How can I open a bank account in Thailand to meet retirement visa requirements?

And with the use of the simple Retirement Visa all the confusion starts. There is the Non Immigrant O visa, which you can apply for at a Thai Embassy/Consulate or inside Thailand at Immigration Office, the Non Immigrant O-A Visa and the Non Immigrant O-X Visa which you can only apply for at your country of residence. All these 3 visa's all called Retirement Visa to make it easy, but all three have different requirements, so all the comments are wrong or right, just depending on which visa they refer to. To make it even more complicated, if you enter Thailand on one of these Visas you can apply for an Extension Of Stay and even that is called retirement visa. I hope you can follow this, please make a new post with a clear statement what kind of Visa you like and where you like to apply. For now the confusion is bringing you no answers so I will close commenting.

If you want to apply for the Non Immigrant O visa based on being over 50 years of age inside Thailand, yes, you need a Thai bank account. Some banks will refuse you to open an account. Get the certificate of residence from Immigration, make copy of your passport Id page. Visit several branches and ask, or take a Thai friend to his bank and let him explain why you want to open the bank account.

You just need your Passport copy with a valid visa and a rental contract.

Grab the two, walk to any official bank and it sill be done in no time after just verification.

The least amount should be 400K except it has change of recent. Thanks and good luck. Welcome to the Land of Legendary solidarity, full of cute beaches, bitches and chilly foods.

Bangkok Bank at Kad Suen Kaew is used to dealing with foreigners and will assist you.

You mean one year extension of stay based on retirement don't you ??.... Steve Greir beat me to it ;)

There's no "retirement visa" as such but if you want to apply for a 1 year extention of stay based on being over 50 years old then you will need and can open a bank account at any Thai bank

Your Embassy can tell about this very well

When I was applying for Non-O a few years ago I just explained to the bank that I was in the process of applying for the visa and they were fine. You should try visiting smaller branches of banks and be prepared for rejections. I originally tried SCB and was told they would call me when they confirmed with head office. I'm still waiting on that call. I literally went next door to a small branch of Kasikorn Bank and was setup within 30 minutes.

it's not complicated, I opened it at the krungsri bank of the mbk mall, you just need a passport and a rental contract