Can you deposit physical cash into your bank account while on a retirement visa in Thailand?

@Martin ********

I intend taking 400,000 THB equivalent in UK GBP to Thailand and opening a Thai account, deposit the exchanged money in the Thai account, then start to have my UK pension paid direct into my Thai account, which together with the 400,000 will be more than the required annual 800,000 THB. Some are saying that the money has to be by transfer only? Well when you withdraw the GBP from your UK bank in cash and take it into Thailand, you can prove where the money came from, ie., your UK bank account by proving with either a scan of your UK bank account or print of the withdrawal, which will prove it's not laundered money. Simple really.

@John *******

why you telling me ?

@Martin ********

because I Was making a point about what people can and cannot do taking cash into Thailand. There's too many on FB that are experts of nothing 😂

@John *******

but all I said was ‘ absolutely’ .. one word ..

@John *******

you are using common sense which is a mistake. The IO will use whatever they want as proof. If we are talking about the income method, the standard method is only a statement from the bank saying that they are foreign transfers and a list of the 12 deposits. I just did this last week at Jomtien.

Unknown what other offices would want. And of course if we are talking about the banked method, everything is different.

@Marty ********

once you start the ฿65K you can do anything with the account that you want, add or subtract everything. Next extension you need to show the correct deposits and not what was taken out

@Glenn ****

He was asking about depositing cash. My understanding is that you have to show that the monthly deposits originated from overseas. You can do that with electronic transfers but I don’t know how you could do that with cash deposits. You are correct though that once the money is deposited then you can spend it down to zero until the next month.

@Marty ********

must be tagged FTT ( in bankbook ) Foreign Transfer Transaction

@Marty ********

I think

@Jason ********

asked about his account after the visa is issued. Anyway you can use cash for applying but you’ll need to prove that the money is brought into TH. For the monthly income method you’ll need to show proof of money transferred over sea for twelve months.

@Marty ********

If using the income method, I had assumed that he ment separate deposits and not the ฿65K +. I do that all the time making additional deposits as long as the ฿65K + is made. In my case Bangkok Bank gives me a statement of only 1 deposit a month, showing only 12 deposits, and in the Thai text it says they are foreign.

But you are correct, there is no way to use cash deposits.

@Jason ********

I have 2 accounts, one with the 800k deposit and a separate account for daily living expenses. It means there's no chance of me going below the visa threshold and makes it simpler to print the statement every year.