if it is necessary to be translated, which government official can do as the officially certified document?
By the way, JPN Embassy said it took about 2 months to get Non-criminal proof from country,
so this year I might not be able to submit all necessary docs in time. (Cry)
Best regards,
Hi there,
You’ll need to have a chat with the PR desk to ask what will be acceptable in your case. From memory they educational certificates have to endorsed by the embassy from the country of the university (in your case the US embassy in BKK) and then be translated into Thai and certified by the MFA.
In terms of certain things being delayed, I know from the past that the PR desk does allow some documents like the one you mentioned to be handed in after the official application given they understand these things take time. But again, please check with them on their level of flexibility.