You'll have to check with your immigration office.

@Mark ********

but the variable fees will kill you. It used to cost me about $26 to send my monthly allowance visa wise. When i switched to using swift through Schwab, they dropped to $15 and I'll never have to worry about the deposits being tagged as foreign funds or not....

@Mark ********

if you send in your native currency you'll get reasonable rates from there receiving bank. Usually near mid market. Wise might be marginally better, but not enough to matter. Remember wise fees are variable so the bigger the amount, the higher the cost. Swift is fixed rate for fees.

All depends on what your bank charges for swift transfer. If you're doing swift through wise then your doubling up on fees. My swift fees from Schwab are only $15 for any amount, but my credit union wants $60. So milage varies by sending bank. Always send in your native currency for best exchange rate.

Your have a month to do 2 things. 1) find a place to rent out buy. 2) open a bank account. It sounds right, but in reality it's not.

@Stuart ********

but his question was about 800k

Source of funds does not have to be foreign when applying for 12 month extension.

Banks don't usually object to holding money.

@Peter ********

yes, sent some money to my girlfriend's account at bkk and it took 3 days

@Brandon ***********

that's what I've done... My extension is due 1-dec. 25-sept i opened kbank account and withdrew 500k from my bkk account. 28-sept i withdrew another 500k in cash from bkk and deposited into kbank. I continue to do swift transfers to bkk through November and will switch to kbank in December. My goal is to switch to monthly method in December. Will update after extension in December. Assume I will need statements/passbook copies from both banks as well as letter from bkk about minimum 65k overseas transfer through November.