I have a bank account with Government Savings Bank and did not pay anything for the privilege of having my money languishing there with no interest paid to me.
Just a note of caution. I have the Thai wife, I am US citizen. We stopped sending mail to my wife’s village in Thailand because none of the first 20 letters we sent to the family in Thailand were received by our family members. Zero.
The Thailand Postal Service is notorious for disposing of mail they deem not important to deliver. There is a postal worker near our village with hundreds of our family photos on the postal worker’s living room walls. Currently, we live in wife’s village for the US winter and we have received 1 piece of mail in the 5 years we have had our house.
The Thailand Postal Service follows no rules. Each fiefdom does it’s own thing. I hope your results are better than mine.
South Korea Thai embassy took almost 3 weeks to give me a SETV with US passport while staying in SK. It felt like very slow service based on all my documentation was complete in the first 2 days. December 2023
Bangkok is traffic jams, overcrowded, overpopulated, and the infrastructure is pressed past the limit of its capacity. Phuket is doubly those things with some beaches.
Thailand has wonderful beaches that are almost deserted with a few foreigners, good food and excellent accommodations, all at low prices.
You could possibly be better off with a different visa depending on your needs and income.
I am a U.S. citizen and married my Thai wife 35 years ago in the US.
We did take our USA marriage certificate to Thailand and did what you propose. We did it in 2023. We did it in our own without paying anyone for help. Very frustrating and difficult. We can offer the correct advice if you want it.
The most difficult part was our own USA embassy in Bangkok. Extremely uncooperative. The worst part is that my Thai wife became dual citizen 20 years ago, so it is her country too.
We completed marriage visa.
We now live in our modern style house in Ratchaburi half the year and the US half the year.