Having a Thai bank account is very convenient. While some people tell you that it doesn’t really matter and you can either always pay with cash or credit card, you’ll realize sooner or later that this is only partially true.
Here’s a quick rundown of the benefits:
- QR code payments: You can pay via QR code which is the biggest benefit. Pretty much everyone accepts QR payments nowadays, including random street vendors. It’s impressive and very convenient.
- Paying in food courts: Almost all food courts have their own “voucher”-based payments system where you top up a card with money first and then use that card to pay at the food stall of your choosing. However, an increasing number of food courts now also accept direct QR payments, which means you can skip the entire process of getting a voucher card and instead directly walk up to the stall and pay with your Thai bank account. Saves you a round trip to the voucher-selling stall.
- Shopee: The two big platforms for buying things online are Lazada and Shopee. Shopee doesn’t accept foreign credit cards, so without a Thai bank account, you’re limited to purchasing from Lazada.
- Receive money: Sooner or later, you’ll need to receive money. The most common scenario is that you move to another condo and receive back your security deposit (fingers crossed) from your old condo. Without a Thai bank account, you’ll have to find some pretty clunky workarounds like e.g. getting it paid out in cash from the real estate agent.
By the way, there are other aspects which I thought would be benefits but which turned out to not be significantly useful:
- Paying rent: You could pay your monthly condo rent from your Thai bank account. But this turns out to just shift the actual problem around. Why? At some stage or another, you’ll have to transfer the monthly sum from your local account in your home country to a Thai account. If you have a Thai bank account, you’d transfer the THB from your home account to your Thai account, and from there to your landlords account. But the thing is that the final “hop” from your Thai account to your landlord’s account is unnecessary – you’re doing one international transfer anyway from your home account, so you might as well directly transfer it to your landlord’s account.
One limitation here is that since 05/2025, Wise only allows THB transfers to a select list of 8 banks (!). So, in the huge edge case scenario in which 1) you manage to get a Thai bank account with one of those 8 banks and 2) your landlord is not with those 8 banks, then yeah, this additional transfer makes sense.
In all other cases, your landlord likely has an account with one of the 8 big banks, so just transfer your rent there directly. - Paying for electricity: For quite a while, I thought having a Thai bank account was the only way for paying your electricity bill online. Turns out there’s another way: You can pay in the Lazada app. Crazy but true. And as Lazada allows you to pay with foreign credit cards, this is a cool hack to pay your Thai electricity bill online with your foreign credit card.
With that out of the way, let’s compare banks!
Which Bank?
As mentioned above, Wise only allows THB transfer to 8 banks since 05/2025. This is a huge limitation. Most people will be using Wise for their THB conversion and spending – so if you open an account with a bank which is not on the list, your bank account will not be very useful as you don’t have any good way to actually transfer money there (sad dog face).
Here’s the current list of supported banks as of 11/2025:
- Bangkok Bank
- Kasikorn Bank
- Krung Thai Bank
- Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)
- CIMB Thai Bank
- Bank Of Ayudhya (Krungsri bank)
- Kiatnakin Phatra Bank
- The Government Savings Bank
That being said, with Revolut you can also transfer to Thai bank accounts, and Revolut isn’t limited to those 8 banks. The fees may be higher though. You’d have to try it out.
The next limitation is that most banks don’t allow DTV visa holders to open a bank account.
Which Bank Account With a DTV Visa?
TLDR: Bangkok Bank or TTB.
Historically, people always tended to say “it used to be possible in the past, but now things have become super strict and it’s near-impossible”. I hear that now in 2025, and I heard that back in 2022 when I started my research around this. It’s probably still possible if you try hard enough (it always was).
The background of this is that, technically, the DTV visa is a tourist visa and it doesn’t come with a Thai work permit (you can work remotely though etc.). This seems to be a problem for most banks because they only allow account openings for people with a work permit.
I walked into some branches to ask about their DTV policy back in 2024: SCB, Kasikorn Bank and Bangkok Bank stated they only open accounts for people with work permits. I would infer from that that this policy also applies to the other major banks, i.e. Krungsri and Krungthai.
Besides those, other banks might work in principle. Here’s the data around banks I researched:
- Bangkok Bank: While many (most) branches likely decline opening an account for people without a Thai work permit, in the past, people were still successful in some branches, typically in touristy areas. The newer anecdotes are mostly from people who went to the headquarters in Silom to open their account. Personally, I’d try the headquarters.
Also, it’s way more useful as it’s on the list of 8 banks above to which you can transfer via Wise. - TTB (TMBThanachart Bank): I know of at least one branch with anecdotes of people successfully opening bank accounts. I called their support hotline back in 2024 and asked whether DTV visa holders could open accounts with them in general, and the person said yes. The actual policy of the staff at each branch may vary widely though.
Note that TTB is not on the Wise list with those 8 banks, so transferring here via Wise currently won’t work. This makes this account way less useful than an account with e.g. Bangkok Bank.
In addition, if you try to open an account on a DTV visa, the bank might ask for supporting documentation, similar to what you needed to apply for your DTV. Here’s a list of things I heard about:
- Your actual DTV visa (printed out)
- Your work contract with a foreign company which states that you’re allowed to work remotely (i.e. the contract which you used for applying for your DTV)
- Confirmation from your company stating your purpose and duration of stay in Thailand (which is somewhat redundant as those questions are already covered by your DTV – your purpose is “remote work” and your duration is “5 years”, i.e. the limit of your DTV)
- Your rental contract
- The so-called “house registration” of your landlord (ask your landlord about this)
- Besides your passport, an additional ID document, e.g. foreign driver’s license.
And all of the contract-like documents above (work contract etc.) would need to be translated to Thai (ChatGPT would likely work).
And that’s it – done “already”!
Conclusion
I won’t go into specifics here if I opened a Thai bank account myself and, if so, at which bank and which branch. There are unfortunately sufficient incentives not to publish this sort of information – the branch might get swarmed by digital nomads looking to open bank accounts, I might run into trouble, etc., etc. – but do feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
In any case, always consider: Be polite and respectful towards the bank staff. If the branch in question doesn’t offer bank accounts to DTV holders, just politely accept and move on. Starting discussions here won’t lead anywhere as each branch might have its own policy and won’t deviate from that just because a random dude rocks up and starts talking about it.
Next, keep in mind that this might not be an instantaneous process: If you find a branch which is opening a bank account for you, you might have to come back another day when the manager is in (the bank managers tend to not work on weekends). Also, the branch might want to send out your paperwork to headquarters to get confirmation that everything’s in order. The branch might need some additional documents from you, so plan for at least two trips to the bank.
Should you bring a Thai person along with you? I’m actually unsure about this. It definitely helps for talking to the bank staff, but sometimes I also got the feeling that it made it easier for them to decline you because they had a Thai person to talk to. I personally have the feeling it doesn’t matter. Just be polite and respectful. Even if you don’t speak Thai and they don’t speak English, there’s always a way to communicate by e.g. using Google Translate or, nowadays, ChatGPT.
Good luck and reach out if you have any questions!
Leave a Reply