@Mark ********

every branch / district is different, I opened one years ago and was required to have a yellow book, I recently took a friend to SCB & they said he needed a yellow house book

Get a letter from where you are staying, stating you reside there. List your name, country, date of birth, passport number

Take this letter & passport and passport sizes photos to your local immigration & request a certificate/ letter of residency to open a bank account, they usually charge 500 baht per letter.

Take this residency letter with your passport to a bank

The residency letter is only valid for 30 days

Go to a main branch usually helps

Bangkok bank & ? Kasikorn are the easiest

SCB requires a yellow house book to open an account

Krungshri requires you to have a retirement visa

Bangkok bank will usually ask you to buy a bank product

Accident insurance for 12 months, cheapest option is just under $6,000 baht

Certificate of residence, ask the hotel where you are staying to do a letter for you, the letter needs your full name, date of birth, passport number, country of Origin/ passport, stating you are residing at the hotel & hotel address and contact number, take this letter to immigration and tell them you want to get a driver’s licence. They will supply you a letter in Thai writing & on that letter it will state it is for a Thai licence & will expire 30 days after date of issue.

This is same for bank account

@Chris ********

I need to renew my Thai licence, it expired during Covid, in Udonthani they want me to do a driver school at $4,000 baht per licence, in Khon Kaen 120 Klm away someone just did theirs / no school, cost about 300 baht.

My international drivers permit expires in about 6 weeks, I’m looking to go to Pattaya to do my licence 🤔

@Chris ********

depending on your circumstances, I’m sure if you went to another area, even Udonthani

And did the process you would most likely succeed

Places like Pattaya have a high turnover and most likely ppl open accounts and then leave Thailand, causing the banks to have a high volume of unused accounts with no money in them & unable to close for a certain period of time, this would cause them to enact something like the requirement to hold a retirement visa

Banks in Thailand are like franchises, what happens in one branch / city doesn’t happen in another 🤣🤣🤣

@Chris ********

years ago Pattaya was easy, just needed a passport for krungshri

My girlfriend, my friend and I opened accounts with Bangkok bank between October 22 and March 23 in Udonthani

@Tara *******

just note, Things in Thailand very from one town to the next & from one person to another

I opened an account at Bangkok Bank, about 1 month later I took a friend and had issues, tried another branch with success, then went with my girlfriend about 2 months after that to the first branch and opened an account. No normality in Thailand 🤣

So if all banks do this, how do ppl open an account for a retirement visa 🤔

@Chris ********

it’s interesting then, as krungshri requires you to have a retirement visa to open an account, I took a friend late last year, he did an OA visa in his own country however needed an account to deposit money to apply for his O visa / retirement, Krungshri would not let him so we went to Bangkok bank and opened one for him

@Chris ********

what area ?