Post by Fletchsmile on Apr 26, 2015 21:43:04 GMT 7
People ask from time to time about inactive bank accounts in Thailand. I just received a notice from my local Thai bank saying my account would become inactive in a couple of months, so I thought I'd post a couple of notes on here. It can vary from bank to bank, but generally:
- In Thailand the time period with no transactions going in/out from you (apart from interest etc) is 1 year for an account to become inactive.
- Banks are supposed to notify you of this before an account becomes inactive, but obviously if living overseas or with unreliable Thai postal services you may not receive anything.
- Once an account gets designated as inactive there is usually a minimum balance level that kicks in and often a monthly charge. This particular bank was a minimum of THB 5,000 which is common, and if the balance goes below that they start deducting 100 baht a month as a fee until it gets to zero.
- There are quite a few exceptions though, eg where people have premium/priority banking or related to sometimes related to other products
- The money still belongs to you, and it doesn't get confiscated contrary to what sometimes people say, just the account gets frozen
- Procedures to reactivate the account vary from bank to bank, but for many banks they can request you to attend in person with your passport to reactivate the account. This can obviously be a hassle if you're outside Thailand and you have a fair sized some tied up you need access to.
One of the easiest solutions to prevent it becoming inactive is to register for online banking with your bank, and make sure you have at least two accounts with the same bank. That way every few months you can log in and just transfer say 1 baht between the two accounts, which gets picked up as a transaction
Cheers
Fletch
- In Thailand the time period with no transactions going in/out from you (apart from interest etc) is 1 year for an account to become inactive.
- Banks are supposed to notify you of this before an account becomes inactive, but obviously if living overseas or with unreliable Thai postal services you may not receive anything.
- Once an account gets designated as inactive there is usually a minimum balance level that kicks in and often a monthly charge. This particular bank was a minimum of THB 5,000 which is common, and if the balance goes below that they start deducting 100 baht a month as a fee until it gets to zero.
- There are quite a few exceptions though, eg where people have premium/priority banking or related to sometimes related to other products
- The money still belongs to you, and it doesn't get confiscated contrary to what sometimes people say, just the account gets frozen
- Procedures to reactivate the account vary from bank to bank, but for many banks they can request you to attend in person with your passport to reactivate the account. This can obviously be a hassle if you're outside Thailand and you have a fair sized some tied up you need access to.
One of the easiest solutions to prevent it becoming inactive is to register for online banking with your bank, and make sure you have at least two accounts with the same bank. That way every few months you can log in and just transfer say 1 baht between the two accounts, which gets picked up as a transaction
Cheers
Fletch
