Moving to Bangkok with kids: relocation playbook

The offer letter came in February. School term started in August. Six months to relocate two adults and two small kids, pick a city we’d only ever visited as tourists, and decide who we wanted to be on the other side of the move. We’re a family of four — kids three and seven now, but very much younger then — and we’ve been in Bangkok five years and change. This page is the chronological playbook for moving to Bangkok with kids that we wish someone had written for us when we were sitting at that kitchen table staring at the offer letter.

What’s below: the six-month timeline, the three decisions that order everything else, the visa shape that fits a family, the schools timeline trap, the neighborhood-by-school logic most guides miss, the temp-accommodation strategy, week-one money flows, pre-flight health prep, and what we wish we’d known.

Three big decisions that shape everything else

Most relocation guides read like an encyclopedia — a chapter on visas, schools, shipping. Useful as reference, useless as a working plan. Our move ordered itself around three decisions, and everything else cascaded from those.

Decision one: where you’ll live. Neighborhood isn’t chosen in isolation. It’s chosen because of the school bus catchment and the working parent’s commute. We learned this slowly, and we learned it after almost signing a lease in the wrong direction. The school decides the neighborhood, not the other way around.

Decision two: which school. Top-tier international school waitlists in Bangkok routinely close twelve to eighteen months before term start. That is the hard deadline. Visa paperwork, housing, shipping, the working parent’s start date — all flex around the school decision.

Decision three: single-income or dual-career. This drives the visa structure (Non-B for the working spouse, dependent visas for partner and kids, or the Long-Term Resident route if the family qualifies). It also drives the childcare math, the school-day logistics, and the household budget.

Get these three right and most of the rest is paperwork. Get them wrong and you’ll be re-signing leases at month four. We came close.

The six-month timeline

The chronological backbone. Dates assume an August school-term start — the most common shape for Bangkok internationals. Compress if you have less runway.

T-6 months — School applications and neighborhood research

The single most important month. Top-tier international school waitlists fill twelve to eighteen months out for kindergarten and Year 1 intake; mid-tier internationals open their main application window roughly now. Apply in parallel — most families we know applied to three or four schools. Neighborhood research starts at the same time, as a shortlist of three or four candidate areas, not a specific street. Street View, expat-family WhatsApp groups, and the school websites’ own catchment maps are more useful here than rental listings.

T-4 months — Visa paperwork, medical clearance, ship-or-sell

The working spouse’s Non-B goes through the new employer; the partner and kids’ dependent visa goes through the local Royal Thai Embassy (thaiembassy.com, checked May 2026). Book the medical and dental check at home — kids’ shots, parents’ eyes, anything orthodontic on the cusp. The ship-or-sell decision needs to land this month: container, partial air-freight, or sell-and-rebuy. We did a hybrid — air-freight for the kids’ essentials, a small container for everything else.

T-3 months — Book temporary accommodation

Not a hotel. Serviced-apartment math beats a hotel past roughly day fourteen in Bangkok once you factor in a kitchen, laundry, and family-sized bedrooms. Book a base for four to six weeks in mid-Sukhumvit so you can house-hunt from a central pivot.

T-2 months — Rent search (mostly remote)

Engage one or two expat-family-focused rental agents, shortlist a handful of condos and houses by video walk-through, and defer signing the lease until you’re physically in Bangkok. Don’t sign before you’ve stood on the balcony and watched what time the school bus comes past.

T-1 month — Ship, store, final immunizations

Container ship from the US or EU to Thailand is roughly six to ten weeks of ocean time — plan for two months of “living from luggage,” not two weeks. Final vaccinations completed. Home utilities canceled. Critical documents — passports, school admission letters, employment letter, marriage certificate apostille, kids’ birth certificate apostille, medical records — travel in hand luggage. Never the container.

Week 1 in Bangkok — SIM, bank, school start

Thai SIM at the airport or eSIM in advance. The working partner’s Thai bank account opens once the work permit is issued (typically week one to three). Kids start school from the temporary base. The permanent house-hunt runs in parallel, evenings and weekends, from your serviced-apartment pivot.

Visa: which one fits a family of four

This is information, not legal advice. Visa rules adjust regularly, and the right answer depends on nationality, employer, and household structure. Confirm specifics with the Royal Thai Embassy (checked May 2026), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or a licensed Thai immigration lawyer before you book flights.

Non-Immigrant B (work) plus dependent visas. The default for a working spouse with a Thai employer. Partner and kids attach to the working partner’s permit as dependents. Annual renewals and ninety-day reporting apply throughout. This is the route we run on, because that’s what the working partner’s employer sponsors. Renewals are predictable once you’ve done one, and ninety-day reporting has been online for most nationalities for years (immigration.go.th, checked May 2026).

Non-Immigrant O. Common for retirees, families with a Thai-national spouse, or volunteers attached to a registered Thai entity. Less relevant for most relocating-for-work families.

Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa. A newer wealth-and-professional category — ten-year duration, multi-entry, lighter reporting requirements. Income and asset thresholds apply. If we were starting fresh in 2026 and our household qualified, we’d take a hard look at LTR before defaulting to Non-B.

Education (ED) visa. Sometimes used for a spouse taking a Thai-accredited language course or for older children where the dependent route is constrained. Niche; mention so you know it’s there.

Whichever route you take, gather the paperwork once and gather it well: passports with twelve-plus months validity, employment letter, marriage certificate apostille, kids’ birth certificates apostille, school admission letters. Originals plus two copies to the embassy appointment.

Schools: the timeline trap

The section that ordered everything for us. We’ll keep the framing operational, not aspirational.

Top-tier internationals. NIST, Bangkok Patana, International School Bangkok, Shrewsbury and a few others. Waitlists routinely close twelve to eighteen months before term start for kindergarten and Year 1 intake; older year-group spots open up more tactically as families leave. Tuition sits in the higher five-figures USD per year — verify on each school’s site, because published fees move annually.

Mid-tier internationals. KIS, Wells International and others in the same range. Application windows earlier in the calendar year; shorter waitlists; tuition mid five figures USD per year. The gap between mid-tier and top-tier outcomes is narrower than the gap between their price tags.

Bilingual and Thai-international. A separate category worth taking seriously — Thai-licensed schools that teach across two languages, mid-cost, often a strong fit for younger kids and for families who want real Thai-language exposure rather than the all-English international bubble. Many farang families overlook this route; we’d encourage shortlisting at least one.

The application packet. Most schools require previous school records, immunization records (in English), teacher recommendations, a kid assessment, and a parent interview. Start gathering nine months out. Some schools want everything apostilled, which takes longer at home than you’d think.

The deposit problem. Many schools require a refundable deposit at acceptance, sometimes in the THB 100K to 500K range depending on tier, plus a separate non-refundable enrollment fee. Verify exact numbers in writing. This lump sum drives the money-and-banking section below, because it often lands before you have a Thai bank account.

Neighborhood: where families actually live

The school decides the neighborhood. Once you internalize that, the choices below collapse from “where do we want to live” into “which of these areas sits inside our school’s bus catchment and a reasonable commute for the working parent.”

Mid-Sukhumvit (Phrom Phong / Thonglor / Ekkamai) is where most international-school families end up, because school buses for top-tier and mid-tier campuses run reliable routes through these neighborhoods. Expat infrastructure is walkable — family clinics, Villa Market, parks, kids’ activity studios — and the BTS Sukhumvit line gets you to most of Bangkok without a car. Rent is premium and condo stock dominates; if you want a house with a garden, the math gets harder here than further out.

Sathorn and Silom skew CBD-adjacent — better for the working parent’s commute, fewer kids’ amenities. Ari has been the trending answer for younger expat families for years: smaller international-school footprint, more Thai-neighborhood feel, and a coffee scene that has its own gravity. Bang Na is the answer if you’ve chosen Bangkok Patana — the campus is there and rent gets better the further out you go, at the cost of CBD commute time. Phra Khanong and On Nut sit along the BTS Sukhumvit extension, with newer condo stock at gentler rents and a longer school-bus run.

We didn’t pick our neighborhood. Our older one’s school did, and our condo had to sit inside the school-bus catchment. Read the bus map before the lease. Neighborhood deep-dives are upcoming in our Travel pillar and the forthcoming Housing pillar.

Temporary accommodation strategy

Don’t book a hotel for four to six weeks. Hotels are priced for two-night stays; serviced apartments are priced for the month, and the per-night rate drops below hotel rate fast once you factor in a kitchen, laundry, and a family-sized bedroom layout.

The platforms that work for one-month Bangkok stays:

Booking.com. Broad inventory including serviced apartments, filters for long-stay properties, trusted payment and cancellation flow. This was the platform we used for our first month — a serviced apartment in Phrom Phong, walking distance to the school bus pickup our older one was going to take from week one. Tradeoff: prices on Thai inventory are sometimes higher on Booking than on Agoda; check the same property on both.

Agoda. Asia-focused, native Thai-property relationships, sometimes meaningfully cheaper than Booking on Thai inventory. Worth a parallel search on any property you’re considering. Tradeoff: the Asia-default UX is excellent in Bangkok, less consistent for multi-country trips.

Airbnb. Workable but trickier in Thailand because short-term rentals in condos sit in a regulatory gray zone — some buildings actively prohibit them, and a one-month stay can blur into no-go territory. Verify directly with the host that a thirty-day stay in the specific building is fine. For the relocation month we wanted the predictability of a serviced apartment with a real front desk.

Mid-Sukhumvit — Phrom Phong, Ekkamai, or thereabouts — is the right base for the house-hunt. It gives you a central pivot for property viewings and lets the kids start the school-bus routine from a familiar address even if it’s temporary.

Browse Booking.com Bangkok serviced apartments

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Check Agoda for Bangkok stays

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Money and banking week-one

The school deposit, the first-month rent plus deposit on a permanent lease, the relocation lump sum — three transfers that all want to land inside the first six weeks, most before a Thai bank account exists. The shape of the problem favors one specific tool: a multi-currency wallet that can hold home-country balances and push directly into a Thai bank account at mid-market FX.

That’s Wise. We covered the full math in our Wise vs Revolut breakdown — relocation lump sums are exactly that article’s use case. The short version: Wise transfers into Thailand ride local Thai rails directly into Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank, SCB and Krungsri, the FX is mid-market with no spread, and the cost scales sub-linearly with transfer size. A school deposit or rent settlement lands within hours during Thai business days, not the three-to-five days a SWIFT wire takes.

A few specifics from our experience:

• Cash on landing. Have THB 5,000 to 10,000 from your home-country airport. Bangkok is far less cash-only than a decade ago, but the airport taxi, the convenience-store SIM top-up, and the first night’s dinner all run smoother with baht in hand.
• Thai bank account, week two or three. Bangkok Bank is the most foreigner-friendly for opening, in our experience. The working partner’s work permit is the unlock; the dependent partner can open later with the dependent visa, or as a joint signer. Framework set by the Bank of Thailand; individual banks layer their own foreigner rules on top.
• Wise’s limitation. Wise issues multi-currency wallets to Thai residents, but not THB-denominated balances. For utility direct debits, school payment portals that won’t accept foreign cards, and rent direct debits, you still need the Thai bank.
• Buffer in your wallet. Hold USD, EUR, or GBP in Wise to bridge the four to eight weeks before the Thai bank account opens and salary lands in THB.

Open a Wise account

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Health requirements before you fly

This is what we did. It’s not medical advice. Confirm specifics with your pediatrician at home and the international clinic at whichever Bangkok hospital you end up working with.

Kids’ vaccinations. Most international schools in Bangkok require complete immunization records in English at enrollment. Finish the home-country shot schedule before the flight where possible, and carry English-language records in hand luggage — Thai schools and Thai hospitals will want them within the first two weeks.

Dental and eye check. Both are usually cheaper and faster to complete in the home country before the move, especially for kids on the cusp of orthodontics. Bangkok dental is excellent and reasonably priced; the home-country pre-move check is about closing open issues at known providers, not establishing a baseline at new ones.

Prescriptions. Bring a ninety-day supply of any ongoing medication plus the generic name printed on the label. Thai pharmacies often stock the same medications under different brand names; the generic name is the unlock at the pharmacy counter when the brand-name version isn’t on the shelf.

Bangkok hospitals overview. Bumrungrad, BNH and Samitivej are the three names most expat families learn first. Each runs an international vaccination clinic and English-language pediatrics. We covered the family-of-four insurance and hospital decision in our Healthcare cornerstone — read that before your first family doctor appointment, because the insurance choice shapes which of those three direct-bills painlessly.

What we wish we knew

Seven lessons, rewritten from things we got wrong, things friends got wrong, and things we still see new families getting wrong. Not in priority order — in the order they actually mattered.

Don’t sign the long-term lease before kids have started school. School-bus logistics sometimes force a neighborhood pivot at week three. We almost signed in the wrong direction — saved by being too jet-lagged to act fast the first week. The first lease should be the serviced-apartment pivot for four to eight weeks, so the second lease is the informed one.

Buy the school uniforms in Bangkok, not before. Specific cuts, specific colors, school logo on a specific pocket. Same for stationery. Don’t ship blazers home-country-bought; they won’t match, and your kid will be the only one not in the right shade of gray on the first day.

The container ship arrives later than you think. Six to ten weeks of ocean time from the US or EU. Budget two months of living from luggage, not two weeks. We landed with four suitcases, two car seats, and a small box of toys for our older one. The container arrived seven weeks later. We didn’t regret packing light; we regretted what we packed into the few suitcases we did bring (the wrong shoes).

Power adapters: bring five universal travel adapters; don’t ship US electronics with motors. Thai mains is 220V. Small US appliances — blenders, vacuums, espresso machines — burn out or run wrong. Phone chargers and laptops are 100-240V and fine. The blender we shipped from the US lasted two months.

Sukhumvit Soi 11 is a fun night out, not where you live with kids. A useful reminder that “expat-dense” doesn’t always mean “family-friendly.” Walk the soi at 10pm before signing a lease nearby.

Thai school holidays don’t match Western calendars. Most internationals run an August-to-June calendar, but Thai public holidays — Songkran, the King’s Birthday, several monarchy-related dates — sit on top. Plan family travel around the Thai school calendar from day one.

The ninety-day report sneaks up. Set a calendar reminder on day 80 of every stay. Online reporting works for many nationalities through Thai Immigration (checked May 2026); verify your specific case the first time.

Don’t sign the long-term lease before kids have started school. We almost did. We would have been twenty minutes the wrong direction every morning, every term.

What’s next from us

This cornerstone is the spine of our Travel pillar — the supporting pieces fill in the deeper questions. In production: a visa deep-dive (Non-B vs Non-O vs LTR vs ED), a Bangkok schools decision guide, neighborhood deep-dives for Thonglor, Ekkamai, Sathorn, Phrom Phong and Ari, a shipping and customs deep-dive, and a “first thirty days in Bangkok with kids” piece. We’ll link them here as each ships.

For the cross-pillar context this article keeps pointing at: our Healthcare cornerstone covers the insurance and hospital side, and our Wise vs Revolut breakdown covers the money flows you’ll run in the first six weeks. Both are live and worth reading before you book flights.

Moving with kids to a city eight time zones from where you grew up is hard. It’s also one of the better decisions our family ever made. If you’re in the planning months and a specific question we didn’t cover is keeping you up at night, write us at [email protected] — we answer. Who we are is the short version on the team, and our affiliate policy explains how we earn from articles like this one. For the rest of our travel coverage, browse our Travel pillar.

— The Farang Family team