@Helen ******

I prepared the needed documents before I arrived into Thailand. Once here, found a condo, then met up with my visa agent. We went to setup bank account and do other associated paperwork. Under a day at immigration and walked away with my retirement visa. Easy process when using an agent. Highly recommended.

@Roberto ********

Absolutely... Get the right Visa and this is a non-issue.

@Todd ********

After my horrible experiences with Wise, I will never go back to them. I'm not moving money all that often, so the cost of doing the SWIFT transfer as well as the slight differences in the exchange rate is negligible. I'd much rather have peace of mind that the transaction works.

@Richard *******

I have and a number of other people have reported problems on the forums.

@Todd ********

Don't understand your comment, I like my money and what it can do. That 1% can really screw things up. SWIFT has been 100% reliable.

@Leon *******

Exactly right. I too wanted to come to Thailand a long time ago but only recently had everything aligned to be able to do so. Now I'm enjoying the lifestyle and doing everything properly regarding visas so I have no worries about just getting by.

@Damien *******

You're not Thai either so who cares what you say or do.

As others have said use SWIFT. That's what I've been doing for a while now and it works great. Stay away from Wise. Their customer service, if you dare even call it that, is horrible if you ever have a problem.

@Mark ***

Short answer is I waited until I got to Bangkok; I didn't work with any embassy in the US. During one of my reconnaissance trips to BKK I met up with an agent where we discussed the whole process and what the requirements would be. In a few months once I was ready to make the move we met up again: reviewed the paperwork and then off to immigration where passport photo was taken, bank account setup, and the Visa process. There were a lot of moving parts and I was so glad to have someone walk me through it. Came away after lunch with everything completed properly. Definitely recommend this approach.