I just recently did this at the Bangkok Bank at Emquartier.
You will have to go there twice. You need to first go and say you are a tourist and want to open an account. They will give you a form and then you need to go to your embassy and get it filled out. They might fill out the form directly or they might give you a different one. This is called a certified letter of residency or something similar. You need to bring proof of address and some cash with you as well to your embassy. Your embassy will charge you for this letter most likely so I can't tell you how much it will be. Mine cost 1400 and most seem around there.
You might be able to skip going to the bank for this step and get the letter directly from your embassy, but I just wanted to be safe and get the form from the bank just in case.
The second time you go there you will open your account. You need to bring your passport, proof of address, the letter from the embassy and 1200 baht at least.
500 is the minimum amount you need to open an account and it will be deposited into your account. The 700 will be charged to get a debit card. It might be more than 700. I can't remember exactly but definitely not more than 1000.
This was my own first hand experience and it was quite simple to do. I really suggest going to Emquartier to do so. Any big location should be okay, but they were extremely knowledgeable on how to open a bank account for a tourist and seemed to do it very often. I think there even were two other tourists ahead of me opening one too.
I just recently did this at the Bangkok Bank at Emquartier.
You will have to go there twice. You need to first go and say you are a tourist and want to open an account. They will give you a form and then you need to go to your embassy and get it filled out. They might fill out the form directly or they might give you a different one. This is called a certified letter of residency or something similar. You need to bring proof of address and some cash with you as well to your embassy. Your embassy will charge you for this letter most likely so I can't tell you how much it will be. Mine cost 1400 and most seem around there.
You might be able to skip going to the bank for this step and get the letter directly from your embassy, but I just wanted to be safe and get the form from the bank just in case.
The second time you go there you will open your account. You need to bring your passport, proof of address, the letter from the embassy and 1200 baht.
500 is the minimum amount you need to open an account and it will be deposited into your account. The 700 will be charged to get a debit card. It might be more than 700. I can't remember exactly but definitely not more than 1000.
This was my own first hand experience and it was quite simple to do. I really suggest going to Emquartier to do so. Any big location should be okay, but they were extremely knowledgeable on how to open a bank account for a tourist and seemed to do it very often. I think there even were two other tourists and ahead of me opening one too.
