Is Visa required if ....

[Guest]

Count me as one of the hopeless jerkoffs mentioned above. so, if I am married to and supporting a Thai lady, the marriage is registered in Thailand and she has three kids all of whom I support and send to private schools, none of them mine I am eligible for a type O dependent visa? Yes? No? Remember, not my kids. I have moderate unreported income in Thailand and a moderate amount of US dollars coming to me in cash from the US every month.

[OldAsiaHand]

For what it's worth, DB seems to me to have it all pretty straight. Just two thoughts on his comments:

First, my wife and I were married outside Thailand and have never registered the marriage here. I've always submitted a copy of the foreign marriage certificate with a translation in my application package, and it's never been questioned. Certainly we've never been asked for any evidence of registration in Thailand by anyone.

Second, I had never included our children (both born in Thailand) in my usual visa application package until a couple of years ago when the fixer told me I ought to do that. He insisted that was more 'automatic' than a marraige-based application, presumably because of the Thai-issued birth certificates. Nothing was ever said about financial evidence of 'support', and I gathered it was the existence of the birth certificates naming me as the father that mattered and that a presumption of support resulted from that.

As for what would happen if you support children (either your own or your GF's) without being married, well... you got me there. I have no experience at all with those circumstances and can't really offer any advice. Sounds to me like it might be worth a try, however. Some of these fixers can do a lot with a little.