Moving to Thailand: the private-office checklist

Why the order matters more than the list

Most relocation guides present Thailand as a series of independent errands: get a visa, find a house, open an account, enrol the children. In practice these tasks are chained. A bank account requires proof of address and non-immigrant status, which requires a TM30 filing by whoever houses you, which requires a lease or hotel registration, which you cannot sensibly sign until you know which school your children will attend, which you should have applied to a year before you land. Families who treat the move as a list of parallel tasks arrive to find each task blocked by another. Families who treat it as a sequence arrive to find most of it already done.

The second reason sequencing matters is timing risk. Some steps have long, immovable lead times: tier-one school admissions run on a roughly twelve-month cycle, pet import permits must be arranged weeks ahead, and certain visa routes take two to four months from application to approval. Other steps are quick but can only happen in country and in person. The art is starting the slow items early and stacking the fast items into the first fortnight after arrival. The sections below follow that logic, and a month-by-month table at the end puts the whole programme on one page.

First decision: the visa route

Everything downstream keys off immigration status, so this decision comes first even if the move is a year away. For most wealthy families the realistic candidates are Thailand Privilege, the Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa, a Non-B working route, or a retirement route for those over fifty. Thailand Privilege is the low-friction option: tiers in 2026 run from Bronze at ฿650,000 for five years (closing to new applicants on 30 September 2026) through Gold at ฿900,000, Platinum at ฿1.5 million for ten years, Diamond at ฿2.5 million for fifteen, and Reserve at ฿5 million for twenty. It buys convenience and long validity but confers no work rights and no special tax status.

The LTR visa is the more structural choice for families who qualify. It runs ten years in a five-plus-five format for a ฿50,000 fee, and the Wealthy Global Citizen category asks for USD 1 million in assets plus USD 500,000 invested in Thailand, the income test having been removed in 2026. The wealthy pensioner category takes applicants aged fifty or over with USD 80,000 in passive income, or a blended route at lower income with USD 250,000 invested. The wealth categories carry a foreign-income remittance exemption under Royal Decree 743, which matters a great deal once you become Thai tax resident. Requirements include health insurance of USD 50,000 or a qualifying deposit, and an annual report replaces the usual 90-day routine. Our separate briefings on the Privilege programme and the LTR visa cover eligibility and tactics in detail; the point for the checklist is that this decision should be made eight to twelve months out, because it shapes the banking, tax and property steps that follow.

If any adult intends to work or run a Thai company, the visa analysis changes materially. A Non-B route brings capital and staffing ratios into play, and Board of Investment structures can relax them. Settle this before choosing a route, not after.

Schools: the true critical path

For families with children, school admissions, not visas, set the timetable. The tier-one international schools in Bangkok run competitive admissions with assessment days, waiting pools by year group, and an effective lead time of around twelve months for the most sought-after entry points. Tuition at this tier runs roughly ฿545,000 to ฿1,120,000 per child per year, with entry and capital fees typically adding ฿150,000 to ฿300,000. Applying to two or three schools in parallel is normal and sensible. The school decision then anchors the property search, because Bangkok traffic makes a school run of more than twenty to thirty minutes a daily tax on family life. Our schools briefing maps the tiers and admissions mechanics; for sequencing purposes, applications should be in twelve months before the intended start, and certainly no later than nine.

Property: rent first, buy later if at all

We advise almost every arriving family to rent for the first year. Prime two-bedroom apartments in central Bangkok run roughly ฿150,000 to ฿300,000 per month, family houses in the school corridors more, and Phuket villas roughly ฿150,000 to ฿500,000 per month in the prime pockets. A year of renting teaches you which district actually suits your routine, which is knowledge no amount of pre-arrival research replaces. Buying, when it comes, has its own machinery: condominiums can be owned freehold within the 49 percent foreign quota, with the currency trail documented through a Foreign Exchange Transaction form, while land cannot be owned freehold by foreigners and long leases need careful drafting because renewal clauses do not bind successors. Transfer costs all-in typically land between 3.5 and 6.3 percent. Our property briefings cover the quota, the FET mechanics and the lease structures; the checklist point is simpler: sign a quality lease early, because that lease starts the address chain the banking depends on.

Banking and the paper chain

Opening a Thai bank account has tightened considerably. Non-immigrant status is now effectively required; tourist entries and even the DTV are routinely refused, with at least one major bank formally classifying DTV holders as tourist-tier in January 2026. The working sequence is mechanical: the landlord or hotel files the TM30 notification of your residence, immigration issues a residence certificate on the strength of it, and the bank opens the account on the strength of that. The same chain feeds the driving licence and other registrations, so it pays to run it deliberately in the first two weeks. Deposit protection is ฿1 million per bank, which argues for spreading balances, and foreign currency deposit accounts are available and useful for families keeping the bulk of their liquidity offshore. Remittances into Thailand should be planned against the post-2024 tax rules: 180 days or more in a tax year makes you Thai tax resident, and foreign income remitted by ordinary residents is assessable, so the timing and character of transfers deserves advice before the move, not after.

Healthcare and insurance

Thailand's private hospital tier is genuinely excellent and is the default for expatriate families; the public tier is competent but not built for foreign patients. The practical steps are to choose a home hospital near your residence, register the family, and put insurance in place from day one. International policies for a family typically run ฿150,000 to ฿400,000 per year depending on ages, cover level and deductibles, and some visa routes carry their own minimum cover requirements, USD 50,000 in the LTR's case. Our separate briefings on the healthcare system, the Bangkok private hospitals and insurance structuring cover the choices; the checklist item is simply that cover should be bound before wheels-up, because a gap between leaving a home-country scheme and starting a Thai one is the single most common insurance error we see.

Household staff

Good staff transform life in Thailand and are affordable by international standards, with salaries typically running ฿18,000 to ฿40,000 per month per role for housekeepers, nannies, cooks and drivers at the quality end of the market. The constraint is not budget but vetting and management: references need genuine checking, employment brings social security registration and severance obligations, and the best candidates move through private referral networks rather than agencies. Begin the search a month or two before arrival so shortlists are ready for interview in your first weeks. Our staffing briefings cover sourcing, nannies, drivers and payroll obligations in detail.

Cars and drivers

Do not ship your cars. Import duties stack to a level that typically doubles or triples the landed cost, and even collectors usually buy locally. Cars in Thailand run roughly twice European prices because of the same duty structure, the market for premium marques is deep, and ownership by foreigners is straightforward. Financing is rarely offered to foreigners without long history, so plan cash purchases. In Bangkok specifically, a driver is not a luxury but part of the operating system of the city; hiring one belongs in the first-month plan alongside the car itself. A Thai driving licence, converted from a home licence with a residence certificate and a medical certificate, belongs in the same window while the paper chain is fresh.

Pets

Pets travel well to Thailand if the sequence is respected, and badly if it is not. The animal needs an ISO microchip fitted before its rabies vaccination, the vaccination must be at least 21 days before arrival with the animal at least twelve weeks old, an import permit from the Department of Livestock Development must be obtained seven to sixty days ahead, and the health certificate must be endorsed within ten days of travel. The import fee itself is modest, around ฿500; the cost is in the choreography. Airlines add their own rules on breeds and cabin carriage. Start this work eight to ten weeks before the flight.

Connectivity and the small registrations

A handful of small registrations round out the first fortnight and are worth doing deliberately rather than incidentally. A Thai SIM registered in your own name at a carrier shop, not bought casually at the airport, becomes the number your bank, the PromptPay payment system and half of Thai officialdom will verify you against for years, so it belongs to the same identity chain as the TM30 and the residence certificate. Home fibre is excellent and cheap and installs within days of the lease starting. The digital arrival card is completed online before the flight for each family member. None of these takes more than an hour; all of them are far easier in week one, with the paperwork fresh, than in month three. Our digital setup briefing covers the details, including the eSIM tactics for keeping home-country numbers alive.

The timeline, month by month

The table below compresses the programme into a single view for a family moving with children and pets. Months count down to arrival; the exact calendar should be anchored to the school year, which for most international schools in Bangkok begins in August.

Running the programme

None of the steps above is individually difficult. The difficulty is that they span four ministries, three professional disciplines and two school years, and that the cost of a missed dependency is measured in months. Some families run the programme themselves with a good lawyer and a patient assistant. Most of the families we work with prefer to hand the sequencing to a single office: we hold the relationships with the schools, the banks, the immigration units and the staffing networks, and we run the chain so that the family's first fortnight in Thailand is spent choosing restaurants rather than queuing for certificates. Either way, the checklist is the same. Start with the visa, follow the school calendar, respect the paper chain, and give the slow items the months they need.

Rules cited here, particularly visa financials and banking practice, shift with little notice. Verify the current position for each item as your dates firm up rather than relying on any static checklist, this one included.

This briefing is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Thai rules change frequently and individual cases differ. Verify current requirements with the relevant authorities, including the Immigration Bureau, the Board of Investment, the Land Department, the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, and take advice on your own facts before acting.