@Jarmo ********

what is your point? Retirement is meant to live in Thailand, DTV is not. It is up to Thai government to decide what visa they create for which target group. It is not you or me who decide this. For every target group they created visa, and when there is no suitable visa that just might mean you are not in any target group. No country has the obligation to make a visa for everyone.

@Lincoln *****

I perfectly understand your issue, but you did not choose the visa best fitting for your purpose of stay because you want to save money. That is OK, but you then cannot expect in this case banks to adapt to this behaviour. Using loopholes of a visa also means you have to find alternative ways for your financials. When you choose a tourist visa, you should not expect to be treated as a resident.

If you are over 50 and also have enough funds for non-o retirement and plan to live fulltime time in Thailand, non-o retirement visa might be better, also save you the cost of long time Muay Thai training.

DTV is not meant to live in Thailand, with a remote job you can do for some time, and when you do 5 years Muay Thai training you also can stay there some time, but I think you also should look for other possibilities.

@Jarmo ********

never seen work visa, elite visa and ltr visa have age limits.

@Lincoln *****

If you think a tourist visa is the correct visa for you that is up to you When you use it full time for 5 years you are clearly using a loophole. Apart from retirement and married visa, there are more non tourist visa you can use to live in Thailand, but they might come at a cost. I am quite sure DTV is not the correct visa for you, and when you say it is the only option that just shows you don't want to pay for the correct visa. Nothing wrong with that of course, but you get what you pay for. I stay less than 180 days a year in Thailand, so DTV seems to be the correct visa for me, and I see no reason either why I should open a bank account. When we decide to go to live in Thailand we will get a visa that is meant for that purpose.

@Jarmo ********

I get your point, you just have another definition of a tourist, the fact you say "lives" and not "stays" confirms this. You say 6 months up, but the normal maximum stay is "only" 180 days which is less than 6 months, so certainly not 6 months up.

@Luke *******

we can discuss about what is a lot of time, but DTV is not meant to live in the country, and for banks that group is just not attractive enough. When I look at most reactions here, I see mainly people who want services, but don't want to pay for those services. When banks make services available where you can top up with foreign currency people compain the service is too expensive. You just cannot expact to be happy to have customers that cost them money and a lot of work

@Lincoln *****

When you choose to use a loophole of a tourist visa to live in a country and not just stay there some time, you have to accept implications of that decision. For the bank you now are a tourist.

@Jarmo ********

Since Thay authorities created this visa for a target group and not you, they can decide it is for tourist and not for people living there, you can say a thousand times it is not a tourist visa, but that will not change anything, it is a tourist visa. The fact that a lot of people using a loophole so they can live in Thailand with DTV also does not change the visa status.