Pillar · 40 articles
Money & Survival
Visas, tax, insurance, banking, property, permanent residence.
Thailand long-stay visas compared: what each route really costs
Published fees and terms for key Thailand long-stay routes, plus the material costs and questions that a headline visa price leaves out. Confirm eligibility with the mission or authority handling your application.
Expat health insurance in Thailand: questions your quote must answer
Thailand health-insurance terms depend on the policy and underwriting. The questions to get answered in writing before buying, plus the current O-A visa minimum.
What ฿30,000 a month actually gets you in Bangkok
An honest ฿30,000 Bangkok budget — including the annualised costs every YouTube budget video quietly leaves out. Real 2026 prices.
Am I a Thai tax resident? The 180-day rule explained
Spend 180 days in Thailand in a tax year and you are a Thai tax resident. The current Revenue Department rule on foreign income remitted from 2024 onwards, and the questions to take to an adviser.
Opening a Thai bank account as a foreigner: what banks actually publish
KBank's public rule requires a passport, a non-immigrant visa and documents matching the purpose of stay. Other banks' requirements must be confirmed with the branch.
Can foreigners buy property in Thailand? The rules to check before you pay
Foreigners can own qualifying condominium units within a 49% quota. Land, leases and company structures require independent Thai legal advice before money changes hands.
The yellow book: Thailand's house registration, explained
Thailand's yellow house-registration book records a foreign resident at an address. The published national checklist, what the book does not prove, and why district-office confirmation matters.
Applying for Thai permanent residence: annual notices, not assumptions
Thailand's most recent permanent-residence round capped approvals at 100 per nationality. What the published annual notice confirms, what changes each round, and what to prepare before applying.
Empty by the hundred thousand
Thailand has more than 200,000 unsold condo units worth about ฿700 billion, on the state housing bank's count. Take-up on new Bangkok launches halved in a quarter. Five to six years of inventory.
Thai gold savings: selling jewellery back
Selling Thai gold jewellery back is not the same as reading a public price board. Understand the same-shop 5% rule, required label information and what to ask for in writing.
Your bill is not broken
Thai electricity is priced in rising bands, so your bill grows faster than your usage. Triple the units and you more than triple the cost. Plus the rental-utility rule that may apply.
The fine nobody paid
Since August 2026, newer unpaid Thai traffic tickets can affect the annual vehicle-tax decal after the statutory notice process. You can still pay the tax, but may receive a 30-day temporary proof instead of the decal.
Thailand's Por Ror Bor sticker: important cover, incomplete protection
Thailand's compulsory Por Ror Bor vehicle policy provides statutory personal-injury benefits. It is not a replacement for reading the policy, understanding fault or considering voluntary cover.
It asks about the object
Thai local government runs 240 pawnshops and cuts the rate when school term starts. One city reserved ฿660 million for it. The state knows exactly what happens in May.
Renewed every June
Thais have entered Japan without a visa since 2013. Thailand publishes an expiry date for it; Japan publishes none. And it is becoming an application you can fail.
Paid in years
Some Bangkok expressways are free on public holidays and Don Muang Tollway never is. The reason is the contract under the tarmac, and Thailand has a habit of settling road debts in years rather than baht.
Thailand's treatment-anywhere scheme: more access, not a blank cheque
Thailand's treatment-anywhere programme expands access for eligible gold-card users, but registered units, participating services and referral routes still matter. Check NHSO before a planned visit.
You are renting footfall
Sellers quote ฿85,000 a machine and ฿400 a day, and omit the site fee. Thai hospitals publish that fee themselves — as an auction the highest bid need not win.
Two hundred plants per rai
Vacant land in Bangkok is taxed at up to 0.7%. Agricultural land at as little as 0.01%. Bananas qualify at 200 plants per rai, and the plants cost almost nothing.
Six if you have land
Bangkok dogs and cats must now be registered and microchipped, with fines up to ฿25,000. And the number of animals you may keep is set by the size of your home.
Nobody is going to sue you
An illegal lender in Thailand cannot enforce a contract in court. So the price you pay is not set by what you borrowed — it is set by how much you can be shamed. Which explains why some pay hundreds of per cent and others pay nothing.
Taking turns
Thailand's 2015 guarantor reforms matter, but contract dates and terms still decide individual cases. GSB's main 2026 teacher-debt registration window has closed; limited later routes remain.
Thirty years at fifteen thousand
Thailand insures the same misfortunes three different ways depending on which door you came through. And the wage ceiling that decides what you pay also decides what you get — it sat at ฿15,000 from 1995 until January 2026.
Ownership passes last
On a Thai hire-purchase contract the finance company owns the motorcycle until the final instalment. The rate cap is 23% a year — the highest of the three — and since December 2025 the whole business has been supervised by the Bank of Thailand.
Principal, then interest, then penalty
Thailand's 2023 student loan amendment capped interest at 1%, cut the penalty from as much as 18% to 0.5%, abolished guarantors and applied all of it retrospectively — even to borrowers already subject to a final judgment. Recalculating every account took until June 2026.
Five kinds of wealth
Thailand's inheritance tax applies above ฿100 million per recipient, at 5% or 10%. It reaches exactly five classes of asset — property, securities, deposits, registered vehicles, and whatever a royal decree adds. All five are already on a record somewhere.
Printed on the receipt
Since October 2024 a Thai buyer may open a cash-on-delivery parcel before paying, and the courier must hold the money five days before passing it to the seller. The instrument that did it regulates what appears on a receipt.
A deposit, a ticket, and a bail bond
Thai state banks sell a deposit that is also a lottery ticket. The principal comes back, the prizes are tax-free to individuals, and the issuer's own disclosure shows the expected return rising with the size of the holding.
You keep the car, they keep the book
In a Thai vehicle title loan you keep the car and the ownership; the lender keeps the registration book. The Bank of Thailand brought the business under supervision in 2019 and the rate ceiling is now 24 per cent.
Eight transfers a day
Thailand's "e-payment law" does not tax anyone. It requires banks to report customers with 3,000 incoming payments a year, or 400 totalling ฿2 million. That is about eight a day. Here is what is counted, what is reported, and what the reporting does not change.
Only if you asked
Thailand's 2026 welfare-card round failed 9.3 million of 18.8 million applicants, then relaxed rules the government said might have failed people who deserved help. The review reached the 5.0 million who appealed, and 1.75 million of them got the card. The 4.3 million who did not appeal were not part of it.
Whose roof it is
Thailand's 2026 flood support uses separate Cabinet cash payments, emergency relief and national disaster insurance. Dates, claimant status and damage type matter.
Worth more used than sold
Thailand's ฿50,000 household-solar grant is open until January 2027, but it cannot be combined with the ฿200,000 tax exemption. The current export-price rule, conditions and deadlines.
It starts at the third flat
Thai rules cap deposit and advance rent at three months combined and set 7- and 14-day deadlines to return a deposit. They apply only to landlords letting three or more homes.
There is no list
Thailand's credit bureau keeps no blacklist. It keeps a monthly record of every loan for up to three years. What it holds, who can see it, how to check it, and why 40% of working-age Thais have no record at all.
Cheaper in the capital
Bangkok households pay ฿8.50 per cubic metre for their first 30 units, on a tariff unchanged since 1999. Provincial households pay ฿10.20 rising to ฿21.20. What that does to a bill, and to the welfare-card subsidy.
Where the money went
Lending your bank account for someone else's use has been a crime in Thailand since 2023. The suspension system beside the law works differently: by July 2026 it had suspended 4.3 million accounts, more than half in categories that need no police report.
Somebody else's form
Thailand's TM30 rule puts the duty on the landlord: 24 hours to report a foreign guest. Since 2019 the receipt has been checked when the foreigner extends their stay. Why a 2020 reform could only redefine the rule, not remove it.
The second million
In 2001 every Thai village got a ฿1 million revolving fund. Every top-up since has gone to the funds that were ready. In 2026, ฿3.4 billion promised in 2012 is still waiting for the ones that weren't.
Ahead of the bank
Thai condo common fees are split by a ratio fixed at registration: by area since July 2008, by price before. Unpaid, they cost up to 20% a year, block a sale and, since 2017, come out of a court sale before the mortgage.
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