Obtaining Royal Thai Police Clearance

[Mogambi 96]

I have had two people now ask me how to obtain Thai Police clearance. I've decided to post here how we did it in case it's useful for others. Note that this assumes you are in Manila, and can access the DFA and the Thai Embassy there.

Procedure for obtaining Thai Police Clearance if you areliving in Manila.

Here is a brief outline of how we got our Thai PoliceClearance:

1) Get NBI Clearance from NBI Service Center

2) Get THREE full sets of fingerprints from a local policestation or NBI.

3) Take the above documents to the DFA to have themauthenticated.

4) Take them, along with other required documentation., tothe Thai Embassy.

5) The Thai embassy will keep your documents for about aweek.

6) Pick up your documents from the Thai Embassy.

7) Mail all the documents along with a self-addressedenvelope to Thailand.

8) The Royal Thai Police will send your police clearance inabout 3 to 4 weeks.

OK, so here's the detailed procedure:

Before you can apply for police clearance from the ThaiRoyal Police, you will need to have received the letter from the US Embassythat states you are now ready for an interview. Once you have this, you maybegin.

The first step is to get one NBI clearance, if you don'thave it already it, and three sets of fingerprint cards made. Really you shouldrequest at least three copies of your NBI, you will be needing them throughoutthe K1 process. You can get the fingerprint cards made at your local policestation, and possibly at the NBI as well.

Make sure that each card contains fingerprints of all ten ofyour fingers. Also it's very important that the police officer who takes yourfingerprints signs and prints his name on EACH card, and that it has the sealof either the police deparment or the NBI, wherever you had them made. Sobasically they have to be OFFICIAL fingerprint cards.

Now, you will have to take the NBI and fingerprint cards tothe Department of Foreign Affairs to get authenticated. The DFA is a terriblybusy place, and you should expect to spend some time there. You will need toleave the NBI and fingerprint cards at least overnight there to getauthenticated. You need to show ID, so bring your passport or other ID. Youwill pay a fee and get a receipt. The next day, or whenever they tell you theyare ready. The DFA is location at:

Department of Foreign Affairs

2330 Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, Philippines.

Their website is:

http://www.dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php

Next, in addition to the authenticated documents from theDFA, you will need to gather the following paperwork to bring with you to theThai Embassy in Makati. Begin to gather the following paperwork:

1) Your authenticated documents from the DFA from the abovesteps.

2) You must write a letter, addressed to the Thai Embassy, explainingwhy you are requesting police clearance. State that it is for a visa to theUnited States (K1, etc.) This letter should also explain the dates that youwere residing in Thailand, and what your business there was (studying orworking). Sign and date.

3) You will need a current resume. On it should list youraddress, phone number, email address, and biographical data such as the namesand birthdates of your parents and siblings. Sign and date. If you worked inThailand it should list your employer and the dates you worked there. If youstudied, then list the school you attended and the course(s) you studied.

4) A photocopy of the letter that you received from the USEmbassy stating that you are entitled to schedule an interview. (You shouldnote that this process will take between 4 to 6 weeks, so you should figurethat time into your scheduling an interview).

5) You will need a photocopy of all pages of your passport.And you will bring the original to the Embassy as well.

6) You will need a photocopy specifically of your student orwork visa, if applicable. The one you used in Thailand.

7) Four visa photographs, we used the same ones for the USVisa and had no problems. Those are 2 inches by 2 inches.

8) If you studied, bring a copy of either a diploma, degree,or receipt from the school.

Basically, bring whatever documentation will help show youresided, worked or studied in Thailand.

Once you have all of the above, bring them to the ThaiEmbassy in Makati:

Royal Thai Embassy - 107 Rada Street

Legaspi Village, Makati City, Metro Manila

(632) 815-4219

Their website is:

http://www.thaiembassymnl.ph/

If you arrive when they open at 9:30 am you shouldn't haveto wait too long. Arrive at 9 is even better. Tell them you need to havedocuments authenticated so you can send them to The Royal Thai Police, explainthat you're trying to get police clearance.

They will charge you, it could be several thousand pesos. Youwill leave all the documents with them for several working days.

Return on the date that they will tell you when you drop offyour documents. Now it's possible that they will not return all the documentsto you. You might be careful to ask. They didn't return to us the fingerprintcards, so we sent our police clearance request without them (sending in the NBIinstead). But the next step is to send the following to the Royal Thai PoliceHeadquarters in Bangkok. If the Thai Embassy didn't return any of the itemslisted below, you will need another copy.

You will need to send them the following, and this documentcan also be used to help you:

http://bangkok.usemb...policeapr09.pdf

But you will need to mail the following to the Royal Thai Police Headquarters:

1) Copy of your passport. If not all pages, at least thepages showing your biographical data, the page that shows your signature, andany pages that relate to Thailand (pages that show visas, entry or exit stamps,etc.)

2) A letter addressed to The Royal Thai Police Headquarters,explaining that you are requesting police clearance. Just use the same letteryou used for the embassy, and change the 'TO' area from the Thai Embassy to theRoyal Thai Police headquarters. Again it needs to list the dates you resided,worked or studied in Thailand.

3) Two visa photos (it's possible that the Thai Embassydidn't return yours, so be prepared with two more to go to Thailand.)

4) The three sets of fingerprint cards that should have beenreturned to you from the Thai Embassy. Note that the Thai Embassy didn't giveus back the fingerprint cards, and my fiancé didn't ask. So instead, we sent inthe authenticated NBI, and it seemed to work. But try and get back yourfingerprint cards, as that is what the Thai Police request.

5) An envelope with prepaid stamps. Here I got confused atfirst because how could you get Thai postage from the Philippines. What youactually have to do is to buy FIVE International Reply Coupons (also calledIRCs). You have to get these at the main Manila post office, the smaller postoffices won't have them, and won't know what they are. They cost about p200each. You send these five IRCs along with an envelope made out to you. InThailand, they will exchange the IRCs for the proper Thai postage.

You should probably use DHL or FedEx to send this package,so you have a tracking number and can verify it was received. DHL to Thailandmight cost you p2000 or more.

Mail this set of paperwork to :

The Police Clearance Service Center

Building 24, Royal Thai Police Headquarters

Rama I, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330

Thailand

Then sit back and wait. In 3 to 4 weeks, you should receiveback your police clearance. Luckily it will be in English, so you will not needto have it translated.

There is one thing to note. On the link I posted, to the PDFof the US Embassy in Thailand, it doesn't say anything about 1) having yourfingerprint cards or NBI authenticated at the DFA, and 2) it doesn't sayanything about having these documents 'blessed' by the Thai Embassy first.

So it's possible that you could simply gather the documentslisted from the link and send it off. All I know is when we talked to the ThaiEmbassy they assured us that we need to follow the procedure I've listed above.

We did get our Police Clearance, so I'm pretty sure at leastif you follow these instructions, it should work for you. But if you're feelingadventurous, you might try and just sending the listed documents to the RoyalThai Police Headquarters.

If you do, and it works, please post here so we know!

Edited May 30, 2012 by Mogambi

[ProfessorUSA 0]

Ok we are also in need of a Thailand Police clearance.

We are only at the NOA2 stage and have no documents from the embassy yet.

We have seen some folks get the clearance with just the NOA2.

Since there are stories of lost papers and many weeks to get the clearance we have decided to just go to Bangkok for two weeks (her not me I have to work lol) and apply for the clearance. She worked in Northern Thailand for an NGO for 7 months in 2011.

We may wait for the packet to arrive from the Embassy but have seen many get the clearance with only the NOA2.

Advice?

Money is not important - the flight is like 250 USD and hotels, nice ones, are around 50 USD a night. She will stay for 14 days long enought to drop off the PCC and get the approved PCC back in her hands.

We think we may have better luck, and reduce the wait (it is almost 10 months now since NOA1) by being in Thailand and taking care of this in person.

Praying this makes sense.

thanks

[Mogambi 96]

Makes sense, and we were prepared to do the same if need be. It took us a month after got the paperwork sent to Thailand, maybe 5 weeks. If you have enough time, it should be safe to do from Manila. But it will probably be easier yes to go to Thailand. Make sure she has some thing to show she was residing there, work permit, student permit, etc. Make sure she brings everything she'd need, it would suck to get there and realize they need some document she doesn't have!

[lhais 1]

Makes sense, and we were prepared to do the same if need be. It took us a month after got the paperwork sent to Thailand, maybe 5 weeks. If you have enough time, it should be safe to do from Manila. But it will probably be easier yes to go to Thailand. Make sure she has some thing to show she was residing there, work permit, student permit, etc. Make sure she brings everything she'd need, it would suck to get there and realize they need some document she doesn't have!

went to the Royal Thai embassy to get all my papers authenticated and to my surprise, i was told that they dont do the old procedure anymore, but to contact the Philippine embassy bangkok instead and get some info from them...i made a research online and found out from another forum that i could do apply by mail and they have new procedure effective October of 2012...the Royal Thai police charges 100 Baht ( about 150 pesos ) for every application made from their office, and can be paid through telegraphic transfer, send a sopy of the transfer together with all the documents listed from their website, 2 sets of fingerprints, id, request letter from embassy etc...

i will try this procedure and i hope it will work just fine, for i am trying to save as much as i can for this process... ( used to work in few countries in asia )

for those who wants to know the updated procedure visit the website of the Police Clearance Service Center in bangkok....

pcscenter.sb.police.go.th

[Mogambi 96]

Great, I hope it works out. Please do post back here, as this sounds simpler for sure than what we had to go through.

[lhais 1]

Great, I hope it works out. Please do post back here, as this sounds simpler for sure than what we had to go through.

Hi there...got my Thai Police certificate last week...it took 41 days from sending my documents to receiving the certificate...if my back did the telegraphic transfer just right, i could have it a little early...but thank God..it didn't get lost....one down 2 more to go...

Edited March 30, 2013 by lhais

[cdsmith 0]

Hi, first post here. Everyone might not agree with my wife and I, as we are going through RapidVisa to process her visa, but neither of us have any experience or anyone to help us with processing the visa. One of our hold ups has been getting a police clearance from Thailand, where my wife worked for 2 years. She is back home in the Philippines now. When she was still in Thailand, she went to the police station and asked for her police clearance report, but they would not give it to her unless she showed her work permit. So, she goes and asks her boss for the work permit, and her boss gives some BS reason saying that the agent is not able to be reached. Now that she is in the Philippines, she will have to fly from Mindinao to Manila to go to the Thai embassy to take care of this probably, but we still fear that we cannot get the police clearance. We have both tried dialing the Thai embassy in Manila's phone numbers and neither of us can get them to work. This is the number listed on the website: TEL: (632) 810-3833 loc. 102 or 103.. From the US I tried +63 02 810-3833, is that not right? She was trying a few different ways too from a mobile number not in the same area code and couldn't get an answer either. It's so frustrating and we are stuck, help please!

[Torch99999 6]

Sorry to necro-post, but has anyone gone through this process recently?

[Hank_ 9,171]

On 1/17/2015 at 2:37 AM, cdsmith said:

Hi, first post here. Everyone might not agree with my wife and I, as we are going through RapidVisa to process her visa, but neither of us have any experience or anyone to help us with processing the visa. One of our hold ups has been getting a police clearance from Thailand, where my wife worked for 2 years. She is back home in the Philippines now. When she was still in Thailand, she went to the police station and asked for her police clearance report, but they would not give it to her unless she showed her work permit. So, she goes and asks her boss for the work permit, and her boss gives some BS reason saying that the agent is not able to be reached. Now that she is in the Philippines, she will have to fly from Mindinao to Manila to go to the Thai embassy to take care of this probably, but we still fear that we cannot get the police clearance. We have both tried dialing the Thai embassy in Manila's phone numbers and neither of us can get them to work. This is the number listed on the website: TEL: (632) 810-3833 loc. 102 or 103.. From the US I tried +63 02 810-3833, is that not right? She was trying a few different ways too from a mobile number not in the same area code and couldn't get an answer either. It's so frustrating and we are stuck, help please!

Here is a link to the process for obtaining the police certificate.

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-by-Country/Thailand.html

 

Police Records

Available. Police certificates are obtainable from:

Section 3, Sub-Division 2. General Staff Division
Special Branch
Royal Thai Police Department
Rama I Road
Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330

 

Residents of Thailand requesting a Thai police certificate will need to present two recent photographs (2 inch x 2 inch), the original and a copy of his/her passport, identification card, household registration, name change certificate (if any), marriage and divorce certificate (if any). Thai males aged 17-45 must also present military record or proof of exemption from military service.

 

Non-residents should send their requests to the Royal Thai Police Department at the above address with the required documents and a fingerprint taken by a police authority at their place of residence.

Normal processing time is two to three weeks. There is no processing fee.

[VIL 0]

On 1/18/2013 at 6:43 AM, Mogambi said:

Makes sense, and we were prepared to do the same if need be. It took us a month after got the paperwork sent to Thailand, maybe 5 weeks. If you have enough time, it should be safe to do from Manila. But it will probably be easier yes to go to Thailand. Make sure she has some thing to show she was residing there, work permit, student permit, etc. Make sure she brings everything she'd need, it would suck to get there and realize they need some document she doesn't have!

I worked in Thailand around 1970's and lost all my proof of residence. Would you think that the Birth Certificate if my children born there is enough as a proof of my previous residence?

Edited July 8, 2018 by VIL