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Renewing a Thai Passport in the UK


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A word of warning if you intend to do this.

 

The wife has been here in the UK for almost five years and needs to replace her Thai passport. I go to the Thai Embassy web site and follow a link that allows me to make an online booking for an appointment date in December.  A box comes up confirming the booking when I click submit. So far so good. But I do not get a confirming email which is a bit strange as this is normal practice for online bookings. So I get the wife to call the embassy to speak to the passport office to double-check that the appointment is ok. This being Thailand and given that I have to travel down to London and stay overnight I think it better to be safe than sorry.

 

It took three days of calling before someone picked up the phone at the Embassy only to be told 'we don't take online bookings anymore since Covid and the next available booking is February 1, 2021.

 

So if you are in the same situation as us and need to get a new Thai passport, phone the embassy for an appointment and don't rely on the online booking system - or you might have a wasted journey.

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My wife renewed her passport in July. Appointment made by phone, not checked upon arrival at Embassy.

 

Not sure about now but, at that time, there was an issue with the renewal system between London and Bangkok. New passports were being issued in London, usually all applications sent to Bangkok, but passports only valid for one year.

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11 minutes ago, 7by7 said:

As Thais can enter Thailand on an expired Thai passport, suggest to you wife that she does what both my wife and daughter do and renew it next time she's there.

 

Quicker, easier and cheaper.

Would there not be an issue with staying in UK without a valid passport?

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7 minutes ago, youreavinalaff said:

Would there not be an issue with staying in UK without a valid passport?

The UK government is more interested in the validity of the stay based on the visa or BRP (aka leave to remain). Airlines normally allow an out of date passport of up to 6 months to be used on a journey back to the country of origin. Out of date passports of up to 6 months can also be used as proof of identity on UK internal flights, well Easyjet certainly did.

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You say she has been here for nearly five years, so presumably has a BRP which will expire at the end of that time. 

 

That BRP is still valid until it's expiry even if her passport has expired.

 

When she applies for ILR ( aka settlement) she will need to supply her current passport and any others which have expired since she first moved here. This is to check that she has been a UK resident for the last five years and not spent most of that time outside the UK.

 

Unfortunately, I can find no hard answer as to whether or not her current passport needs to still be valid; commercial sites differ and I cannot access the UKVI document guidance without completing the online application form!

 

Has her passport actually expired and when does her current leave expire? 

 

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