nonthaburi

I am planning to move to Saudi Arabia next year sometime and I am married to a Thai although both my children have dual nationality. Due to various long running disputes between Thailand and Saudi Arabia diplomatic relations are not very good. As an example, ten years ago around 350,000 Thais lived and worked in Saudi but now the number is around 10,000. Obviously if I come I want to come with my family so my question is this. Does anybody have experience of or know of someone married to a Thai and how easily if at all they obtained a spouse visa for their partner. A bit of an obscure question I know but there might be someone out there. Thanks

coffindodger

Have you spoken to the Saudi / Thai embassy for any real info ???

nonthaburi

No I haven't. Not going until next year so nothing too concrete yet. I just thought there might be someone out there with some real experience of this. In all my experience with visas sometimes things can be a bit hit and miss depending on who you see and what office you go to and things like that so I was wondering what different experiences if any might be out there.

lionheart

Are you a UK passport holder yourself? If so then I don't think the nationality of your family will be a problem so long as they aere not Israeli. They cracked down on giving work visas to young Thai women going to Saudi as house maids. I can't think why. So long as you can get your marriage certificate attested, I don't see any problems.

nonthaburi

I am a UK passport holder if that means anything. What do you mean by getting the marriage certificate attested ? Is that where I have to get it translated into Arabic and then verified by the Saudi embassy or something like that ?
Regarding Saudi Arabia not giving out visas to Thais it all started in the early nineties when a Thai working as hired help for a Saudi prince managed to steal about seven million pounds worth of jewellry and get back to Thailand with it. It all rumbled on for a while and the police in Thailand eventually caught the guy and some of loot, but not all of it. The man did about ten years in prison and is now out and a free man. However, what made this case interesting was the fact that some of the recovered goods went missing as well. As in the police took it and some of this has not been recovered and even now the Thai justice system is trying to make a case against the officers in question but they are running out of time due to a statute of limitations.
There was also the case of a top Saudi diplomat being murdered in Bangkok at the same time as two Saudi businessmen. No one has ever been caught for these two crimes and there were rumours of various dodgy dealings and underhand goings on.
The Saudi authorities have made it clear that unless there is progress on all of this then there will be no thaw in diplomatic realations anytime soon. Hence the lack of visas for Thais. As I said in my original post, ten years ago there were about 350,000 Thais in KSA but now there are only about 10,000. Hope that clears everything up.
Just out of interest, but for as long as I have been in Thailand (about ten years ) all this has been major news here. What has been reported in KSA if anything ?

Bonny Boy

I've been in KSA for a year and seen nothing in the papers on these subjects.

In the last week there was an article that all Saudi Nationals have been told to get out of Thailand as a result of the pro-Thaksin demonstrations - which seems a bit over the top, so possibly other reasons.

As you state, work visas may be hard to come by, but a spouse visa is different - you won't know until you apply.