Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question are there cash requirements associated with entry to the Kingdom of Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration Bureau refutes Indonesian woman's entry denial claims. Okay, I made another video contemporaneously with this one where we get into this person's accusations if you will against if you will Thai Immigration, stating basically her husband was not allowed into the country because of a cash requirement associated with Thai Immigration. Quoting directly from this article, quote: "Immigration Authorities suspected that the woman fabricated the story for social media content." I am going to leave that analysis there; we have already done a video discussing whether or not this really occurred. Again, I urge those who are watching this video go read that article in detail because apparently it seems that this did not happen. Notwithstanding the fact that we'll get into cash requirements here in a minute, Immigration does have discretion to request these kinds of things, it doesn't appear this actually occurred here. That said, quoting further and more pertinent to the thrust of this video: "Quote: "He said that Immigration Officials prioritize entry requirements to prevent tourists from entering the country to work illegally." And he is Pol Maj Gen Choengron who is one of the heads of Thai Immigration here discussing this case. Quoting further: "While a cash requirement exists, it is secondary, given the prevalent use of credit cards and e-payments." 

So again let's go back to this issue of cash requirements. What are we talking about here? Somebody brought this to my attention and I kind of waved it off; I said yeah that's been the issue for years and I said "oh I have made a video on that", this is kind of a little bit of insight into me. I have been doing these videos for so long, that I will say something like that and I will think "Oh yeah, I have already talked about that, everybody should know that!" Well that video was made about 6 years ago I will go ahead and find it; I will put a link to it in the description below. That came about as a result of changes in Thai Immigration enforcement protocols arising from the belief that there were many people living in Thailand at the time, going back six years ago, there were people living in Thailand utilizing Tourist Visas and they started asking people at ports of entry and at Immigration Checkpoints coming back in they would say, "hey you know what, you need to show us a bank balance showing like 20,000 Baht or you need to show me 20,000 Baht in cash, not give it to me, just show me that you have it in order for us to re-admit you", because they were concerned about people not having adequate funds to maintain their lifestyle here in the Kingdom. 

As I will get to in another video contemporaneously we are making with this one, I'll also go in to, there's also requirements regarding boarding, room and board, onward travel etc., associated with tourists in Thailand. But the thing to take away from this video is the fact that at the end of the day yes, they do have the discretion to require folks who are entering Thailand as tourists to prove that they have financial resources to undertake their trip. 

As noted in that article though and something to keep in mind in the evolution of overall Immigration Policy is look the era of cash is waning to some extent. It is my hope on a personal level it does not fully go away because we do not need to live in a world without cash. That said, it's not overly reasonable these days to presume everybody is going to be walking around with a big slug of cash in their pocket and as noted by the Immigration Officer in question noted in that article, yeah these days we are using credit cards and things so we are not seeing that requirement imposed on people quite as often as we used to. That said, there are other requirements especially associated with travel arrangements made here in Thailand and as I said we will get to that in another video we are making contemporaneously with this one.