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ResourcesFamily LawPrenuptial and Premarital AgreementsThai Marriage Visas: Can I Open a Thai Bank Account from Abroad?

Thai Marriage Visas: Can I Open a Thai Bank Account from Abroad?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Marriage Visas; that's the Thai O visa which is the other category generally thought of as a miscellaneous category but for those who are married to Thai Nationals, it is basically the one avenue for getting a Marriage Visa or Spousal Visa here in the Kingdom. 

There have been recent regulatory shifts with respect to how financial evidence is shown to support oneself or one's family as the holder of a Thai Spousal visa for purposes of a spousal visa extension most notably 400,000 baht in a Thai bank account or 40,000 Baht per month in income coming in from abroad shown in a Thai bank account is generally what is required to go ahead and get an O visa extension here in the Kingdom based upon marriage. 

Now a question is come up rather frequently in the past few months since certain things like the Income Affidavit is no longer possible for those from the United States, Britain and Australia a question that's arisen is "Can I open a Thai bank account outside of Thailand? Can I open it from overseas?" Well the long and short of it is we have talked to many banks and this is a bank policy issue. This isn't a legal matter to the best of my knowledge. The banks that we have talked to and it is a large number of them and please note in the comments below if you know of a bank that will allow the opening of a bank account from abroad, but every bank we have talked to has said "No, we're not going to allow opening of Thai bank accounts, especially for foreign nationals, to be opened from abroad. We need to see that individual in one of our branch offices.  They need to sign various documentation, present documentation pertaining to their identity etc. and for these reasons and some sort of “know your client” policies that are maintained by many of these banks are not going to go ahead and allow the opening of a Thai bank account for those are not in the Kingdom.  

So again the thing to take away from this video is, Thai bank accounts will be important and it is a good idea to have one, especially for those who are looking for a spousal visa extension here in the Kingdom. But for those who are looking to come in, it is probably a good idea to go ahead and apply for a Thai Spouse Visa,  apply for an O Visa at a Thai Embassy or Consulate abroad, come in on that spouse visa and then presumably open the bank account here in the Kingdom and then go ahead and start bringing funds in or maintaining a fund balance as necessary to supply Financial evidence associated with spousal support in support of a visa application for the foreign National married to a spouse here in the Kingdom of Thailand.