Thai Gold Bars are foreigners able to buy and take out of Thailand ?

JDLove · April 22, 2016

Hi I was in the gold shop looking at Thai Gold bars and the sales person said she was not sure if its "allowed" to take out of Thailand.

Has anyone had any experience with this of know of others experience taking gold bars out.

I could get the bar made into jewellery but its not ideal at this stage, they charge 1000 Bht per Baht measure and I loose 100 BHT on the buyback.

Years ago I innocently I took a 10 BHT bar out but that was such a long time ago I fear its time to check on the current situation. At the time it was picked up in the bag scanner and I was asked to show it to the officer who mumbled something and waived me on.

Thanks

surangw · April 22, 2016

I think you may have to pay duty on them when taking to your home country, so it may negate any future profit

( and thats if they are real, not fake)

Edited April 22, 2016 by surangw

elgordo38 · April 22, 2016

See: http://www.customs.g...ingfromthailand

jackh · April 23, 2016

Why on earth do you want to buy gold bars? That is the stupidist way to own gold. You should buy bullion where you can freely carry it in/out any country in the world without duty or tax. Also it can be freely exchanged anywhere.

You should do some research on owning gold before you make these investments.

JDLove · April 23, 2016

I think this link is incomplete as won't load page.

JDLove · April 23, 2016

I already have some bars now so I will sell as against risking any issues at the airport, I'm fine taking into my country its just the Thai airport I am concerned about. Just not worth the risk, sure I agree recognised bullion is best from a mint etc.

DDbkh · April 23, 2016

You will probably need to show a receipt of purchase using foreign sourced funds, otherwise you could be accused of trying to evade Foreign Exchange control regulations or even money laundering.

gemguy · April 23, 2016

You could send the gold bars to yourself in your home country by way of secured courier service such as Malca Amit or Brinks with shipping insurance provided while they would have all the answers to your questions....or they should have the answers as that is what they commonly do as a regular service...that is, shipping valuable items such as precious stones or precious stone jewelry or karat gold jewelry for their clients who send products to their customers in overseas destinations

However.. this is Thailand so maybe you will be subjected to a degree of total ineptness and stupidity when you phone such companies and ask them simple questions related to their business services such as:

" Are there duties or taxes or restrictions when taking gold, having been purchased in Thailand, out of Thailand by way of exiting the country through the airport while physically carrying the gold out of the country???

Meantime there is no need to buy physical gold here and then take it to your home country because there is no cost saving advantage on the price of gold bought in Thailand verse gold bought in other countries and if there is, the price difference would be very marginal....and.... can be marginally more than in other countries.

Gold is traded by way of an international price structure with access to the product in several forms while the most convenient form is gold certificates that can be purchased in near every country through legitimate gold trading brokerage services.

Much easier and safer to set up a gold trading account with any legitimate precious metals trading brokerage company and trade at leisure...rather than having to physically handle the gold bars and the need for safekeeping in a safety deposit box or a safe at home and chance having them stolen or when you are robbed and just the general inconveniences involved.....Such as you are experiencing right now worrying about how you are going to get your physical gold out of Thailand.

You can even buy the certificates in one country and exchange the certificates in another country or exchange the certificates for physical gold when you get back to your country and then take possession of the physical gold and safe keep it any which way you see fit....or hidden under your bed and mattress if that makes you feel better...lol

Cheers

Edited April 23, 2016 by gemguy

Time Traveller · April 23, 2016

What strange topic and question. It's as crazy as asking if you are allowed to breathe air on Wednesdays?

It sounds like you have been totally conditioned to being told what to do by people and the government all your life and now you are not able to understand what property rights are about. So here's a tip. If you legally bought the gold bars, then they are yours to take wherever and do whatever you want with them. If that's too difficult to understand you can just give them to me, yes?

Monkeyrobot · April 23, 2016

What is the difference between the Bullion and the Thai 23 stamped bars ? Is the Bullion 24 ?

gemguy · April 23, 2016

Yes Gold Bullion is considered pure gold being 99.9 percent gold while the 0.1 percent would be the natural elements found in the gold and remaining after gold is refined.

For industrial and scientific applications 99.9999 percent purity of gold can be obtained.

Meantime Thai baht gold is a Gold standard here in Thailand where the gold is basically 96.5 percent pure gold and the remaining 3.5 percent consists of other metal mineral additives such as silver or copper and other internationally recognized metal additives that are considered standard metal mineral additives used to formulate what is then referred to as 23 Karat Gold ...meaning 23 parts of 24 parts ( 24 parts being pure gold ) consists of gold and the remaining 1 part being other mineral metal additives.

When Thai baht gold is analyzed or assayed the actual percent of other mineral metal additives can vary from batch to batch or what ever the gold refiner decides to formulated relative to what percent of each metal mineral additives are mixed with the pure gold...but the gold percent remains at 96.5 percent.

If you are adding Silver as part of the formula then silver would be your most costly mineral metal additive so most refiners would shy away from putting more silver in their formula and tend to put in less ..especially if the cost of silver is rising significantly in the international market place.

When refining large volumes of 23 K gold to be sold to the mass manufactures of 23 gold Thai baht gold jewelry the amount of silver used verses not used could be equivalent to several thousand dollars of cost savings over a one month or several month period when refining large volumes of 23 K gold being supplied and sold to the numerous Thai baht gold jewelry manufacturers.

It is all marginal profits but based on high volume formulation and calculations...but they do very well in that gold product trading business.

Cheers

gandalf12 · April 23, 2016

Thailand does not stamp their gold with an Assay office stamp. That being the case they would be of n value outside of Thailand unless you sent them to an Assay office and had them stamped. Sounds like a reasonable deal but I would not advise it. If you want to buy gold bullion talk to a Swiss bank who will do it for you

ThailandLOS · April 23, 2016

I can think of a few reasons:

1) Institution holding the gold goes belly up and assets are lost

2) Bail-in, again most of assets are lost

3) Fraud, issued certificates are not covered by actual held physical gold

4) Electronic malfunction that can be caused by various scenarios, wiping out account records (not likely, but can happen once every century)

Physical gold held by yourself is yours to do what you want with when you want it. Just make sure to keep it in a decent safe and not talk about what you have, to anyone except your closest family (and I mean closest).

Edited April 23, 2016 by ThailandLOS

Suradit69 · April 23, 2016

Buying gold in one place and carting it about from place to place does seem an unnecessary exercise. Not sure why anyone would want to buy gold in quantity with the intention of carrying it in and out of any country in the world ... especially since every country in the world isn't likely to allow you to bring more than a trivial amount of gold in or, in some cases, out without potential restrictions or duty.

For those of us who aren't going anywhere, buying gold bars in Thailand is a reasonable way to take advantage of a strong foreign currency exchange rate and the potential for a cyclical rise in the price of gold. It has the advantage of being nearly as liquid as cash, but is less likely to be cashed in on a whim. Obviously timing will make cashing in either profitable or a loss and there's no guarantee that it will rise in value over time.

The gold price here is reset several times per trading day based on the posted dollar price in New York and London, etc.

If you deal with any of the many reputable dealers there's no reason to think you'll end up with "fake" bars. I've bought and sold gold with Hua Seng Heng on Yaowarat Rd in Bangkok and Thong Dee on Pattaya Tai in Pattaya over many years without a hitch.

I have medical insurance in the US that reimburses me after the fact for medical costs in Thailand so I like the idea of keeping some gold here as a source for emergency funds in the event I have major upfront medical expenses while waiting for the reimbursement to be deposited in my US bank.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Suradit69

JDLove · April 23, 2016

Thanks for the reply, I'll go and see Malca Amit on Monday in Silom BKK see what they say, maybe Brinks as well. All good information I'll also ask them for just storage options to keep it here if there are issues carrying it out on person.

In the future I'll just use a service in Singapore to buy and store the gold. Agreed its not a good idea to have to worry about !

Thanks again appreciate you reply !

jobsworth · April 23, 2016

as you suggest i will do some research. yes bullion. some time ago while exiting the uk there was a customs booth in the departure lounge manned so tourists could reclaim vat.

i was going to singapore and so asked about buying gold bars and bringing them back to the uk. the officer was very cynical and unhelpful.

he talked about hatton garden and gold chains around the neck with little gold bars on them. "we would need to look at it".

like you say it should be possible to carry bullion freely since it is like cash.

it has always interested me but seems like a grey area connected with drug trafficking and money laundering.

please tell us more about what you know.

Naam · April 23, 2016

stupid is to think that there is a difference between "gold bars" and "bullion"

gemguy · April 23, 2016

You probably will not like their prices for their services...

bazza40 · April 23, 2016

Gold is not an investment, it's a currency hedge. As Suradit69 has remarked, it's useful as an emergency fund.

I would foresee a number of problems getting gold out of Thailand. First how Customs here assesses duty. Second, how Customs in another country assesses duty. Thirdly, as Thai gold is not 99.99 pure, whether it would be accepted by gold shops in other countries without a substantial discount.

I'd suggest a better strategy would be to sell the gold here, then convert the baht to the desired currency. Most banks can convert baht to the more widely used currencies.

Don't know about other countries; however, in Australia you have to declare more than 10,000 AUD in or out. Provided you have a reasonable explanation, that's not a problem.