@Elías *******

I know. Look into the drawbacks.

In here you will likely be told you shouldn't own a car on a tourist visa even though you can live in Thailand every day for 5 years on a DTV with same day border bounces. I'm one of the lucky ones (so far) with a still working Bangkok Bank account that I opened in 2021 on a non-o visa. Prior to 2021 I have paid my utilities to my building juristic person and other larger payments via Wise transfers to avoid forex fees and bad exchange rates. For ATM withdrawals try and find a bank from your home country that refunds all ATM fees. I know Canada and the US has them and likely others. There isn't a decent PromtPay alternative without drawbacks so you'll want a way to access cash without paying a 250 THB ATM fee each time.

Anonymous participant 180 That's interesting. I noticed how the OP and nobody else in that thread mentioned the "2023-2025" aspect. Although that reddit post was a month ago and I didn't see the BoT mention this in their "no tourist visa accounts" announcement last week. It could explain why my BB account is still open (so far...). I opened a BB account in 2021 on a Non-O retirement visa but then switched to a DTV as soon as it came out last year (and my Thai SIM has correct info). Has anyone heard of someone currently on a tourist visa, but who opened on a non-o prior to 2023, getting their account closed?

@James *******

There may be lots of reasons why the DTV is better for this person and probably has helped them. It really isn't hard to live in Thailand on a DTV for 5 years. If you don't leave the kingdom often, just doing a same day trip border bounce to reset every 6 months works fine. As far as banking, get a Wise card or equivalent for no forex fees and ideally an account that refunds foreign ATM fees and you are golden. Only thing missing would be PromptPay which is no huge deal vs. cash.

@Greg *******

There is more than one location to do it in CM. We usually do ours at Central Festival instead of the main airport office. Took 5 minutes last time. It's crazy that Bangkok doesn't have more than one location also.

@Sean ******

Yeah, I pulled some cash out then locked it and messaged them. Heading to the bank in the am to hopefully get a new one.

Ironically I woke up this morning to a fraudulent attempt to make a payment to Amazon Services on my BKK bank debit card which was luckily declined, likely by their security algorithms. So I'll be getting another debit card soon.... PITA. It's only been used with PromptPay, ATM withdrawals and transfers for rent. So be aware, if you do manage to get a bank account this is very common here.

Here's a data point. I opened my BKK bank account on a non-o retirement visa back in 2021. I switched to the DTV last July. My BKK Bank card recently expired so I had to go get a new one. No issues getting the new card on the DTV. They actually took photos of every page in my passport and sent the request to "head office". A week later I had the new card. This was in CM.

@Peter **********

Are you considering switching to the DTV?

If you don't want to worry about taxes in Thailand just stay under 180 days.