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Our Thailand Offices
UK Visas
UK Settlement Visas
UK Tourist Visas
UK Student Visas For Thais
UKBA Property Inspections
EEA EU Residents in UK
Further Leave To Remain
Indefinite Leave To Remain
Getting UK Citizenship
Illegal Immigrants in the UK
Appeals
Fees Scale And Online Payment
On Line Sponsorship Form
Info For Thais New To The UK
Arriving in the UK
Marry In Thailand
Schengen Visas
Thai Translations
Thai Traditional Weddings
UK PBS Tiers Introduction
PBS Tier 1 Work
PBS Tier 2 Work
PBS Tier 3 Work
PBS Tier 4 Students
PBS Tier 5 Young Workers
Thai and UK Calendar 2009
Thailand Travel Tips
Buddhism In Thai Daily Life
An Outline of Thai History
Gold in Thailand
The OISC Explained
FAQs and Links
Terms And Conditions
Contacting Us
| Information For Thais New To The UK |
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 Orchid of Siam are authorised to provide immigration advice and services by the Immigration Services Commissioner Ref. No. F200500016 Members of the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association.This page is designed to give general advice for people who are newly arrived in the UK from Thailand and their partners. We are often asked questions about flights to the UK. It is entirely possible to book a flight, single or return, from Bangkok via E-mail or online and charge it to your credit card. We supply the E-mail addresses of some Bangkok based agents who may be able to assist you in making a booking on our FAQ's page but we take no responsibility for any transaction you enter into nor do we recommend any particular agents. For many countries including Thailand you can book your tickets online. Look carefully for API (Advance Passenger Information) on the booking as you must enter your passport and other details at the time of booking or the airline may refuse you permission to board. All passenger travelling to the USA must get travel clearance whether they hold a visa or if they do not require a visa. This is called ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation.) This is valid for two years. Please go to: http://www.visitusa.org.uk/visitors/esta.apx if you are ordinarily resident in the UK. On arrival a new entrant to the UK will pass through immigration control at the airport of arrival even if they are in transit to another UK airport. The immigration officer will stamp the passport and give a date by which you must leave the UK if you are not arriving with a settlement visa. It is not unusual to request the sponsor, husband or fiancée to formally identify you before you are cleared and this person should ensure they have some identification on them, a passport or driving licence. Generally arrival in the UK is just a formality with no problems likely to occur. The TB test clearance should be carried in your hand luggage. In some instances you may be asked to register with your local Police. A wife on a settlement visa is fully entitled to all the benefits of treatment under the NHS from her date of arrival in the UK. She needs to register with a local GP and this is normally the same as her husband. She will then be sent a NHS number and medical card. This is not the same as a National Insurance number. Recently some surgeries are making it their policy not to register a wife with a GP until she has been in the UK for six months. You must check with your surgery on its policy. Tourists from Thailand are not normally entitled to use the NHS and should arrange appropriate insurance as health care costs are high. Dentists will accept anybody but most now charge for their services. If you are in receipt of some public funds the new arrival may be entitled to free treatment. A NI number is not automatically issued it must be applied for at your local Department of Work and Pensions (formerly known as Department of Social Security.) An application form must be completed and the applicant will then be asked to attend an interview. The issue of an NI number does not give the bearer the right to work if permission to do so has not been given by the UKBA. Applications for a NI number can be made by telephone on 08456000643. If you entered the UK as a fiancée and have married within the timescale granted by immigration you should contact the UKBA who will send you the form FLR(M) or you can download it from their site. They will then extend your visa by two years, after two years you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. Application must be made before the current visa expires. From 25th November 2008 UKBA are issuing an ID card instead of an endorsement in the passport. This card must be carried if travelling overseas and shown to immigration together with the passport on return to the UK. Married partners approaching two years of marriage currently in the UK should contact the UKBA for a settlement form SET(M) or download it from their website. The UKBA will then grant you indefinite leave to remain in the UK and permission to work or run your own business without any restrictions. The 'Life in the UK' test or an approved course must have been passed in order to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Once this permission has been granted it cannot normally be rescinded even if the couple divorce or separate and the bearer can do as they like in the UK with full rights as a British citizen. Applications must be made NO MORE than 28 days before the expiration of the current visa. Please note you will need at least 6 items to prove you are living together at the same address covering the whole two year period. This may include doctor's registration card with the NHS, Council Tax bill, gas bill, electricity bill, telephone bill, joint and/or seperate bank statements, correspondence from government departments etceteras. This list is not exhaustive. Please note that you are allowed to go on holiday or to work outside the UK during the two year probationary period, it is not a requirement that the applicant has lived in the UK for two years but it is a requirement that the marriage or partnership has lasted for two full years. Absences of 90 days or more from the UK in any one year may affect a later application for British Citizenship. On completion of three years residency in the UK as a spouse the foreign national can apply for British Citizenship to the UKBA. Once this has been granted she may apply for a British Passport. Under current UK legislation it is perfectly legal to have dual nationality and two passports. The three year rule is that you must have been in the UK at the start of the three year period. During the three year period absences from the UK must not have exceeded 270 days in total of which no more than 90 days can be in the last year before the date of submission of the application. On the day the application is received by the UKBA the applicant must have Indefinite Leave to Remain in their passport. You must not have been in breach of the immigration rules during your stay in the UK. The application can be made anytime after the three year period has ended and the UKBA treat your case as the three year period having finished on the date that the application is received by them. The Home Office website is: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk To request forms from the Home Office you can download them from the website or telephone 08702410645. Enquiries can be dealt with by telephone on 08706067766. Please also see our British Citizenship page for important information as this is NOT an automatic right. A child born to married parents may hold both a Thai and a UK Passport quite legally. Thai passports may be obtained from the local passport office in Thailand or from the Royal Thai Embassy in London. If the child was born outside Thailand the birth must first be registered with the Thai Embassy in the country of birth. Children travelling on a UK only passport to Thailand theoretically need a visa if staying over 30 days, however Thai law does not charge a child under 14 years of age with an overstay fine. It is perfectly permissible for a child to enter Thailand with only a UK passport and to apply for a Thai passport whilst in Thailand. It is normal that a newly arrived spouse and any children will have had their passports endorsed with the words 'No Recourse to Public Funds'. What this actually means is that that person cannot claim public funds in their own right. However if the husband is entitled to public funds he can claim for his wife and any children in his own right (a claim may not be granted for other than the insured person.) A claim for anyone other than the entitled person for Housing Benefit can jeopardise an application for further leave to remain or settlement in the UK. Free advice on public funds and the effect a claim may have on further applications to remain in the UK can be obtained from your local Citizens Advice Bureau. Income Support Jobseekers Allowance (There are two types - contribution based and income based - with different rules and amounts payable.) Housing Benefit Council Tax Benefit Child Tax Credit Child Benefit Disability Allowance Any Social Fund Payments Of these Child Tax Credit is the most likely benefit to be claimed by the sponsor of a new arrival in the UK. It is a right to claim it if you are in employment and it will have no effect on the visa. It has the advantage of allowing you to receive extra funds and may entitle you to free dental treatment and free prescriptions. It is a means tested allowance. The Department of Work & Pensions website is: http://www.dwp.gov.uk Education authorities do differ slightly across the country however normally a school- age child will be accepted into the school system irrespective of whether they have full settlement rights in the UK. If the child does not speak English or is very limited in English they will be assessed for special educational needs and extra tuition may be provided by the school often by an outside teacher. As a general rule of thumb young children up to about 10 years of age have a natural ability to learn a new language with no real effort and schools are well aware of this. In addition to private tuition which can be expensive most local adult education centres run inexpensive group courses for mixed nationalities. These courses give confidence and practical skills in the English language. Local libraries can usually provide details of courses available in your area. There are specialist oriental food shops all over the country but you will also find that the major supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury sell a wide selection of Thai foodstuffs including the staples such as rice, noodles, fish sauce, oyster sauce and some curries. The Chinatown areas of large cities sell a wide variety of Asian foodstuffs including Thai. All the main Thai TV companies can be received on a purchased dish and decoder. Thai TV is currently not available on a subscription basis. Thai TV can also be accessed via the internet please see: http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/stanti/index/index_index.html Thai newspapers can be read on the internet if you have a Thai browser on your computer. This is easy to download. One of the better Thai language newspaper sites is http://www.thairath.co.th For English readers http://www.bangkokpost.net and http://www.phuketgazette.net are good reads and sources of information. There are a few Thai temples stretching from Scotland to the South of England and the main one is situated in Wimbledon, London. A list of temples in the UK is to be found on our Buddhism in Daily Life page. There are no restrictions on Thai nationals owning or renting land or property in the UK. Whether or not a newly arrived Thai national may open a bank or building society account is at the discretion of the individual bank. The relationship between the British spouse and his bank will be an important factor. Generally a current or savings account can be opened and a debit card will be issued. A cheque guarantee card or a credit card will normally only be issued after you have full residency and have operated an account for at least six months. The traditional way to do this is by bank transfer however this is comparatively slow and expensive. Moneygrams from the Post Office or transfers by Western Union are extremely fast, normally the cash can be collected in Thailand 15 minutes after you have sent it, secure and not too expensive. It is most inadvisable to send cash by post even if it is registered. To save greatly on traditional bank charges and tourist rate exchange rates you should consider using a specialist currency dealer. For large amounts of cash or even for small regular transfers, such as a pension, the difference in costs and exchange rates are extraordinary. For example on a transfer of £1,000 to Thailand you can save approximately £90 in combined bank charges and exchange rate commissions over a high street bank's charges. Try these links for further details and to see how much you could save: For really good deals on sending foreign currency abroad please click on this banner:   For sending small sums regularly to Thailand you can open a bank or building society account that will provide you with a Visa debit card that you can leave in Thailand. When you want to send money just put the required amount in the bank and your partner can withdraw it using the card. This typically costs about 4.25% but bank rates do vary so it pays to shop around. Nationwide currently make no charge. Whilst there are telephone services available which are less expensive than British Telecom the best bet is to buy a pre-paid card of which there are many on the market. For example the South East Asia card comes in units of £5, £10 and £20. You dial the access number on the card, insert the PIN given on the card and then the number you wish to dial. These cards range from 1p per minute for calls to Bangkok, slightly more to up country or a mobile number. A good access number is 08442009898 which currently charges only half a p per minute. A Thai driving licence is not accepted by the UK authorities. An International driving licence is acceptable in theory. However an insurance company will not normally agree to insure a vehicle driven on this type of licence unless it belongs to a hire company. If a Thai national wishes to drive in the UK they should prepare for and sit the usual UK driving test. This type of visa allows a Thai national resident in the UK to travel freely between any of the signatory countries to the treaty. A Schengen visa issued by one country is valid for all countries in the treaty. The proviso is that the first point of entry should be the country that issued the visa, thereafter you can travel at will. The UK is not a signatory to the treaty and therefore a Thai National cannot enter the UK from a Schengen country on this type of visa. The Schengen countries are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden. Currently most Embassies do not charge for issuing a Schengen visa to the spouse of a UK national provided that either the English marriage certificate or the translation of the Thai marriage certificate (stamped as correct by the Thai Embassy) are produced at the time of application. If you are only visiting one country you can complete form EU 1 or EEA 1 which is a free family permit to allow your Thai wife and any children to travel with you for up to 90 days in one country. From 25th November 2008 the UKBA is issuing a biometric (fingerprints and photograph) ID card to non EEA people who qualify for further leave to remain as students, spouses, partners or their dependants. A vignette will not be stamped in their passports and the card holder must carry both their passport and ID card if they travel abroad and produce both on return to the UK at immigration. A holder of the photographic UK residency permit book may travel for up to three months within the EU on production of the permit and a valid passport without the need for a visa. There are some conditions attached and you should check with the Embassy of the country you intend to visit before travel. These rules are subject to change at short notice. THAI EMBASSIES & CONSULATES The Royal Thai Embassy 29/30 Queens Gate Kensington London SW75JB Tel: 02075892944 Fax: 02078239695 E-mail: thaiduto@btinternet.com http://www.thaiembassyuk.org.uk Royal Thai Consulate c/o Smith, Keen Cutler Exchange Buildings Stephenson Place Birmingham B24NN Tel: 01216439481 Fax: 01214493334 Royal Thai Consulate Empire House Mount Stuart Square Cardiff CF16DP Tel/Fax: 02920465777 Royal Thai Consulate 4 Woodside Place Charing Cross Glasgow G37QF Tel: 01412486677 Royal Thai Consulate Priory Court Saxon Way Hessle Hull HU139PB Tel: 01482581688 |
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