Hi, first I apologise for being so dense. I want to open a bank account in Thailand to take care of my 1yr old son (with Thai girlfriend.) We rent a house in Krabi and have a 1 yr. rental contract. Tomorrow I will go to Penang, Malaysia to apply for a Non Immigrant 'O' visa, and I understand that I must apply for an extension later.

Please anyone, a few quick questions:

1. Can I get a bank account with the first non immigrant O and house rental contract?

2. Do I HAVE to get an extension, or can I just keep getting another non O every 3 months?

3. Do I need that big bank statement for the first non O? Or can I just request, pay, and recieve like real tourist visa? (And do I need house & baby pictures and such?)

Any information at all that will help our anxiety would be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Hi, first I apologise for being so dense. I want to open a bank account in Thailand to take care of my 1yr old son (with Thai girlfriend.) We rent a house in Krabi and have a 1 yr. rental contract. Tomorrow I will go to Penang, Malaysia to apply for a Non Immigrant 'O' visa, and I understand that I must apply for an extension later.

Please anyone, a few quick questions:

1. Can I get a bank account with the first non immigrant O and house rental contract?

2. Do I HAVE to get an extension, or can I just keep getting another non O every 3 months?

3. Do I need that big bank statement for the first non O? Or can I just request, pay, and recieve like real tourist visa? (And do I need house & baby pictures and such?)

Any information at all that will help our anxiety would be very greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Hi, With regard to the Bank account, I don't beleive that you need anything in the way of documentation. My wife and I opened an account with just 2000baht when we were thinking of buying a property and the bank didn't ask for anything more than to see your passport, which they obviously do to stop money laundering.

Just wish that we had that much money to have that problem.

The best of luck.

Seems to me you have a son and if your name is on his birth certificate all you need to do if present this to the Thai consulate and they will give you a Non o!

I walked into the Siam Commercial Bank and opened a savings account with an ISP invoice as proof of address the other day. It was a snap!

Banking info is not necessary with Penang unless someone else has some more recent info! Penang is easy of you just want a 3 month non o to visit family

Get one of the agent to do it for you but take the original and copy of your childs birth certificate and it will all happen very easily!

Badbanker (50 supportin Thai Child till April 15 2008)

Your sub-topic is so true. Even was told so at the Sydney Consulate by one of their staff. Then they made it almost impossible to get a non-imm-0 and told me i would be better off going back to my own country and try, ie. the police check, not required in Thailand, would be required from my home country.

Thus, as many of us have learned, come into the country on a tourist visa and then apply here for your non-imm-O.

Wow!!!

chesiremusicman and Badbanker, thank you for the excellent information.

I can now go down to Penang without stress. Have decided to go today in fact.

Thanks very much you guys! And, thank you thaivisa.com for being here.

....and, to answer another of your questions, you probably can't get an extention in country to your Non Imm O if you are not married or over 50 so you will have to go regularly to get a new Visa. You may want to consider going further afield than Penang and getting a multiple entry Non Imm O which will allow you to border hop and give you 15 months in Thailand for 4 exit/entries which you can do in a day trip from Krabi.

Check out this forum for consulates which are current;y issuing multi entries as unfortunately it would appear the neighbouring country consulates are not.