Notary Public Bangkok — Licensed Notarial Services Attorney

A complete reference for international notary work in Bangkok

Thai Notary Law & Service Co., Ltd. is a Bangkok-based law firm specialising in cross-border notarial work for individuals, expatriate families, foreign-invested companies, and overseas law firms that need a reliable Notary Public partner in Thailand. Every certificate we issue is signed by a Notarial Services Attorney registered with the Lawyers Council of Thailand under Regulation B.E. 2546, recorded in the official logbook, and engineered for the destination authority that will actually receive it.

This page is the long-form English reference for our notarial services. It covers the legal basis of the Thai Notary Public system, the precise authentication chain Thai documents must follow when going abroad, every category of service we provide, our standard workflow, the destination countries and Bangkok embassies we work with most often, transparent pricing, and the mistakes that most often cause foreign embassies to reject otherwise correct documents.

The legal basis of Notary Public work in Thailand

Thailand does not operate a civil-law notariat the way Germany, France or Japan do. Instead, the Lawyers Council of Thailand — established under the Lawyers Act B.E. 2528 (1985) — accredits a sub-class of practising attorneys as Notarial Services Attorneys under its Regulation B.E. 2546 (2003). Only attorneys who hold both a current practising certificate AND the Notarial Services Attorney accreditation may apply a notarial seal that foreign authorities will recognise.

Our firm operates with six accredited Notarial Services Attorneys. Each holds an attorney's licence verifiable directly with the Lawyers Council and has completed the Council's specialised training in signature authentication, certified copy verification, oath administration and corporate document certification. Every notarial act we perform is logged in a permanent register that is subject to inspection by the Council and that can be cross-referenced by any embassy or counterparty that has a question about a document we have issued.

The seven powers granted under Regulation B.E. 2546 are: (1) signature authentication; (2) certified true copy of documents; (3) certification of corporate and entity documents; (4) authentication of person and life certificates; (5) administering oaths and certifying affidavits; (6) certifying translations; and (7) protest of negotiable instruments. Anything outside these seven categories is, strictly speaking, outside the scope of a Thai Notary Public — and we will tell you so up front rather than issue a certificate that the destination authority is likely to reject.

The full Thai legalisation chain — Notary → MFA → Embassy

The single most important fact for any foreign client to understand is that Thailand is not a member of the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention. There is no apostille for Thai-issued documents. Instead, every Thai document destined for use abroad must travel through a multi-step authentication chain. Skipping any step in that chain is the most common reason foreign embassies and counterparties send documents back.

We coordinate the entire chain in a single engagement so that nothing is lost between providers. You hand us the originals once; we hand you back a fully assembled, embassy-ready package.

• Step 1 — Notary Public: a registered Notarial Services Attorney certifies the signature, copy, translation, oath or corporate document
• Step 2 — Department of Consular Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs): the MFA authenticates the seal and signature of the notary
• Step 3 — Destination embassy in Bangkok: the embassy of the country where the document will be used confirms the Thai-side authentication
• Step 4 — Optional certified translation into the destination language, performed by a sworn translator and re-certified by the notary
• Step 5 — Tracked international courier delivery to the receiving authority, law firm, university, bank or counterparty abroad
• Step 6 — Optional escalation handling if the receiving authority queries any element of the chain

Every category of work we cover

We provide the full range of notarial services contemplated under Lawyers Council Regulation B.E. 2546, plus the supporting work most clients need around it. Tell us the destination and the purpose, and we will tell you which combination applies to your case.

• Signature Authentication — Powers of Attorney, contracts, sponsor letters, affidavits of single status, consents
• Certified True Copy — passport, ID, house registration, birth/marriage/death certificates, name-change certificates, transcripts, diplomas, bank statements
• Corporate Document Certification — affidavits, BOJ.5 shareholder lists, MOA, board resolutions, secretary certificates, cross-border POAs
• Authentication of Person and Life Certificates — overseas pension proof, inheritance entitlement, beneficiary verification
• Oath, Affirmation and Affidavit — sworn statements for foreign courts, immigration, family-law and commercial matters
• Certified Translation — bilingual or multilingual translations re-certified by a Notarial Services Attorney for use abroad
• Protest of Negotiable Instruments — formal protest under the Civil and Commercial Code for dishonoured bills and instruments
• Notary for visa applications — every embassy in Bangkok, every visa category, with pre-screening against the embassy's current checklist
• Notary for embassy legalisation — full chain handling for any of the 70+ Bangkok-based embassies we work with regularly
• Mobile Notary — the attorney travels to your home, condo, hotel, hospital or office across Bangkok and Greater Bangkok

Our six-step workflow, end to end

Whether you are a walk-in client at our Wang Thonglang head office, a corporate client in Sathorn, or an overseas client coordinating remotely, the same six-step workflow applies. Predictability is the point: we want you to know exactly what happens at each step and what you receive at the end.

1. Intake and quote: you send a clear photo or PDF of the document via LINE @Thainotary, email, or in person. In business hours we typically reply within three minutes with a confirmation of the destination, the certification path required, the indicative fee, and a list of what to bring.
2. Booking: we agree on whether you will attend in person, whether a mobile-notary visit makes sense, or whether the matter can be handled by courier. For corporate matters we coordinate directly with your in-house counsel or external law firm.
3. Identity and document verification: at the appointment, the notary inspects your original passport or national ID, examines every page of the underlying document, and walks you through the exact wording of the certification before any signing takes place.
4. Signing, sealing and logging: you sign in the notary's physical presence, the notary applies the certified wording, signs and seals each set, and records the act in the official Notarial Services Attorney logbook with a register number you can quote back to the receiving authority.
5. Onward legalisation: where the destination requires Department of Consular Affairs authentication and / or embassy attestation, we run the document through both steps in the same engagement on your behalf.
6. Delivery and aftercare: the completed pack is delivered by tracked courier anywhere in Thailand or worldwide, and we remain on call if the receiving authority has follow-up questions.

Destinations and Bangkok embassies we work with most often

Documents we certify are accepted globally. The destinations our international clients file in most frequently include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Japan, South Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and South Africa.

We also coordinate every weekday with the foreign embassies and consulates physically based in Bangkok — including the Embassies of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, China, South Korea, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India and Russia, among 70+ others. Knowing which legalisation desk is open on which day, what the current fee is, and what supporting documents that specific embassy expects is what allows us to close out chains in a few business days rather than weeks.

• Family / spouse visa documents — marriage certificate, birth certificate, sponsor affidavit, relationship evidence
• Work-permit and skilled-worker visa documents — employment contract, salary letter, degree, transcript, criminal record
• Student-visa documents — transcript, diploma, scholarship letter, financial statement, sponsor letter
• Cross-border M&A and corporate filings — affidavits, board resolutions, POAs, shareholder registers
• International real-estate matters — POA to buy, sell, mortgage or manage property abroad
• Estate and inheritance matters — life certificates, heir declarations, POAs to administer overseas estates
• Litigation support — affidavits of evidence and sworn statements for foreign court proceedings
• Adoption, surrogacy and family-law matters across borders, including Hague Convention 1980 child-abduction filings

How a Thai Notary Public differs from a notary in your home country

If you are used to a civil-law notary in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan or Latin America, the Thai system will look unfamiliar at first. A civil-law notary drafts and stores the document itself; a Thai Notarial Services Attorney does not draft the underlying document, but certifies signatures, copies, oaths and translations on documents that you (or your home-country lawyer) have already prepared. If you are used to a common-law notary public in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia or Canada, the Thai system will look closer to what you know — but with the important addition that, because Thailand is not a Hague Apostille member, every notarised document must additionally pass through MFA and the destination embassy in Bangkok before it is fully legalised for use abroad.

The practical implication is timing. A US-style notary act takes minutes; a Thai-style end-to-end legalisation takes a few business days because of the MFA + embassy steps. Our role is to compress that overall timeline by booking, queueing and following up at each authority on your behalf, and to make sure that the document never has to go back through the chain because of a wording or formatting issue at step 1.

Transparent fees in Thai baht

We quote every case in writing before any work begins. The figures below are the standard ranges; your final quote depends on the number of certified sets you need, the urgency, and how many onward legalisation steps the destination requires.

• Notary Public certification: quote on request (phone / LINE / email) per act, depending on document type and urgency
• Thai–English translation: quote on request (phone / LINE / email) (translation only — certification is separate)
• Other-language translation: quote on request (phone / LINE / email)
• NAATI-accredited translation (for Australia): quote on request (phone / LINE / email)
• Department of Consular Affairs (MFA) fee: quote on request (phone / LINE / email)
• MFA handling and queueing on your behalf: THB 2,500–5,000 per applicant
• Destination-embassy fee in Bangkok: quote on request (phone / LINE / email) (varies by embassy)
• Embassy handling and queueing on your behalf: THB 5,000–12,000
• Police-clearance certificate (Thai or overseas use): THB 2,000–8,000
• Domestic courier: THB 100; tracked worldwide courier: THB 2,500

The five mistakes that most often cause documents to be rejected abroad

• Pre-signing documents that require signature authentication — the notary must witness the signature in person, no exceptions
• Bringing photocopies instead of originals to a certified-true-copy appointment — the notary must sight the original
• Using a translation that has not been re-certified by a Notarial Services Attorney — embassies and foreign authorities reject translator-only stamps
• Stopping the chain at the notary stage when the destination actually requires MFA + embassy attestation
• Allowing the notary's wording to drift away from what the receiving authority's checklist expects — we tailor the wording per destination

More frequently asked questions

Talk to a registered Notarial Services Attorney now

Send a photo or PDF of your document to LINE @Thainotary or email — we typically reply within three minutes during business hours with a confirmation of the certification path, the fee, and the next available appointment. There is no charge for this initial assessment, and there are no hidden fees on any quote we provide.