You show up at the branch with a folder of paper — passport, visa stamp, a photocopy of the lease — and the teller asks for one document you don't have: proof of address, which the landlord won't issue until the deposit clears, which the landlord wants transferred from a local bank account you're standing there trying to open. That loop catches nearly every new arrival in the first month, whether the counter is Bangkok Bank in Sukhumvit, DBS in Raffles Place, or a Japan Post window in Osaka. Nobody mentions before you land that opening a bank account is often the single most bureaucratic errand of the entire move, more paperwork-heavy in several countries than the visa that got you in the door. Friends who relocated years ago will tell you it "just takes an afternoon," and for them, on a work visa with an employer's HR department walking the forms over personally, it probably did. For everyone else — freelancers, remote workers on tourist-adjacent visas, spouses waiting on a dependent pass — the afternoon stretches into a multi-week scramble between banks, immigration offices and phone shops, each one requiring a document only the other one can issue. Six markets, six sets of rules, and almost none of it written down anywhere an expat would actually find it before arriving.
The frustrating part is that the requirements aren't secret — they're published on every bank's website — but they're scattered across six different regulatory systems, written for local citizens, and rarely translated with an expat's actual document set in mind. What follows is what each market really asks for, in the order it usually gets asked for it.
Singapore: fast once you have an Employment Pass, painful without one
DBS, OCBC and UOB will open an account within a single visit if you're holding a valid Employment Pass or Dependant's Pass, your physical NRIC-equivalent (the pass card itself), and a local mobile number for SMS one-time passwords. DBS's Multiplier account and OCBC's 360 account both waive the monthly fee if you maintain a minimum balance of S$3,000, and both will accept your pass card as the address document if you haven't signed a lease yet — a small mercy that Thailand and Vietnam don't offer. Without an Employment Pass, though, the door mostly closes: Singapore's banks stopped opening full accounts for tourists or Long-Term Visit Pass holders years ago, largely in response to regional anti-money-laundering pressure, and the workaround most people reach for is a digital-only account instead.
What to bring on day one
- Passport and Employment Pass or Dependant's Pass card
- A Singapore mobile number registered in your own name — prepaid SIMs from Singtel or StarHub work fine
- Initial funding of at least S$1,000 for most standard accounts, though some staff will waive this if you're clearly salaried through a work pass
- Your employer's Unique Entity Number, which the branch staff will usually look up themselves rather than ask you to produce
Book the appointment online before you go — Raffles Place branches during lunch hour are not where you want to be improvising.
Thailand: Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn want to see your visa first
Thailand tightened its rules noticeably around 2019, and tourist visas alone no longer get you past the counter at most branches. Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn — the two most foreigner-friendly names — generally want a non-immigrant visa (B for work, O for retirement or marriage, ED for a language course) or a work permit, plus a letter from your employer, university, or condo management confirming you actually live at the address you've written down. Minimum opening deposits sit around THB 500 to THB 10,000 depending on the branch and how busy the manager is that day, and yes, it genuinely varies branch to branch in a way that surprises people used to standardized banking back home.
Here's the part that trips up first-timers: some branches will accept a hotel booking confirmation as a temporary address if you're clearly mid-relocation and can show a signed employment contract, while others insist on nothing less than a registered lease with your name on the utility bill. Ask a Thai colleague or your HR contact which branch in the neighborhood has a reputation for being easy on documentation — this single question saves more wasted afternoons than any government website will.
Vietnam and Malaysia: slower paperwork, friendlier minimums
Vietcombank and Techcombank in Vietnam require a temporary residence card (TRC) or a valid work permit alongside your passport, and the opening deposit is refreshingly low — often just VND 1,000,000, roughly $40. The catch is processing time: getting the TRC itself typically takes two to four weeks after your work permit clears, so the account almost always comes after you've already been living there a month or more, cash-only, relying on ATM withdrawals from a home-country card and eating the foreign transaction fees.
Malaysia is more forgiving. Maybank and CIMB will open an account for holders of an Employment Pass, a Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) visa, or a dependent pass, and the minimum initial deposit at most branches runs between RM 500 and RM 1,000. Bring your passport, pass approval letter, and a Malaysian address — a hotel won't count here, but a signed tenancy agreement will, even before you've moved your belongings in. Maybank's branch staff in Kuala Lumpur's expat-heavy neighborhoods like Mont Kiara and Bangsar are noticeably faster with foreign paperwork than branches elsewhere in the country, purely because they process more of it.
Japan and South Korea: the residence card is non-negotiable
In Japan, no bank — not Mitsubishi UFJ, not SMBC, not Japan Post Bank — will open an account without your Zairyu Card (residence card), and most also want your registered address on file at the local ward office, which itself requires the residence card to obtain. Japan Post Bank (Yucho) has the best reputation among expats for actually processing foreign applications without a fight, partly because its staff handle a higher volume of them and partly because its forms come with more English support than the megabanks offer. Bring a hanko stamp if you have one, though increasingly branches will accept a signature instead; either way, budget a full morning for the appointment and don't expect same-day card issuance — your cash card typically arrives by mail one to two weeks later. Some megabanks also run an internal "waiting period" of three to six months of residency before they'll issue a credit card tied to the new account, so the debit card you walk out with is genuinely all you'll have at first. Set expectations with your employer's HR contact before the appointment, since a few companies keep a standing relationship with a specific branch that moves noticeably faster for their hires than a walk-in ever will.
South Korea runs on the Alien Registration Card (ARC) the same way Japan runs on the Zairyu Card. KEB Hana, Woori, and KB Kookmin all require it, along with a Korean mobile number and, for most standard accounts, an employment contract or student enrollment letter. A handful of banks near university districts and in Itaewon have started allowing short-term visitors to open limited accounts with just a passport and an alien registration receipt (the interim document issued before your physical ARC arrives), but the accounts come with low transfer caps until the full registration clears — a workaround, not a real solution.
Wise, Revolut and the digital-only shortcut
None of the six markets above require you to wait for their paperwork before you can move money.
This is where most people actually start now, and for good reason. Wise and Revolut both issue a local account number and IBAN-equivalent without requiring a residence card, a local address, or a branch visit — sign up from your phone, verify with a passport photo and a selfie, and you're transferring money within the hour. Wise in particular gives you real local account details in several Asian currencies, which means your new employer can pay your salary into it directly in some cases, sidestepping the bank-account chicken-and-egg problem entirely for the first few weeks.
The limits show up fast, though. Local landlords and employers in Thailand and Vietnam frequently refuse Wise or Revolut account numbers outright because they don't recognize the routing format, and some Singapore and Malaysia employers' payroll systems simply aren't built to send salary anywhere but a domestic bank. Treat Wise and Revolut as the bridge that gets you through your first two or three weeks — the better long-term move is still opening a proper local account the moment your visa paperwork allows it, both for salary deposits and because a domestic account is what most landlords, phone carriers, and even some visa renewal processes will actually ask to see.
The pitfalls nobody mentions until they've already hit you
A few things catch even people who did everything right on paper. Most common by far are dormant-account fees: several Thai and Malaysian banks start charging a monthly maintenance charge — often THB 50 to THB 200, or RM 5 to RM 10 — the moment your balance drops below the minimum, and it's easy to forget an account exists once you've moved cities or gone home for a visit. Less obvious, but more consequential, is the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) obligation: most Asian banks now automatically report your account details to your country of tax residence once you declare your nationality on the application form, which surprises people who assumed offshore banking meant invisible banking. It doesn't, not anymore, and pretending otherwise is a bad plan.
And then there's the local phone number requirement, which almost nobody flags until the account is already frozen for a login they can't complete. Nearly every bank across these six markets ties one-time passwords to a local SIM, so the account effectively locks the moment you swap phone numbers or let a prepaid SIM lapse without registering a new one on file. Keep a backup SIM active, or set the OTP number to a family member's phone before you travel — whichever you choose, do it before the trip, not after the app locks you out from an airport lounge with no way back in.