Sending Money to Thailand: Best Methods & Rates in 2026

Sending money internationally to Thailand involves choosing between bank transfers, specialist services, and digital apps — and the differences in rate and fees are significant. Bank wire transfers are the traditional method — reliable but expensive. Most banks charge ฿500–1,500 per transfer in fees, and their exchange rates are typically 2–4% worse than the mid-market rate. For large transfers (property deposits, long-term payments), banks are sometimes necessary but rarely the best value option. Wise (formerly TransferWise) is consistently the best option for regular transfers — it uses the real mid-market exchange rate with a transparent fee (typically 0.4–0.7%), arrives in 1–2 business days, and can deliver directly to any Thai bank account. On a ฿500,000 transfer, using Wise vs a standard bank transfer saves ฿8,000–20,000. Revolut offers similar rates to Wise up to monthly free transfer limits. OFX (formerly OzForex) is competitive for large transfers (฿500,000+) with no fixed fees. Western Union is convenient in some origin countries but typically has higher fees and worse rates than digital alternatives. For receiving money in Thailand as a resident: having a Bangkok Bank account is advantageous as it is widely used for international transfers and has relationships with many correspondent banks. Kasikorn (KBank) and SCB are also commonly used. Keep transfer records for tax purposes if you are a Thai tax resident — foreign-sourced income remitted to Thailand may be taxable.

Understanding what "mid-market rate" actually means makes the fee comparison above easier to judge for yourself rather than trusting a provider's marketing. The Bank of Thailand publishes a reference mid-rate each day — as of 11 August 2026 that stood at roughly 33.05 baht to the US dollar, 38.13 to the euro, and 44.63 to the pound — which represents the real wholesale exchange rate with no margin added. Any provider quoting you a worse rate than that published figure is building their profit into the exchange rate itself rather than charging a visible fee, which is exactly why a transparent-fee service that uses the true mid-rate can come out meaningfully cheaper even when its stated fee looks similar to a bank's. Checking a transfer's effective rate against the published mid-rate on the day is the simplest way to see through marketing and compare providers on equal terms.

Timing a transfer around Thai public holidays is worth building into any plan involving a bank rather than a fintech app. Thai banks, and the Thai side of an international wire more generally, close for the country's roughly fifteen to twenty annual public holidays, and a transfer initiated the working day before a multi-day holiday period — Songkran in April being the best-known example — can sit unprocessed for several extra days simply because no Thai bank staff are working to complete it on the receiving end. Fintech apps that route through automated systems are generally less affected by this than a traditional bank wire, one more reason they tend to arrive faster in practice as well as costing less.