💰 Money & Banking

Thailand is cheaper than most places people move from, but the money side is where the friction lives. Not the prices, which are straightforward. The plumbing: getting an account, getting paid, paying for things, and not being taxed twice.

Banking got harder in 2026

After the 2024-25 crackdown on mule accounts, Thai banks now want a long-stay visa valid at least a year before they will open a personal account. Non-B, LTR, retirement and Thailand Privilege qualify. Tourist visas and visa exemption do not, and neither does the DTV, which is classified as a Tourist visa despite running five years. Accounts opened on a DTV in 2024 have been flagged and closed since.

That matters more than it sounds, because the country runs on QR payments. Without a Thai account most of them are closed to you and you are back to cash and foreign cards.

The costs nobody quotes

Thai ATMs charge a local operator fee of around 220 THB per foreign-card withdrawal, regardless of amount, and there is no way to avoid it at the machine. An account that reimburses ATM fees is worth more here than a card with a good earn rate. And roughly half of everyday spending never touches a card at all, which quietly halves whatever points strategy you arrived with.

Tax, on both sides

Americans keep filing federal returns from abroad no matter what, though the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion often reduces the bill to nothing. Moving your state domicile before you leave is the higher-leverage move and it has to happen before you go. On the Thai side, the two-year remittance exemption people keep citing has not been enacted, and planning around a proposal is an expensive way to learn that.