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Thai Bank Accounts Are More Necessary Than Ever For Expats

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai bank accounts. In recent days especially since the New Year, 2019, here in Thailand, I have been getting some correspondence from various parts of the Kingdom from people who are dealing with visa matters; renewal of visas etc., and those folks are, it seems to be pretty much a uniform notation, if you will, of what is going on and what is developing with respect to issues surrounding retirement and marriage visas.  

So in other videos on this channel, we discussed the fact that the Income Affidavit, for Americans, mostly the English-speaking world that I know of, and many other countries, the so-called Income Affidavits that used to be obtained at ones Embassy and then translated and legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Thailand and utilized for proof of income in a retirement or marriage visa, those Income Affidavits have been discontinued. Now, as a result of this discontinuation of that type of evidence, we are seeing a situation where folks are needing to come up with different evidence in order to obtain their renewal and extension of O marriage visas, OA retirement visas etc. One thing I took notice of is the fact that bank accounts are going to be increasingly necessary for those who are living in the Kingdom.  In the past, these Income Affidavits could just be obtained from Embassies and basically one just wrote down what their income was and there was no secondary verification.  Now it's looking more and more like those individuals who are looking to renew O marriage visas and OA retirement visas are going to need to go ahead and prove up income especially or a lump sum of either 400,000 or 800,000 baht in the bank respectively, for the marriage and the retirement visa. 

On the income part, again in the past Income Affidavits were sufficient. Now, I have seen emails from individuals, correspondence or otherwise, from folks basically stating that "Hey the Immigration Officers that we have been dealing with are not going to allow evidence of income that is accrued abroad; they want to see that income coming into the Kingdom of Thailand.” Notably they want to go ahead and see a bank account in Thailand which is receiving in regular income in order to go ahead and have the retirement or marriage visa issued. 

I will update you as things on this progress and there are other videos specifically on this issue for retirement and marriage visas. But it looks to me like moving forward, a bank account is going to be really necessary in Thailand especially for those who are using income as a method of proving a financial ability to remain in the Kingdom on O marriage visa status and OA retirement visa status.