jspill

I love all these 'you must obey the law' posts from the very same posters who constantly bash Thailand for it's being lawless As an aside, whether the guy sitting next to me on the number 9 bus to Nakon Nowhere is on overstay or not makes not a jot of difference to my life. So how does it your's

+1

Makes absolutely no difference. All these 'they're making it hard for the rest of law abiding expats' are nauseating.

Doubt it happens if it didn't last year, it's the same proposal. They'd have to change the 1971 immigration act.

I think we know by know that what consulates say and what actually happens are two different things.

He said visa run costs average out to $50/week, not that a visa run costs that.

So a ~$150 visa run, then no visa costs for 60 days, then just a $60 extension for another 30 days, and so on... averages out to around $50/month.

He's out in Thonburi, rooms are cheap. Has a girlfriend at home for entertainment.

He's not doing this long term, just a few months then back home to start a job.

So no 'proof of a job' on that one.

A while ago this site used to say 10k/mo but now it doesn't, not sure what the price is nowadays, maybe give them a call http://www.nonsiresidence.com/

12 mins to Lumpini Park, pool and gym

Think I might need to see a specialist. Surely others must be in the same position? If so has anyone been given clear and unequivocal advice from a specialist or the Thai Government?

From another thread: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/726044-if-you-have-online-buisness-wouldnt-you-also-need-work-permit-if-running-in-thailand/page-3#entry7822470

Even the law firms say, it is a grey area and immigration officials are not interested on arresting online workers. You simply cannot get a work permit for online work. Period. If the customers and the money are earned outside of Thailand, they are not interested.

Many people have tried to get work permit by going to the immigration and/or labour ministry and explained their situation. The answer has been always the same, they are not interested unless you have Thai customers or selling stuff to Thais via Ebay with merchandise at your home. In any case, you need to employ 4 Thais and you cannot even own the majority of the shares of your own company, if you want a work permit.

And a few posts after that:

We have had this discussion many times before. The same Sunbelt Asia said in another thread, "working online generally does not require a work permit".

"He added that there is no “freelance” work permit, that one must be sponsored by a company. However, when asked about specialists offering advice for overseas clients in overseas markets, he felt that so long as they did not offer that advice to Thais or foreigners in Thailand that would be acceptable."

Head of the Work Permit Department at the Labor Office Rhuchuchai Potha and Immigration Investigative Division officer Witthaya Singmanee at the Imperial Mae Ping on Wednesday, June 7, 2011.

Referring to this thread http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/473613-working-legally-in-thailand-immigration-and-labour-departments-speaks-out/

You can work for a foreign company and get a WP by setting up a thai limited company and invoice the foreign company and be fully legal with a WP

Even with the above you can do it just about tax free anyway and be perfectly legal

On the basis of the above paying minimum salary for your nationality you can get an annual extension of stay and only have to report in country, with the above you will pay a small amount of income tax and not have to worry about transferring money and the fact you have a legimate company in Thsiland may help you with your dealings in dubai

So there you have both sides of the story

A WP for web based work with the server and payment outside Thailand? You can't get that.

It has to be linked specifically to the work you're doing, you can't just get one and then have carte blanche to do whatever.

So your solution isn't 'legal' either.

THe guy is legit, he has a blog on the poker forums.

Wish him luck and hope he gonna make it, it isn't so hard as it seems.

I live on 150 k bahts/month income only from poker btw and there are guys who make much more around

poker is illegal in Thailand

Yet no issues playing at offshore websites remotely in a foreign currency, as hundreds of expats have been doing here for years.

Tourist visa runs are going to be a thing of the past soon.

They want it so that you apply and receive your single entry TV from your home country.

As per Thailand Immigration law you must provide the correct visa upon entry for which your intended purpose of stay.

If you are staying in Thailand for an extended period get the correct visa.

Posting your assumptions twice doesn't give them more weight

It'll still be a visa run just back home not to Laos. Fine by me to have clear guidelines for getting the visa - as long as you have a nominal amount of cash, you get it.

And where does it say in immigration law that X amount of time on a tourist visa is incorrect? Nowhere.

No official limit on consecutive tourist visas has ever been set, that sort of implies Thailand doesn't mind perpetual tourists. Bit of logic there rather than assumptions.

The."limit" comes from Embassy's/Consulates who restrict the number of tourist visas they will issue back to back.

Which varies, as you know, by embassy staff, and people can just try a different consulate.

No official limit in law, as much as you may like there to be one.

No official limit on consecutive tourist visas has ever been set, that sort of implies Thailand doesn't mind perpetual tourists. Bit of logic there rather than assumptions.

^ That's another good one. It's like 'damn' or 'bloody', after the noun as nikmar says.

That one word says it all, of course it is illegal. If the person carrying out the work is in Thailand, it requires a work permit.

Yet nothing other than the posts of some Thaivisa members states it that concretely.

The Alien Labor act for example only talks about having a Thai employer and Thai Baht salary http://thailaws.com/law/t_laws/tlaw0366.pdf

The persona non grata criteria say don't come here to practice forms of manual work http://www.thaivisa.com/392-0.html

โคตร 'koht' is very/excessively, and it's a little bit vulgar / young person's cool slang word - normally in polite conversation people would use จัง 'jang' or มาก 'maak' or some other words instead of that

Like the website 'kodhit' for cool hit stuff

Then since it starts with 'k' it'd go nicely before แข็งแรง 'keng reng' for 'strong', bit of alliteration

So โคตรแข็งแรง 'koht keng reng' perhaps

Not sure why it's giving me 'lineage' there but that's pretty cool too

There's a hashtag

Other than that you'd have to put the swear word 'sat' (animal) or 'hia' as a suffix after 'strong', and I probably wouldn't want to put that on a t-shirt. I'd go with 'koht' prefix.

Googling it, it seems to work. It's a Vine and Twitter hashtag and I found it in the description for a weight belt. Highlighted text:

No one's ever been prosecuted for remote online work, it's not explicitly illegal just currently in a grey area.

The UK doesn't require you to pay taxes on any income outside the UK (unlike the US).

You don't need to pay taxes in Thailand if you don't remit earnings to Thailand in the same year they're earnt.

Nice to see there's the ability to extend each entry to 90 days.

It's possible it'll be proof of X amount of funds OR proof of a job, not both. We'll have to wait and see.

Like how retirement visa extensions require a fixed sum OR a smaller sum monthly.

And people who got a red stamp at Vientiane were asked to show bank statements, never 'proof of a job'.

Or those asked to show 10k / 20k at borders on visa waiver / tourist visas.

Simply showing money was always enough 'proof' that you don't work in Thailand.

That's a lot of paperwork if they require both, and would they even understand some of the 'proof' a self-employed online businessman would show - their domain name registration papers? An invoice from HostGator?

And why would they refuse an unemployed person with well over $6000 in their bank account... I'm speculating like anyone else at this point but I can't see it happening.

How much is enough? Over what length of time should an unknown minimum-limit total and/or unknown monthly-transfer amount be shown?

After getting a blue-stamp, I would not want to get stuck outside of Thailand, so I do not see how this is a viable option. I have been lurking on this board for years, and do not recall a thread where individuals reported successfully meeting the blue-stamp requirements, and receiving subsequent TVs (complete with the amounts which were sufficient). Please point me to any information of this nature, if I have missed it.

It's not a report after the fact, but here a moderator says it's 20k Baht http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/715011-red-stamp-in-vientiane-advice-needed/page-2#entry9074342

I've read it can be cash too, not necessarily bank transfers. But like you I haven't seen many reports. People tend to just switch it up and go to another consulate at that point, e.g. Savannakhet.

Seems the day of the perpetual "tourist" may be coming to an end!

Is that comforting to you?

Small minds...

Yeah I don't understand the gleeful excitement from oncearugge and elvajero who liked his post.

METVs could actually make it easier to be a perpetual tourist, depending on what actually happens after Nov 13.

Who cares? It's his life. If he's happy, good for him!

Um, actually the Thai authorities care.

It's hard to imagine how he is dodging the system legally to be here with 300 a month.

Do you think they would allow him or any other foreigner to live here on 300 a month... didn't think so.

It's temporary. He's been travelling around SEA for a few months.

Actually the 'proof of funds' to show you can support yourself is 10k for visa exemption (30 days) or 20k for tourist visa (60 days). So pretty much $300/month.

Perhaps the photo is what life really looks like as a Digital Nomad in Thailand?

Young people aren't embarrassed to share pics and stories of being broke, let blogs interview them etc., so you'll see it quite often. The social media generation.

There are plenty of older / retired people who fall on hard times too, but you just don't see them revealing it.

Meetup.com is another similar site to internations.

I knew a bargirl that had no idea it had negative effects for the body. They just thought it was fun to take then go out partying, helped with weight loss, and cleared up spots. And denied that it was physically addictive. I googled 'faces of meth' and showed her what it would eventually do to her, and found some Thai webpages (there aren't many) explaining it further. She said she'd stop.

At the least if they're beyond help you can try to steer them towards cannabis as an alternative, as while still illegal here (give it another generation and it probably won't be) it has zero health risks and it's not physically addictive. Her perception of cannabis was 'old man's drug' and 'boring' because it made you sleepy as opposed to meth. After trying it it grew on her a bit.