How to receive USD in Thailand: what the Wise change means and what still works
Thailand used to be the easy one. Open a Wise account, give clients your US routing number, sit on the dollars, convert when the rate looked good. That is ending. Wise now serves customers with a Thai registered address through a locally licensed entity, and reports say that once you are moved, client payments landing in your USD details are converted to baht the moment they arrive. You can still be paid. You just cannot hold the dollars. PayPal is not the fallback either: personal accounts in Thailand lost the ability to receive payments in the 2022 relaunch, and because verification runs through a Thai national ID system, foreign residents cannot open one at all. What is left is Payoneer at roughly 3% all in, Wise at well under 1% with the conversion timing taken out of your hands, and a SWIFT wire into a Thai foreign currency deposit account if holding dollars matters more to you than fees. We should say plainly that Wise pays us a commission when someone signs up through this site, and that the Thailand change is a downgrade for anyone who wanted to park dollars. It is still the cheapest way to turn client dollars into baht. It is no longer a place to keep them.
By George I. · Last updated:
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Provider comparison: receiving $1,000 USD in Thailand
Using live mid-market rate as of 2026-08-28 · open.er-api.com
| Provider | Net received (THB) | Effective fee | FX margin | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wise | 32,711 | 0.48% | Mid-market | ~1 day |
| Western Union | 32,213 | 0.50% | +1.5% | ~1 day |
| Payoneer | 31,889 | 1.00% | +2.0% | ~2 days |
| Bank Wire | 30,608 | 3.50% | +3.5% | ~4 days |
| PayPal | 30,313 | 4.43% | +3.5% | ~1 day |
Receiving without converting, in Thailand
Thai banks offer foreign currency deposit accounts, commonly called FCD accounts, and the Bank of Thailand does not require inbound foreign currency to be converted. A dollar wire credited to one converts nothing, so you choose when to sell. This is what that costs. Note that the Thai inward remittance commission, reported at 0.25% with a floor and ceiling that vary by bank, is charged on top and is not modelled here.
Receiving $1,000 USD as USD
| Provider | Net received (USD) | Effective fee | FX margin | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Wire | 965.00 | 3.50% | No conversion | ~4 days |
Wise in Thailand: cheapest to convert, no longer a place to hold
Still the cheapest route from client dollars to baht, and still the one changing under your feet. Wise now serves personal customers with a Thai registered address through a locally incorporated entity licensed by the Bank of Thailand. What is reported consistently, including in summaries of Wise's own help article that we could not open directly, is this: after the move, a non-baht payment arriving from someone else into your foreign currency receiving details, including your US routing number or a UK IBAN, is converted to baht, added to your THB balance, and charged a conversion fee. Money you add yourself from your own overseas bank account into a foreign currency balance is described as working as before, so the forced conversion targets exactly the case this page is about, which is a client paying you. The dates are not really in dispute, they have moved. Accounts opened after 21 January 2026 were being rolled onto the new rules progressively through August 2026, so if you signed up this year you may already be on them. Accounts opened before 21 January 2026 were due to move on 3 August 2026, and Wise is reported to have pushed that back at the end of July to October 2026, with verification documents requested in September. We could not open wise.com from our side to confirm any of it first hand, so check your own account rather than our dates. Two consequences people miss: moving money back out of baht is reported to carry daily caps, and once your balance is baht, paying out to a non-baht account means two conversions instead of one. One wrinkle worth checking yourself: the move is keyed to the registered address on your account rather than your nationality, so a foreign resident who still has a home country address on file may not be in the first wave. Look at the address in your Wise profile rather than assuming. Reports also say a DTV or ED visa is accepted for the Thai verification, which is more than the major Thai banks will accept for opening an account. Wise connected directly to PromptPay in May 2026, so a converted balance can land on a phone number.
The only route that still lets you hold dollars
A foreign currency deposit account at a Thai bank is now the main reason to take a SWIFT wire rather than use Wise, and that is a genuine change in this corridor. Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank and SCB all offer FCD accounts, in both resident and non-resident versions, and a dollar wire credited to one converts nothing on arrival. There is no blanket national rule forcing inbound foreign currency into baht, which is why a Thai bank can hold your dollars. Be careful with the conclusion though: Wise attributes its own change to the Thai regulatory requirements that come with the licence its local entity holds, and that is not a banking licence, so the fairer reading is that a bank and a licensed payment provider are allowed to do different things rather than that Wise simply chose this. What it costs: your client's US bank charges roughly $25 to $45 to send, and the major Thai banks publish an inward remittance commission of 0.25% with a floor and a ceiling, reported at a 200 baht minimum and 500 baht maximum at Bangkok Bank and a 300 baht minimum and the same 500 baht maximum at SCB. A correspondent bank may also deduct something in transit. We could not open any Thai bank tariff page, so treat those figures as reported rather than confirmed, and note that the comparison tables on this page do not model the commission at all. The other thing to know is that opening any Thai bank account as a foreigner now effectively requires a long stay non-immigrant visa. Tourist visas no longer work at the major banks, and reports for 2026 say the banks classify the Destination Thailand Visa as a tourist visa for this purpose, so a DTV on its own is unlikely to get you an account. Requirements still vary branch by branch in a way no published policy captures.
How much does Payoneer charge to receive USD in Thailand?
The default payout on Upwork and Fiverr, and the most predictable option here now that Wise is changing. Payoneer charges up to 1% on incoming commercial payments and up to 2% above mid-market when it converts dollars to baht on withdrawal, so roughly 3% all in. That is many times what our model has Wise charging on this corridor, and you are paying it for the platform integration rather than for the rate. Bangkok Bank publishes its own guide to receiving Payoneer withdrawals, which is about as close to institutional confirmation as this corridor gets. On speed, our comparison models about two days and that is optimistic. Payoneer's own material describes funds arriving within three to five business days of a withdrawal, and linking a bank account for the first time adds its own verification wait on top. We could not open payoneer.com from our side to confirm either figure. Whether a foreigner on a long stay visa can open a Payoneer account in Thailand is something we could not establish either way. Nothing we found says Thai nationality is required, and nothing says it is not, so if you are not Thai, confirm before you route a client to it.
Why PayPal probably is not an option for you in Thailand
This one needs reading carefully, because PayPal being available in Thailand and PayPal being usable by you are different questions. The 2022 relaunch removed the ability to receive payments from personal accounts in Thailand. Withdrawing an existing balance to a bank account was reported to continue, but receiving stopped, so a Thai freelancer cannot invoice a client into a personal PayPal account any more. For foreign residents it goes further: identity verification for personal accounts runs through Thailand's national digital ID system, which requires a thirteen digit Thai national ID, and a foreign passport, work permit, pink ID card or permanent residence permit are all reported as not accepted, so foreigners cannot hold a personal Thai PayPal account at all. The route that remains is a business account under a Thai registered company, which is reported not to need the national ID enrolment. We could not open paypal.com from our side, and we found no Thailand specific merchant fee schedule, so the percentages in our comparison are PayPal's generic cross-border pricing rather than anything confirmed for a Thai business account. Treat the number in the table as a placeholder and price your own account.
How much does Western Union charge to receive USD in Thailand?
Western Union's cost on this corridor is not one number, and the honest thing is to show you the range rather than pick a point in it. Third party rate trackers put the dollar to baht spread around 1.5% below mid-market, which is what our comparison models. The World Bank's remittance price survey carries more than one Western Union entry for United States to Thailand, and the entries we saw quoted differed sharply, from an exchange rate margin of roughly 2% with total cost near 2.5% on one, to a margin above 5% with total cost above 7% on another. That is not two sources contradicting each other so much as Western Union pricing different products and delivery methods very differently, and a small transfer through the wrong one costing several times what a larger one through the right one costs. We could not open westernunion.com or the World Bank pages from our side to check any of these figures directly, so read the spread in our table as the cheap end of a wide range, not as a quote. The transfer fee is promotion driven and moves. Beyond the pricing, the same caution applies as on our Pakistan page: this is a consumer remittance product scoped and priced for someone sending money to family, and a client settling a commercial invoice through it is not the use case. Price your own transfer before accepting one.
Providers not available in Thailand
Revolut: not available
Revolut does not open accounts to residents of Thailand, and the card is not available here either. A client abroad can still push a payment from their own Revolut account into your Thai bank account, but that arrives as an ordinary international transfer and you pay the Thai inward remittance commission on it. If you have seen Revolut listed as an option for Thailand, including in our own calculator before today, that was wrong and we have corrected it.
GrabrFi: not available
Thailand does not appear on GrabrFi's published list of countries where you can open an account, which is keyed to your government issued ID. We previously listed GrabrFi as supporting Thailand and were showing it in the comparison here. That was wrong, and since we carry a referral link for GrabrFi, it is the kind of wrong that we benefit from, so it is worth stating plainly rather than quietly removing.
How we calculate these figures
The net received figure deducts the provider's published flat fee and percentage fee from the send amount, then converts at the live mid-market rate from open.er-api.com minus the provider's FX markup in basis points. Rates on this page refresh hourly (ISR). Fee data is sourced from each provider's public pricing page and verified periodically. Not every provider publishes an FX spread. Where one does not, we estimate it, mark the row “est.” in the FX margin column, and exclude it from the best-value badge, so the option we highlight is always one whose spread we can source.
Fee data for this corridor last verified 2026-06-02 or later; each provider card shows its own date. · Open-source fee data on GitHub
Frequently asked questions
Can I still hold USD in my Wise account in Thailand?
For now, and probably not for much longer. Wise is moving personal customers with a Thai registered address onto a locally incorporated entity licensed by the Bank of Thailand, and the reported consequence is that once you are moved, payments arriving from someone else into your foreign currency receiving details are converted to baht on arrival and charged a conversion fee. Money you add yourself from your own overseas bank account is described as working as before, so the restriction targets client payments specifically. The reported timing depends on when you signed up. Accounts opened after 21 January 2026 were being moved progressively through August 2026. Accounts opened before that date were due to move on 3 August 2026, and Wise is reported to have pushed that back at the end of July to October 2026, with verification documents requested in September. We could not open the Wise help article to confirm the dates ourselves, and older write ups still quote a May 2026 date that has since been superseded, so check your own account rather than planning around a date you read here. The move is keyed to your registered address, not your nationality, which is worth knowing if you are a foreign resident.
Can foreigners use PayPal in Thailand?
Not with a personal account. Verification for personal accounts in Thailand runs through the national digital ID system, which requires a thirteen digit Thai national ID. A foreign passport, work permit, pink ID card and even Thai permanent residence are all reported as not accepted, so a foreign resident cannot complete verification at all. Thai nationals who verified before the 2022 deadline kept their accounts, but personal accounts lost the ability to receive payments in the relaunch, so a personal account is for paying merchants rather than for getting paid. The only route we could identify for freelance income is a business account under a Thai registered company, which is reported not to require the national ID. If your plan was to invoice clients through PayPal as an individual living in Thailand, that plan does not work.
Do I pay Thai tax if I work remotely for a foreign client?
Probably yes, and probably not for the reason you have been reading about. Almost every article on this topic is about remitted foreign income, because that is what changed in 2024 and what generates the arguments. That is likely the wrong rule for you. Under the Revenue Code, income from work performed in Thailand is Thai source income, and Thai source income is taxable whether it is paid to you in Thailand or abroad and whether or not you ever bring it into the country. Source follows where the work is done, not where your client sits or where the money lands. Thai advisers make the point directly: working in Thailand while being paid into an overseas account does not make the income foreign source. So if you are physically in Thailand doing the work, the ordinary reading is that none of the remittance timing arguments help you. The remittance rules apply to genuinely foreign income, such as work done abroad, a foreign rental property or an offshore portfolio. Two things people get backwards. Thai source income is not switched on by the 180 day test: that test decides whether you are a Thai tax resident, counted cumulatively across a calendar year and on any visa, which is what brings remitted foreign income into scope, while Thai source income is assessable even if you stay under it. And separately from tax, Thai labour law is reported to treat any paid work performed in Thailand as requiring a work permit, even when the employer and the clients are abroad. We are not able to tell you which side of these lines your particular arrangement falls on, and it is worth an hour with a Thai tax adviser rather than an afternoon on an expat forum.
What is the current state of the rule on money I transfer into Thailand?
Unsettled, which is itself the useful answer. Revenue Department orders effective 1 January 2024 changed the interpretation so that foreign source income earned from that date, and remitted by a Thai tax resident in any later year, is assessable in the year you bring it in. Income earned before 2024 sits under the older treatment. Since then a relief measure has been drafted that would exempt foreign source income remitted in the year it was earned or the following calendar year, which would matter a great deal to anyone timing transfers. It needs Cabinet approval, Council of State review and publication in the Royal Gazette, and on the most recent information we could find it had not been published, which is the step that makes it law. Reporting through 2026 also places it in the political queue rather than close to the line: with the House dissolved, pending items of this kind are described as paused until a new government is formed. So it is drafted, widely reported, and not in force as far as we can tell. Do not plan around it as though it were settled, and do not assume it is dead either. Verify the current position before making a decision that depends on it.
Can I open a USD account in Thailand?
Yes, and it is now the main reason to take a wire instead of using Wise. Thai banks offer foreign currency deposit accounts, commonly called FCD accounts, in both resident and non-resident versions, and Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank and SCB all publish them. A dollar wire credited to one converts nothing, so you hold the currency and choose your own moment to sell it. Residents are reported to be able to deposit foreign currency received from abroad without a limit, and there is no end of day balance cap, though depositing physical foreign banknotes is capped, with a daily figure of about USD 15,000 across all accounts and all banks appearing in Thai bank product sheets. One trade off to know about: the FET form that banks issue is a record of converting foreign currency into baht, so money that sits in an FCD unconverted does not generate one, which matters if you are building a paper trail for a condominium purchase. The practical obstacle is not the FCD account itself but the underlying bank relationship. As a foreigner you now generally need a long stay non-immigrant visa to open any Thai bank account, tourist visas no longer work at the major banks, and reports for 2026 say the Destination Thailand Visa is treated as a tourist visa for this purpose. Requirements vary noticeably between branches, so ask at more than one if the first says no.
How much does my Thai bank charge to receive money from abroad?
The figure reported consistently across the major banks is an inward remittance commission of 0.25% of the amount, with a floor and a ceiling. Bangkok Bank is reported at a 200 baht minimum and 500 baht maximum, SCB at a 300 baht minimum and the same 500 baht maximum. Because of that floor and ceiling, small transfers effectively pay a flat minimum and large ones pay a flat maximum, which means the percentage cost falls sharply as the amount rises. On a thousand dollar invoice you are paying the floor, and on a twenty thousand dollar payment the same ceiling applies, which is why wires suit large irregular payments and suit small monthly invoices badly. A correspondent bank in the middle may also deduct its own fee before the money arrives, which nobody warns you about in advance. Our comparison does not model this commission or a correspondent deduction, so treat the wire figures there as covering the sending side only. We could not open any Thai bank tariff page from our side, so verify the current commission with your own bank.
What is a FET form and do I need one?
It is Thailand's closest equivalent to the inward remittance certificate that some other countries issue, and it is the document to ask for at the time rather than chase later. A Foreign Exchange Transaction form is issued by the receiving Thai bank and is reported to be required at fifty thousand dollars or equivalent in a single transaction, documenting the inbound money, the conversion into baht and the stated purpose. Below that threshold banks will normally issue a credit advice or a bank letter instead if you ask. You want one because it is the proof of inbound foreign funds that comes up when buying a condominium, and it is useful evidence if the Revenue Department or immigration ever asks where money came from. Note how that interacts with holding dollars: because the form records a conversion into baht, money parked in an FCD account and never converted will not produce one. Separately, banks are reported to require a purpose to be stated on inbound remittances regardless of size. Make sure your client's payment carries something like payment for services rather than gift or family support, because the purpose code follows the money and a wrong one is awkward to unpick later.
Written by George I. (20+ years in international payments). Last updated: .
Fees are estimates from publicly available pricing. Verify with your provider before transferring. Nothing on this site is financial or tax advice. How we make money.