DNA Testing in Thailand for Paternity

We can facilitate painless, bloodless DNA testing which can establish with over 99% accuracy whether or not a particular man is the biological father of a particular child. We do not even need a sample from the mother. We need only some painless wipes of the inside of the cheek using something similar to a cotton swab, from the father and the child, full stop.

We have an established relationship with a top laboratory for collecting and analyzing DNA samples, including for paternity testing.

If you wish to go thru normal Thai methods, there are only a few places you can go, which have required a lot of official paperwork and a blood sample, plus you must deal with the Thai language. We have dealt with DNA testing in Thailand since 1996, and to keep this brief, suffice it to say that we have a better way which can give you 99.9% accuracy.

If you wish to keep your DNA private, physically painless, avoid bureaucratic requirements, as well as have the samples collected at your home (especially if outside Bangkok), then consider our method, perhaps at least for the first test to find out the results before you invest heavily into any legal requirements. With our method, you do not even need to give us your real names. Not required by us, but required by Thai places.

(We have a "legal" option, too, but most people request the quick and easy method instead, at least at first, in order to avoid additional costs and legal issues. By "legal", we mean admissible in court or for immigration purposes. See below.)

The DNA samples we privately collect are simply wipes of the inside of the cheek to collect cheek cells lining the mucus membrane inside of the mouth (epithelial cells), which come off easily with our swabs.

We have collection kits here which our laboratory provides us, stocking us up for about a dozen cases at a time. It is something which looks like a cotton swab except the stick is longer and the swab on the end is actually a different material than cotton, slightly more abrasive and made of a material which sticks to epithelial cells.

We need more than one sample because the tests are conducted more than once to make sure we get the same DNA results. This is especially required if the first test excludes the man as the father. (Actually, we collect 4 samples per person.)

It is very important to not contaminate the swabs by touching them or letting them touch anything which might get someone else's DNA onto the swab or else pick up bacteria, and we have standard methods whereby one of our staff collects your samples wearing rubber gloves and a mask. Then we take measures to ensure that bacteria (a big enemy) do not consume your sample before testing, and we handle getting your samples to our particular laboratory personnel.

You can also take samples yourself with Q-Tips (cotton swabs), but it is best to wear plastic or rubber gloves such as what food handlers and doctors use and change gloves in-between taking samples from different people, plus don't touch the fingers of the gloves during handling. All this is available at 7-11, altogether less than 100 baht, but Q-Tips do not work so well. You need to wipe with the cotton swab wipes more diligently. (Small babies without teeth sometimes like to chew on the tips, which is good, but do get good cheek wipes.) With cotton swabs, you must be much more diligent about the wipes and should get more samples than with our special swabs. Immediately afterwards, let them air out to dry, preferably for 30 minutes or longer, such as by putting them in a VERY CLEAN glass, because bacteria can destroy skin cells, so it is best to make sure they are dried out very well, without touching or otherwise contaminating the tips! For yourself, rinse out your mouth with plain water before taking a sample. Try to get baby samples not immediately after a meal, but it can be OK anyway as long as the wipes are good and the tips dried very well.

You don't need to be a certified lab technician to collect the samples in the field, as long as you are very, very careful.

Notably, people have provided DNA samples including clothing, cigarette butts, shaving accessories, diapers (not dirty parts of diapers), and other means, but this is not recommended. These are difficult at best and much more expensive to process.

If interested, please contact us.

"Paternity fraud" is when a mother tricks a man into believing he is the biological father of a child, when in fact it is another man, usually to receive financial support from the tricked man. (Actually, she may or may not be sure whether or not you are the father.)

Many fathers will abandon a child which they think may not be theirs. It is better to find out the truth. If it is their child, they can be more confident and fully supportive, and do the right thing, with peace of mind. If it's paternity fraud, then the man can leave with a clear conscience and a socially clean record. We have both saved family relationships when we find out the man is truly the father, as well as saved innocent men from fraud when we found out he is not the father.

It is best to do this while the child is still a baby, and as soon as possible, so that there is no psychological trauma to the child and everybody involved. Better sooner than later, to resolve everything clearly.

We normally do DNA tests only as regards babies, not grown children, to find out before the baby becomes a child and bonds to a particular father.

Many extended family members of the Thai mother will adopt a child in the family, especially if it has foreign blood.

A man who wants to be a good kind of person, or not wanting to be a bad kind of man, may consider taking partial responsibility for a new part of himself in the next generation, the result of an act which he is equally responsible for, or harbor some similar issue of morality or honor.

It is relatively very cheap to raise a child in Thailand, e.g., by related Thai social parents instead of the biological parents.

Nonetheless, the man may still be hesitant to get involved due to various financial, emotional, or situational issues involved in this longterm situation. If the man is not sure whether he is truly the father, then he is much more likely to reject or limit his support for that reason, if he has any doubts whether he is the father. This may happen at a later date when he desires to rationalize.

A DNA test can resolve any uncertainty about the biological father, so that the issue is settled in your minds, and a situation more fair to all is likely to be arranged, stable and without lingering doubts.

If the mother can find out who the father truly is, then the child will know who their father is, which is important for the child to have a complete identity.

Of course, some people object to paternity testing, wanting every child to believe they are from any particular father, correct or not. We disagree. Our philosophy, which is also the majority in the world, is that we should be fair to all parties involved, based on the truth. In those cases in which the alleged father is excluded, the mother can then turn to another father, or, if she still does not know who the biological father is, at least she can manage that situation more responsibly for the longterm, such as adoption by an extended family member, or some other arrangement while the child is still a baby. It is better to resolve the issue sooner rather than later. It is traumatic to children to have an unstable family with distrust and lingering doubts.

The cost depends on your location and the situation. For example, are you in Bangkok or an outer province? Is the mother cooperative, or do we need to do the test discreetly? These are the two most common cost factors. It costs the same whether or not a DNA sample is taked from the mother (we do not wish to discourage in any way a sample from the mother, and the overall cost is not significantly more). The results are over 99% accurate whether or not a sample is taken from the mother.

You get a printout of the results. It is a list of the gene alleles of the child alongside yours and optionally the mother's too. Generally speaking, each of the child's genes consists of two alleles, which make up the two halves of the gene, one from the mother and one from the father. You can see clearly in the report your alleles, the child's alleles, and optionally the mother's alleles. You will either see your alleles in the child or else see a mismatch. We test 15 allele loci to get 99.9% accuracy, and we can go up to 25 at extra cost if you wish. If the child has one allele which is not yours, then it's not your child (with extremely rare exceptions, and two alleles for sure). With each allele tested, the chances go up or down. A result excluding a father usually turns up very quickly in the test, whereas the result including a father normally becomes evident and just goes up and up to 99.9%.

The particular alleles chosen for a paternity test by our affiliated laboratory are the standard ones for the best class of paternity tests in the USA, chosen because they have a lot of variation between humans. The USA has led the world and established the best standards.

DNA paternity testing has been around for decades but the blood or tissue sample required and technological accuracy issues kept it out of the mainstream. In the 1980s, techniques were developed which allowed smaller samples and greater accuracy, and the application of DNA to forensics and court cases started to shoot up. One of the techniques of the 1980s became standardized in the 1990s whereby a small sample could be greatly amplified by the PCR method (polymerase chain reaction), giving high accuracy with a small sample. (I did my first DNA paternity test in 1996 in a leading Thai laboratory using a blood sample but it could not yield the high probability of the US techniques, but I linked up the technicians with a free subscription of an important journal...)

With our paternity test today, which we use in this business, all we need is some cheek wipes with our special swabs to get either quick and clear "exclusion" which is a 0% chance you are the father, or else about 99.9% "inclusion" which is an extremely high probability that you are the father (the 15 "loci" test), and if you want 99.9999% then we can do that too albeit at a higher price (up to 25 loci). Is a 99% chance you are the father good enough for you to be convinced "I am the father"?

There are a lot of DNA tests for many different purposes, such as to determine whether a disease is inherited from parents or from something in the environment. However, a paternity test should focus on specific "loci" which have a lot of variation between men. Our test is not a cheap one, it is in the top class, and our probability calculations for inclusion/exclusion are proper whereby it's over 99% or else 0%.

If the mother also submited a DNA sample, then you can see exactly how your genes came together. One will come from the mother and the other from the father. If the mother did not submit a sample, then you can still see your alleles or else the mismatch to exclude you, which is still abundantly clear. For cases in which you are "included", the probability of another man having and contributing the exact same alleles as yourself is extremely small, less than 1%, when you compare a list of genes, due to the genetic variation between humans for these particular alleles.

We can explain the results to you when you receive them. Also, you can verify them with the US laboratory and communicate directly with the lab. You get the results in a table. You can see for yourself, and you have a record.

Paternity is a very important issue in life, affecting a lot of people, so it's important that the testing is done the best way.

DNA results will have a big impact on peoples lives, so we do not cut any corners.

The laboratory we use is one of the oldest and most established DNA testing laboratories, having provided this service for more than 10 years. It has been a leader in many ways, and maintains high quality management, staff, and standards.

Laboratory accreditations include:

ISO/IEC 17025 international laboratory accreditation, which is the ISO international standard for laboratory procedures and capabilities.

ASCLD/LAB-International -- American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, which is the most stringent accreditation program for forensic DNA laboratories.

... plus several others. Its past 16 inspections have resulted in perfect ratings.

This laboratory was used to get results in many high profile cases.

In the standard operating procedures of this laboratory, your samples are independently tested by two separate teams. We take 4 samples from each of the child, the father, and optionally the mother, i.e., 8 to 12 samples total, whereby these are split for the two teams to each get half of the samples. The laboratory documents each and every step in order to properly identify and track every sample. In the end, the results of the two independent teams must match.

The results are guaranteed, or else your money is refunded or we will do another test at no extra charge for standard DNA samples. (If you use nonstandard DNA samples such as clothing, toothbrush, etc., the offer of a refund or additional test may not apply.) To date, we've not yet had any failure for a standard cheek swab DNA sample test using our special swabs.

Our laboratory is of exceptional quality. As a scientist myself (physicist), I've conducted a considerable amount of laboratory work myself, and I've been in a lot of laboratories and seen a lot of carelessness, cut corners, paperwork errors, confusion, and sloppy work in some hospitals and laboratories, sometimes covered up. Because DNA results will have such a big impact on peoples lives, I have been very careful to choose the best laboratory and people to work with. This, I have done for you already, and am making available to all.

There are two kinds of test: "private" and "legal".

In the "private" test, we do not need your ID and we will accept any names you give us. This is a most convenient and economical way. However, the results are "for your information" only. They may or may not be presentable in court or for immigration. It depends on your country or local laws.

In the "legal" test, we need proof of your identity in the form of government issued ID and the child's birth certificate, will take photos of all individuals giving samples during the sample collection process, will take fingerprints, and must do "Chain of Custody" documentation during the entire process. This is considerably more expensive than a "private" test. You should also check the requirements of your particular country. This is something we should prepare in advance for.

We assume that people want the "private", not the "legal", test unless you state otherwise.

(Some people do the private test first, and then follow up with the legal test only if necessary at a later date for any reason. Some courts will order a legal test.)

The results are sent to you by email and the report will be very clear, listing your DNA results next to the child's so that you can see very clearly the result, and we will give the numeric probability calculated from this (normally either 0% of 99%). If you wish to have a printout from our office, we can do that as well.

Please always make an appointment, not just walk into our office unannounced for a DNA test. We have particular staff trained to properly collect the samples, but they are field staff and not always in the office.

To get the right person for the job, please send a message to our "inbox" (not "info") at

Alternatively, you can just use our contact form

Either way, we will usually respond within 1 to 24 hours.

We are sometimes available for live chat, if the icon below is flashing "Live chat now" instead of "Please leave a message".

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