Moving to Thailand can be amazing – I would know, I’ve done it twice!

It can also get expensive very quickly if you arrive with a half-plan, vague visa advice, not enough savings, and the belief that “Thailand is cheap so it’ll all work out.”

I’ve lived in Thailand for 9 years, and I love it here. Bangkok is home for me. But I’ve also learned that moving to Thailand is very different from travelling here.

Holiday Thailand is beaches, iced coffees, cheap taxis, night markets, and saying, “We should totally live here.”

Living in Thailand is rent, visas, insurance, banking, healthcare, documents, phone numbers, air pollution, pets, school fees, and all the boring admin no one wants to think about until it becomes expensive.

Over the years of living here, I’ve seen so many people mess up their finances or their visas and have to return home. It nearly happened to Jason, my partner, when he moved from the US to Bangkok to be with me. I’d moved here as a teacher so my workplace sorted out a lot of the things for me…that was not the case for Jason who moved here on the DTV digital nomad visa and we had to figure out everything for ourselves…it was a lot of stress and we made a ton of costly mistakes.

If you already know you want someone to walk you through the expensive gaps, get my Thailand Move Reality Check. It includes the move audit and cost of living calculator so you can check your budget, spot expensive gaps, and reality-check your plan before booking a one-way flight.

1. How Much Money You Actually Need

Thailand can be affordable, but moving to Thailand is not free.

People often budget for flights and rent, then forget setup costs, deposits, emergency money, visa costs, insurance, documents, temporary accommodation, and the first few months of figuring life out.

I’ve moved to Thailand twice with jobs lined up, and I still needed to borrow money. Literally, from one of my new friends I had just made, as I underestimated how much my settling-in costs would be. IKEA shops, new plants (which I went a bit crazy with!), a new phone as mine was about to break…It all added up to way more than my settling-in allowance, and it took me time to start building up my bank account.

When Jason moved here as a remote worker, he lost his job within six weeks of moving. That left us scrambling to find him new work, and luckily we had savings to dip into, but it was still stressful.

Check how much you should bring in savings with our cost of living calculator. It’s in a bundle with a mistake audit and works together to give you peace of mind.

2. What Your Health Insurance Actually Covers

Thailand has excellent private hospitals, but private hospitals are still private hospitals.

Jason had an accident in Thailand, and the hospital bill was around $2,300 USD (฿74,200 / £1,690 GBP) before all the aftercare.

He was in Phuket, and a huge glass door smashed and came raining broken glass down on him. He had forgotten to renew his health insurance and had to pay all of it out of pocket.

Insurance is absolutely essential, so don’t make our mistakes. Use the self audit and check your gaps.

3. Your Visa Advice Is Actually Relevant to You

Visa advice online is chaos. What worked for one person may not work for you. Rules change, paperwork matters, and your nationality, job, income, employer, family situation and location can all affect your options.

Jason and I have had completely different visa situations. His remote-worker situation is not the same as my teaching work permit and non-immigrant visa setup. Jason is on the DTV visa, and the situation is always changing. It even depends on which embassy you apply through to which documents you need. It’s a real nightmare, so we never tell people “this is what we did” because it will definitely be different for you.

Do not build your move around a Facebook comment, YouTube video, or someone else’s embassy experience.

Disclaimer: I’m not a visa agent or lawyer, so always check current official requirements for your situation.

The risk is building your whole move around someone else’s visa story. I’m not here to make the decision for you, but I do want you to make the decision with your eyes open.

Our audit includes all the questions and checklists you need to ask yourself to make sure you get the right visa for your situation.

Not ready for the Reality Check yet? Join our free Thailand moving group and ask practical questions about visas, budgets, banking, insurance, and daily life before you move.
Join our supportive Facebook group here

4. You Have More Than One Bank and Bank Card

This is one of the least glamorous mistakes, but it can ruin your week.

Cards get blocked. Banks ask for verification. Apps send codes to old phone numbers. Replacement cards go to your home address. Some people cannot open a Thai bank account straight away.

Jason’s US bank blocked his only card and he had to fly home to deal with it. That was a seriously expensive mistake as flights to the US from Thailand are not cheap! We now have multiple bank cards including international bank accounts.

The mistake is assuming access to your own money and accounts will always be simple once you are abroad.

5. Whether Your Home-Country Phone Number Works Abroad

People cancel their old number too quickly, then realise their bank, tax account, email, PayPal, Wise, pension, government login, or payment app still sends codes there. You definitely need a number that you know will work in Thailand, I’m always getting sent OTP or 2 factor authentication texts to my UK phone number, and the same for Jason in the US.

6. Whether You Are Planning for Real Life, Not Holiday Thailand

I love living in Thailand and like me, you might have visited here on holiday before deciding to make your move. I relocated after backpacking around South East Asia for 3 months in my early 20s. That kind of life is very different to my life here now!

Living in Thailand includes work, errands, immigration, bills, traffic, heat, healthcare, loneliness, and fixing things when they go wrong. It requires endless patience because of language barriers, cultural differences and being far from my loved ones.

If you move here, I want you to be able to do it legally and sustainably so you can really embrace the Thailand life and enjoy living here as much as I do.

If your plan only works when everything goes perfectly, it is not ready yet.

The Thailand Move Reality Check helps you check the boring-but-expensive parts of your move before you book the flight, sign the lease, move your pet, or hand in your notice.

Planning to move to Thailand? Check the expensive gaps before you go.

We lost $4,560 moving to Thailand through mistakes we didn’t see coming — from medical bills and banking problems to savings gaps, visa costs, and underestimating daily life here.

That is why we created the Thailand Move Reality Check: a practical bundle to help future expats spot what they may have missed and work out what their move could actually cost before they commit.

✔️ Spot the expensive gaps in your move plan
✔️ Work out whether Thailand is actually affordable for you
✔️ Build a realistic budget before you relocate

👉 Get the Audit + Calculator for $49

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