Canadian citizenship entitles you to get a marriage visa to marry your Thai wife and sponsor her application for marriage immigration to Canada. Applying for a marriage visa and preparing for marriage immigration can be a time consuming task and you will need to be organized particularly with your Canada documents. To qualify for a spouse visa you must fulfill these basic criteria:

• You must be a Canadian citizen or legal permanent resident aged 18 years or over
• You must be financially independent and able to support her for 3 years after she gets her permanent residency
• You must also support any dependent children for 10 years or until they are 25
• You must have adequate housing where you, your Thai wife and any dependants can live without relying on state benefits

When you marry your Thai bride, you can legalise your Thailand marriage in Canada.

Getting Ready for Marriage Immigration

Before you leave Canada for Thailand, need to prepare for marriage immigration. You should go in person to your local Registrar of Marriages to obtain an Affidavit of Marital Status. This certificate proves your single status by confirming that you are not still involved in matrimony with another spouse. You can use it within 3 months of the date of issue.

If you fail to do this in Canada, you can do it in the Canadian Embassy in Thailand prior to getting a Thai marriage licence.

You will also need an original or certified copy your Birth Certificate.

If you have been married before you must produce one of the following documents to support the Affidavit of Marital Status:

• If divorced, you will need your Divorce Decree
• if widowed you will need your Certificate of Marriage and Death Certificate of your previous spouse

Changing Your Canada Documents

When official documents issued in Canada are to be used in Thailand, they need to be notarised, “authenticated” and “legalised “in order for them to be valid there.

The first thing you need to do is get a notary stamp and signature from any notary in Canada. Get them “authenticated” by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). The purpose of the authentication process is to prove the validity of the documents issued in Canada.

Your documents have to be translated into Thai by a qualified translator and “legalised” by the Thailand Embassy. After that your documents acquire legal validity in Thailand.

Documents in Need of Legalisation for Marriage in Thailand

• Affidavit of Marital Status
• Divorce Decree (if relevant)
• Former Spouse’s Death Certificate and previous marriage certificate (if relevant)
• Your Birth Certificate
• Name change certificate (if relevant)
• Your Canadian passport cannot be legalised as it is already an internationally recognised document. You must however have photocopies of the ID and bio page notarised as true copies of the original.

Thai Visa Requirements

As a Canadian citizen you do not need a visa to visit Thailand, providing that your stay does not exceed 30 days. Your passport must be valid for at least six months after the 30 day period and have at least two blank pages. You must have a return ticket or ticket to another destination outside of Thailand as well as enough money to support your stay in the country; the Thai immigration authorities expect you to have 20,000 baht to support your stay in Thailand. If you want an extended stay of up to 60 days in Thailand, you should apply for a Tourist Visa from the Thailand Embassy. If you intend on staying in Thailand over 60 days, you must apply for a Non-Immigrant category ‘O’ Visa.

Once you have prepared all relevant documents and you have a valid Canadian passport, you may make arrangements to fly to Thailand to join your Thai spouse.

Getting Married in Thailand

You may decide to marry your Chinese fiancée in Canada, however, getting married in Thailand is a fabulous experience and relatively straight forward, providing you are organised and ensure that you and your Thai bride have the correct documentation.

Whilst your Thai bride is excited about planning the marriage ceremony you should make her aware that under both Canadian and Thai Marriage law only the civil registration of your marriage will be recognised as legal and only a legal marriage will allow you to bring your Thai wife back to Canada.

To register the marriage legally in Thailand takes a lot of work and you should not underestimate the time or work involved.

The legal age for marriage in Thailand is 17, but anyone under 20 years of age must obtain written consent from her parents or guardians. This should be given personally and in writing in front of the local civil registrar officer. Alternatively, it can be in the form of an affidavit made in the presence of two witnesses.

To register the marriage legally in Thailand takes a lot of work and you should not underestimate the time or work involved. You must have been resident in Thailand for at least three days before you get married.

The first step in planning your wedding in Thailand is to go to the Registrar of Marriages in any District or Minor District Office (known in Thai as an ‘amphur‘) across Thailand. You should take your passport and all of the documents you brought with you from Canada. Your Thai bride needs to take her passport and ID card, original House Registration Certificate, which verifies her address, her birth certificate and proof that she is no longer married.

You will need two witnesses, who are not family members but these can be provided by the Registrar for a small cost. Once the marriage registration is completed, each party will be given a copy of the Marriage Registration Certificate as evidence. If it is not possible to get to the Registrar’s office you can ask the Registrar to register the marriage at a different venue under the supervision of that area’s District Office. There is a service fee for the Registrar of 200 baht and you must also pay his / her travel expenses. You must have been resident in Thailand for at least three days before you get married.

Document Check: Canadian Bridegroom

• Affidavit of Marital Status translated and certified – you should fill out a copy from this website first and take it to the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok
• Original valid Canadian passport
• Original birth certificate, legalized and translated
• Original death certificate of deceased spouse if widowed, legalized and translated
• Original divorce decree/annulment papers, legalized and translated

Document Check: Thai Bride

• Original valid passport and ID card
• Original House Registration Certificate (known as a ‘Tabien Baan’), which verifies her address
• Original birth certificate
• Original death certificate of deceased spouse if widowed
• Divorce decree or annulment if previously divorced

Marriage to your Thai fiancée does not automatically qualify you for Thai nationality; you should also be aware that Thailand does not recognise dual citizenship.

Permanent Resident Application

When your wife comes to Canada she can change her name to that of your own and you can start the marriage

visa process. Any Canadian man wishing to bring his Thai wife to Canada must sponsor her for permanent residence. The process takes between 6 and 18 months. Sponsorship is a part of the Canadian immigration system that allows individuals to come to Canada under the Family Class of immigration.

In your case, you will sponsor your Thai wife to Canada, as long as you meet the requirements of a sponsor. Sponsorship is an agreement between the Canadian government and you. This agreement is a promise on the part of the sponsor that you will provide your Thai wife with food, clothes and shelter i.e. all of the basic requirements in order to live in Canada.

The sponsorship agreement includes financial support and health care because your Thai wife will have no access to the social care system. In the sponsorship agreement you promise to sponsor your spouse for at least three years from the day she becomes a permanent resident. You also have to sponsor any dependent children moving with her to Canada for a period of 10 years or until they are 25, whichever comes first.

Spousal Sponsorship Requirements

To qualify as a sponsor, you must meet the following requirements:

1. You are over 18 years old and a Canadian citizen or permanent resident living in Canada.
2. You are single and free to marry
3. You have married a Thai bride in Thailand and intend to live in Canada with her.
4. You are not on any Social Assistance program
5. You are not in default of any previous sponsorship agreement
6. You have sufficient funds and you are not bankrupt
7. You are not in prison

You may not qualify if one of the following points applies to your situation:

• You previously failed to provide financial support when you signed a sponsorship agreement to sponsor another relative
• You failed to pay alimony or child support
• You received government financial assistance for reasons other than disability
• You were convicted of a violent criminal offence, an offence against a relative or a sexual offence
• You failed to make payments for an immigration loan
• You have declared bankruptcy and have not recovered from it yet.

If you qualify for spousal sponsorship, you can fill out the application forms available from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). You can download the documents here or have them mailed to you. Read the guide and complete the application. Remember to support the application with relevant documents.

Canada Visa Application

Your Thai wife must fill out the immigration forms. As part of the application process, she will need to undergo a medical exam and a criminal check. The medical exam is required to make sure that applicants do not have a medical condition that is dangerous to Canadian public health and safety, or would require elaborate treatment by the Canadian health services. The examination results are valid for 12 months and need to be done by authorised doctors. Your Thai wife must present a valid police certificate from the Special Branch of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok showing she has no criminal record.

The next step is to pay you application fee to CIC. You can pay your fees by bank transfer or online. If you choose to pay at the bank, you have to order a receipt of payment, also called immigration form IMM 5401. Remember to bring this form with you to the bank when you pay your fees. If you pay online, make sure you print the receipt of payment form and include it with your application.

Visa Application Fees

The marriage visa application fees are as follows:

• $75 for you as a sponsor
  $475 for your Thai wife
• $150 for a dependent child your thai wife who is under 22 and not married
• $550 for a dependant of your Thai wife who is 22 or older, or who is under 22 and married $490 for the right of permanent residence fee which your wife will be have to pay before the status is granted.

The last step is to mail your application along with the receipt for the fees paid and all supporting documents to the CIC Case Processing Centre (CPC) in Mississauga, Ontario. You will be notified when your application is received and you can check the status of your application online.

After your wife has held her permanent resident status for three years, she is eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship.

Applications are refused if you provide false information on your application form.