Six-year backlog, no new citizens in 30 months, and now a government review
It’s the ultimate prize, the holy grail for Thailand’s expats: a Thai passport. Freedom from visa and work permit renewals, full civil rights with the right to vote and own land – and, of course, the security of belonging to the country one calls home. Getting a Thai passport was always a bureaucratic gauntlet. Now it is mission impossible.
Thaigest has learned from the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) that it is only now reviewing naturalization applications filed in 2020. That is a six-year queue for a process the government’s own timetable says should take two years.
No foreigner has become Thai through ordinary naturalization since April 2024, the last time the Royal Gazette published a list of new citizens. And last month the Interior Ministry ordered a sweeping review of the entire citizenship system, which is certain to slow things further.
The government has not formally suspended applications. It doesn’t need to. In practice, the pipeline has stalled.
The numbers
Under the Nationality Act, a foreigner who naturalizes through the ordinary route becomes Thai only when the Interior Ministry’s announcement appears in the Royal Gazette. The announcement lists people who have received royal permission to become Thai. The oath of allegiance follows at Special Branch.
The last such list was published April 19, 2024, and named 211 people.
Before that, lists appeared at a steady pace:
- 2020: 173 people
- 2021: 191 people
- 2022: 175 people
- 2023: 85 people
- 2024: 211 people
In recent years, the longest gap between lists was about 14 months. The current gap is 30 months and counting.
The separate route for foreign women married to Thai men has also gone quiet. The last list of Section 9 approvals was published Dec. 12, 2024, and covered 31 women.
Across those five years, Thailand naturalized an average of about 170 people a year through the ordinary route. That is roughly 2.5 new citizens per million residents. The figures exclude foreign wives and stateless residents, who acquire nationality under separate procedures.
Germany naturalized a record 332,500 people in 2025, or about 4,000 per million residents. That is more than 1,500 times Thailand’s rate. Even Japan, among the most restrictive wealthy democracies, approved 9,258 naturalizations in 2025, which is about 30 times Thailand’s rate.
A review that raises the stakes
On Sept. 14, the Interior Ministry’s special task force on social order met in Bangkok and ordered an overhaul of the Thai-nationality application system. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Interior Minister Phonphi Suwannachawee, and fellow Deputy Interior Minister Worasit Liangprasit also took part.
Officials were told to review the system’s procedures, eligibility criteria and decision-making process. DOPA was ordered to check citizenship records from the past year for irregularities and loopholes. The findings are to feed into possible amendments to the 1965 Nationality Act. The government made the review public Sept. 17.
The order followed crackdowns on foreign nominee arrangements, in which Thais allegedly act as fronts for foreigners seeking to get around restrictions on land ownership and business. Officials said several cases involved foreigners who already held Thai citizenship.
For anyone seeking a Thai passport, the message is clear: more scrutiny, not less. The government has announced neither new eligibility criteria nor a new application procedure. The review could take months, if not years, and it comes on top of a backlog that already stretches back six years.
A warning shot
On Oct. 1, Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul revoked the Thai citizenship of Ariel Blustein, an Israeli-born gem dealer who naturalized in 2019.
The Interior Ministry said Blustein kept using his Israeli passport after becoming Thai and concealed his Uruguayan nationality when he applied. It cited Section 19 of the Nationality Act, which allows revocation on those grounds.
The message to naturalized Thais: citizenship can be withdrawn years after it is granted.
A slow road even before the freeze
Ministerial approval can take three to five years after an application is filed, the Bangkok Post reported this month. The DOPA backlog shows even that is now optimistic.
For most applicants, permanent residency is a prerequisite. It is capped at 100 approvals per nationality a year, and only about 200 to 300 people of all nationalities receive it annually, the paper said.
Wives still have the easier route
Thailand’s nationality law still treats foreign spouses differently depending on gender.
A foreign woman married to a Thai man does not naturalize at all. Under Section 9, she files a request and the interior minister decides at his discretion. She needs no permanent residency, no royal sanction and no oath of allegiance. The official timetable for her application is 475 days.
A foreign man married to a Thai woman must go through regular naturalization under Sections 10 and 11. He does not need permanent residency, and he is exempt from the five-year residence requirement and the statutory Thai-language requirement. He must still prove good conduct, a regular occupation and a minimum income, which advisers put at 40,000 baht a month. His application needs royal sanction, and he must swear the oath of allegiance. That puts him in the same six-year queue as every other ordinary applicant.
The Constitutional Court upheld the distinction in 2003. The Interior Ministry held a public hearing on revised criteria in September 2024, but as of November 2025 no new regulation had been issued, the legal monitoring group iLaw reported.
Thailand’s marriage equality law, in force since January 2025, required agencies to review spouse-related legislation within 180 days. That deadline passed without any change to the Nationality Act. Foreign same-sex spouses of Thai citizens cannot use Section 9 at all.
Far more men than women are affected. In April 2025, 703 foreign men registered marriages with Thai women, compared with 200 foreign women who married Thai men, according to Interior Ministry data reported by iLaw.
What applicants can do
Not much, except wait. Advisers say applicants should keep their work permits, income, tax filings and marriages in order until their names appear in the Gazette, however long that takes.
The department could end the guessing by publishing how many applications are pending and how long they take. Until it does, the numbers speak for themselves: about 170 new citizens a year at best, none at all for two and a half years, and a six-year queue.
Thailand’s citizenship door is not formally shut. For most applicants, though, it opens onto a potentially endless wait.
h/t: Asean Now forum