I have been diligently tracking this from day one. Lots of notes and comments added to each country to make it as complete as possible. I’ve put a lot of work into this for many months so please don’t be to critical of my product. I have a formal excel spreadsheet that I normally use but I just cut and paste and added it below.
So here is my complete list of all the countries with free reign to enter Thailand as tourists just as before Covid:
There is a branch of BKK bank in New York. I was told by a friend he opened an account through them without walking in the doors. Says he can access those funds in Thailand with no fees. I do not know how they are tied but he says it works.
yup. Way to try to stay positive about it. Can’t do anything else so make lemonade out of the Covid lemons 😂.
I’ll give one last piece of advice to remember. If you do end up getting married in the states make sure you get your marriage certificate “validated”. I forget the term they used for it but basically it has to be stamped by the ministry of foreign affairs in DC, then stamped by the Thai Embassy in LA or NYC.
It’s harder doing shit over here with an American marriage certificate versus being married in Thailand. But having those stamps makes it much better.
I have done the K1 Fiancé visa. We applied in May and it was approved in August. Granted this was a few years ago but the timeline was extremely fast. We hired a lawyer because I am lazy and prefer someone else to do all the work.
I read last week that timelines have increased dramatically and as of 1 October fees are going up about 80%. It was about $700 when we did it. If I remember correctly it’s going up to about $1200.
Don’t get frustrated and don’t listen to the negative Nancy’s. We were meticulous with our paperwork and it was smooth sailing. The last step in country for her was an interview. We read online about how hard it is and how mean they are. My wife had a very pleasant experience with it. They asked her if she can answer in English and she said yes. If not they would ask in thai. They just reviewed a lot of the info we provided and lastly asked if she was ever a prostitute. When they were done the lady interviewing her hugged her. So don’t let her get to wrapped up in the bullshit online.
The day of her interview there was over 20 people there. Two were approved, both K1s all of the denied people were asking for tourist visas.
Feel free to DM if you have any questions and don’t want them in the thread.
I would agree with Tommy’s first post. My thought process is I have met some folks that visited a lot, then moved here, then realized it’s a lot different on vacation than it is to live. A 1M baht investment is a heavy price to pay if after 6 months you aren’t as happy as you thought you’d be and want to try somewhere else. Of course that’s easy for me to say as I sit in my condo in Jomtien and not in the states 😁