Are you looking for information on “how to apply for Dependent Visa” and what to prepare? Let me share what I have experienced here recently. 🙂

Our Case: 

• I am a Japanese
  – Applied a tourist visa in Japan and came to Thailand
• My husband is a Canadian, holding B-Visa

What you need:

• Copy of Marriage Certificate, Legalized by Japan Embassy and Ministry of Foreign of Thailand

How to get it:

1). Bring your marriage certificate (Family record: Koseki Tohon) to Japan Embassy in Bangkok.

Japan Embassy

Mon-Fri: 08:30-12:00 / 13:30-16:00
Near MRT Lumpini

Your marriage certificate has to be translated into English and also to be approved by your embassy.

• Cost: 390 Baht
• Time: 1 Hour

2). Now, you need to bring the paper to Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chaeng Wattana. One friendly warning is that the location is a bit tricky!

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Legalization Division

123 Chaeng Wattana Road,
Tel: 02-575-1056-1059
Hours: 08:30-14:30

My taxi driver dropped me off at Immigration (not where I needed to be!). I asked info. staff inside immigration and she wrote “Consular Affair Building” in Thai. I showed this piece of paper to a motorbike driver. It wasn’t far away, but far enough that I recommend not to walk from immigration.

You need to go to “Legalization Division”. It’s on 2nd floor. Tell the staff you need your marriage certificate to be legalized.

What you need: 

• Translated marriage certificate
• Copy of your passport
• 800 Baht for express service
  * I paid 400 Baht and they said to me it takes only 1 hour

You will get a seal on the back of your marriage certificate. Now you are ready to apply for Dependent Visa!

With documents of your husband and his company, go to Immigration in Chaeng Wattana and apply.

• Cost: 1900 Baht
• Apply: 10/Sep/2014
• Visa pick up: 24/Sep/2014 * takes about 2 weeks

You need to go back to immigration to actually get a stamp in your passport on the “pick up date”. Now you have 90-day O-Visa. My expiry date: 08/Dec/2014. Before your expiry date, you need to go to immigration near your husband’s employer to apply for renewal. I went down to another immigration office on 21/Nov/2014.

What you need:

• Copies of your passport (all pages)
• ID photo x 2
• Application fee: 1900 Baht

Immigration at Samutprakarn

Address: Amphoe Mueang Changwat Samutprakan 10270
Open: 08:30
It takes only a couple of hours

Strangely I was asked to show my original marriage certificate. In my case, it’s a Family Record (Koseki Tohon) which is written all in Japanese. I recommend to bring whatever you have just in case!

Hand in all the papers of your husband and his employer’s. It didn’t take too long, probably a few hours or even less. Finally I got my O-Visa for 1 year! Congrats to me!!

This photo was taken in front of immigration. Wait a min, I just realized that this is Chaopraya River! It was actually quite peaceful. 🙂

As we wanted to avoid any hassle, we had lawyers. Oh my… they are quite helpful. Since we are both non-Thai citizens and since there are so many things changing at the moment, I’m glad we had them. Trust me, it could give you a big time if things go wrong. Make sure you have enough time to do everything and try not to stress when you go through. 🙂

Hope this helps a bit for some of you. Wish you a good luck!