Does having 'yellow book' with my residence as my wife's home exempt me from 90 day reporting?

Stargazer

Surin Legend
After two years of attempting to accumulate enough official stamps verifying our USA marriage certificate (long story below), I now possess a yellow book ('Copy of House Registration') listing me (in Thai) as 'A person living in Thailand either illegally or on a temporary basis' at the top. :fearscream:

Unfortunately, I'm unclear as to what exactly all this effort has gained me.

Does this now exempt me from 90 day reporting? God, I hope so after all this effort!

Long story, in case any new USA farang husbands are interested: we originally took our certified marriage certificate from the USA (along with a certified translation) to our local Department of Administrative Affairs in Rattanaburi near Surin City. (in the USA, marriage certificates are a county matter, not state or federal, so an official copy is all you can get from the county recorder, stamped and signed). They said it needed to be legalized. The Office of Consular Services said they wanted a notarized letter from the US Embassy before they would do it. The US Embassy said that all they are willing to do is give you a paper saying you had shown up, and showed them the certificate, which they could not verify, after you pay them $60USD. Meaningless. And, during Covid, unavailable.

The Thai government states that an alternative method of 'legalization' is to have a document certified by your State and then Federal government, and then by a Thai Embassy in USA. So we schlepped the official marriage certificate to the State, and it came back stamped, with a disclaimer that they had not verified it. Then it went to the US Secretary of State, who signed it with the same disclaimer. Then it went to the Thai Embassy in Los Angeles, same disclaim, but by now it had 4 official stamps certifying nothing.

We took it to our local office once more, and they said that it was not adequate, that it must also be stamped by the Office of Consular Services in Bangkok. So on our most recent pass through Bangkok on the way in, we did this. Official stamp disclaiming veracity of certificate, but legalizing it. So the local officials held that the 'alternate legalization' path was not acceptable.

Then yesterday, we spent the better part of a day in the local office filling and signing out reams of paper forms in Thai (I have no idea what I agreed to) in quadruplicate, and then being grilled by a rather skeptical official who questioned why the marriage certificate wasn't dated this year (we explained that there is only one original marriage certificate on record, and they just give certified copies of it).

Does anyone know where the giant warehouses are where all this paperwork is stored? The administrative overhead is truly boggling. In the USA, if you are admitted with a visa, you're free to travel without reporting to the police, which is nice for tourism. One might think that it was beneficial to Thailand to have stable long term marriages to foreigners who bring in lots of cash to the Thai economy, so why not make it easier to spend time here? Just saying. I've read that 60% of the gross product of Isaan comes from farang husbands.

I'm sticking with my annual 'Retirement Visa' renewals, as forum members have told me that the annual renewal for a 'marriage visa' is complex and time-consuming. I wish there was some long term visa available, as in the USA (my wife gets 10 years permanent residence between renewals).
 
The Yellow book (and pink card) are simply house registration documents and nothing to do with Immigration.


You may be able to use one, or the other/both, as evidence of address when you do your extension.
 
Irrelevant as far as my post is concerned. That referred to someone has the Yellow Book......



But, yes.

I was only thinking - obtaining a letter from Immigration to prove your address to obtain the yellow book and then going back to Immigration with said yellow book to prove your address to Immigration?

Although I take my yellow book (and pink I.D.) to Immigration for my yearly extension I have never offered it, nor been asked to show it (not every Farang has them, of course).
 
No, a Yellow Book does not absolve you from doing the 90-day report. However, that is no longer as onerous as it once was and the new online application is very easy to use.

However, the Yellow Book is good for obtaining/renewing your driving license, without which you need a letter from Immigration as proof of address. To obtain that said letter from Immigration you need a letter from the Driving License Center saying that you need a letter verifying your address from Immigration. So, yes a Yellow Book is most useful and does save a certain amount of messing around. It is also good if you are buying a car in your own name. The Yellow Book will facilitate the registration of that vehicle in your name at the Driving Licensing Center.

As to easy extensions to your extensions to stay - forget it! It is a pain in the arse and has been for me for the past 17 years. I will be submitting my 18th extension of stay in a couple of months' time. Of the two, an extension based on retirement is usually a lot easier than an extension based on marriage and can be accomplished with one visit to the Immigration Office. An extension based on marriage will require at least two visits to the Immigration Office. Some good news for you, the new Immigration Office on Surin's Ring Road is half the distance from Rattanaburi as the old Immigration Office in Kap Cheong. :)

P.S. Just a thought. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by getting married again in Thailand. An overnight stop in Bangkok, an early start at the MFA in Chang Wattana, plus the use of the local translation services outside the MFA, and the job could have been accomplished for around 10,000 baht (I am told.) When I used that method it was only 3,000 baht but that was 18 years ago. We were married the same day in the Nonthanburi Town Hall, all fixed by the broker!
 
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The Yellow Book is good for obtaining/renewing your driving license....

Not in Surin DLT, in my experience. They will only accept the pink I.D. as proof of address or a letter from Immigration. The yellow book is not accepted.

Prassat DLT accepted the yellow book as proof of address in the past but whether that is still so, I don't know.
 
I am in the blue book, but have never had any use for it any more than I imagine I would have needed a yellow book as an alternative. The Pink card comes in useful and despite the fact it is only valid for use in the province of issue, I have used it in many different provinces or checking into hotels without the need to show my passport. Only Air Asia have refused to accept it, and that was at Buriram airport -the province of issue!!!!!!!!!
 
Not in Surin DLT, in my experience. They will only accept the pink I.D. as proof of address or a letter from Immigration. The yellow book is not accepted.

Prassat DLT accepted the yellow book as proof of address in the past but whether that is still so, I don't know.
I used my Yellow Book before I obtained the Pink Card. But I do agree, I use my Pink Card for most places these days. It's useful as Nick says, and I also use mine for medical appointments at various doctors, dentists, and hospitals.
 
Thanks, all. สีสัน. I'm undisputably a farang, with blue USA passport, driving and pilot's licenses, yellow residence book 'copy', multicolor Thai drivers license, and I should get a pink card, too? I think having a สีกาแฟมอคค่า wife and grandson is colorful enough for now. I probably was in violation of the 90 day rule last year, as the online site was not working (at least for me). But it didn't come up in my retirement visa renewal. In our case, I get a free 90 days on arrival each October, so probably only need one renewal before we leave in April.

Does staying at a Bangkok hotel in the middle (or Koh Chang, or Phuket) re-set the 90 days or not?

I guess we'll try the Surin Ring Road immigration office this year. I kind of like the little office at Kap Cheong. Anything is better than the long lines in Bangkok.

All the effort to do this reminds me of the German guy I met in Sukhumvit 5 years ago who, when I told him I was getting married to an Isaan girl, told me it was cheaper to rent Thai women than be married to them. I subsequently learned that he was understating the case. ฿฿:sweatsmile:;)฿฿
 
No, a Yellow Book does not absolve you from doing the 90-day report. However, that is no longer as onerous as it once was and the new online application is very easy to use.

However, the Yellow Book is good for obtaining/renewing your driving license, without which you need a letter from Immigration as proof of address. To obtain that said letter from Immigration you need a letter from the Driving License Center saying that you need a letter verifying your address from Immigration. So, yes a Yellow Book is most useful and does save a certain amount of messing around. It is also good if you are buying a car in your own name. The Yellow Book will facilitate the registration of that vehicle in your name at the Driving Licensing Center.

As to easy extensions to your extensions to stay - forget it! It is a pain in the arse and has been for me for the past 17 years. I will be submitting my 18th extension of stay in a couple of months' time. Of the two, an extension based on retirement is usually a lot easier than an extension based on marriage and can be accomplished with one visit to the Immigration Office. An extension based on marriage will require at least two visits to the Immigration Office. Some good news for you, the new Immigration Office on Surin's Ring Road is half the distance from Rattanaburi as the old Immigration Office in Kap Cheong. :)

P.S. Just a thought. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by getting married again in Thailand. An overnight stop in Bangkok, an early start at the MFA in Chang Wattana, plus the use of the local translation services outside the MFA, and the job could have been accomplished for around 10,000 baht (I am told.) When I used that method it was only 3,000 baht but that was 18 years ago. We were married the same day in the Nonthanburi Town Hall, all fixed by the broker!
Stop thinking Nomad :blush:

You think you can sign the affirmation that you are not married?

A yellow book would save me faff every 5 years, other than that I am not disadvantaged.


I don't think that the expense of a wedding justifies that ..
 
I was only thinking - obtaining a letter from Immigration to prove your address to obtain the yellow book and then going back to Immigration with said yellow book to prove your address to Immigration?

Although I take my yellow book (and pink I.D.) to Immigration for my yearly extension I have never offered it, nor been asked to show it (not every Farang has them, of course).

There is a logic to your first paragraph if you do think about it.

With regard to the second paragraph I imagine that Mrs Yorky is superior to any yellow, pink - or rainbow coloured document.
 
I don't think that the expense of a wedding justifies that ..

Both my Thai marriages cost me trips to Bangkok (one passing through and one specific for the affirmation). In addition to that I paid ฿50.00 each at the Amphur fot the actual marriages. However, in addition, for the first I put ฿500.00 behind the Berlin Bar for a round of drinks. As there was only the two of us and Frank there, I got ฿50.00 change.
 
Then you are dead in the water.

The principle of getting a central authority to certify something for wider use is not a Thai thing - or Thai logic (another oxymoron)

The central authority (I guess that is Thai Immigration) certified my address in order for me to obtain a yellow book to prove my address. Then I take that yellow book (which certifies my address) back to Immigration (who certified my address in the first instance) to prove my address. If I didn't have the yellow book to prove my address I could ask Thai Immigration to provide me a letter certifying my address. Does that make sense to you?
 
The central authority (I guess that is Thai Immigration) certified my address in order for me to obtain a yellow book to prove my address. Then I take that yellow book (which certifies my address) back to Immigration (who certified my address in the first instance) to prove my address. If I didn't have the yellow book to prove my address I could ask Thai Immigration to provide me a letter certifying my address. Does that make sense to you?
I've still got my yellow book from the 'monument in Surin' that I lost in the last divorce! 555
 
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