Hello all...

Is it possible to cash a check from the US, written in US dollars, in Thailand (in either baht or dollars or whatever)?? I don't have a bank account in Thailand.

My apologies if this topic has been discussed elsewhere on the forum, but I couldn't find it using the search.

Thanks in advance!

I would say highly unlikely. If you had an account, the bank will take the dollar denominated check and process it for collection with all the attendant fees and conversion games. It takes about 30 days for the collection process to take place. Then what is left is deposited in your account.

Writing personal checks-

I have been doing this for just about a year now. Every 3 months I write a personal check for the amount of money that I will need for the coming 3 months. The charge from my Thai bank (Siam City Bank) is 200 baht. There is no charge from my U.S. bank (Bank of America) as I keep a large balance. I have found that my personal check takes just about 8 days to be cashed. The Siam City Bank then holds the funds for about 30 days getting free use of my money. I can’t think of a cheaper way to transfer a large sum of money. I have heard of most of the plans but they don’t seem to work for me. ATM transfers cost too much, wire transfers cost too much. Until I can find a better way to transfer money I will stick to writing personal checks.

Jim

Ic, did you have to open a US dollar account to deposit this check, or will they deposit it directly into a Thai baht account?

Also, perhaps this has been answered before, but I am still confused about it: if you used this method to transfer money to qualify for a visa that requires foreign transfers (retirement visa), is there a code put in your passbook account that would indicate it was a foreign transfer, that would be accepted by Thai immigration the same way as a wire transfer?

Edited March 2, 200719 yr by Jingthing

I have deposited a dollar check from the US treasury, directly into my Thai baht account, as outlined by the above posters. I've never had a dollar savings account in Thailand.

Same here - Bangkok Bank. A bit more than 200 Baht in fees to clear it, and it takes the mentioned 30 days or so.

Just cleared into the Thai Baht account. I have no USD account in Thailand. Without a Thai bank account I think it will be hard to find somebody to clear it. Cheers!

Had no problems with the larger banks SCB, BBL, small fee(Bt300) other then that all went well.

Writing personal checks-

I have been doing this for just about a year now. Every 3 months I write a personal check for the amount of money that I will need for the coming 3 months. The charge from my Thai bank (Siam City Bank) is 200 baht. There is no charge from my U.S. bank (Bank of America) as I keep a large balance. I have found that my personal check takes just about 8 days to be cashed. The Siam City Bank then holds the funds for about 30 days getting free use of my money. I can't think of a cheaper way to transfer a large sum of money. I have heard of most of the plans but they don't seem to work for me. ATM transfers cost too much, wire transfers cost too much. Until I can find a better way to transfer money I will stick to writing personal checks.

Jim

How much does a wire transfer cost you ? I pay US$ 20 including the correspondent bank fee (citi NY). The receiving bank usually doesn't charge anything, so unless you are transferring less than around US$5k it should be cheaper to do a wire transfer.

I pay 40 to 50 dollars per wire transfer, but plan on doing these only once a year, so no worries.

Well I think you still have to deal with the 30 day "clearance" for a foreign check.