Falconator

Assuming most posters here are Brits, Euros, and Aussies, are your countries really that free of bureaucracy?

In the US, you have to go through all this nonsense every single year just to be able to function in society. You have to spend WEEKS just to FILE your taxes, you have to get MANY different types of insurance, and you have to drive to get to work (time and money needed for drivers licenses, car registration, car insurance, license plates, and more). If you don't, you're screwed.

In Thailand, you have to do a bunch of things every year too, but it's far less stress and less time-consuming.

In the US, you have to go through immense amounts of paperwork in order to get these types of insurance that every single functional American is supposed to have.

1. Car insurance (police will screw you over if you don't)

2. Health insurance (absolute must-have for all Americans, until recently we were fined hundreds of dollars for not having it)

3. Property insurance (all homeowners and renters are supposed to have it)

Everything comes with extremely long fine print agreements that you have to sign.

If you don't get insurance, you're breaking the law and the US government will screw you over for that.

What about insurance in Thailand? In practice, nobody cares if you have it despite all the talk about foreigners being required to get health insurance.

And when you do get it, it's fast and easy.

3 minutes ago, eggers said:

Think the main issue w/ Thai Immi, is inconsistency..

The rules & laws not applied consistency, one office treats situ differently to anor,

even officers in same office apply different actions!!!

Plus, requirements not clearly explained or outline...get half info!!

Same with different US state laws.

Same with American police officers from different departments.

it's not that bad. That's why the Thai system has so many loopholes.

Should I get a Kasikorn Bank account then?

Lurker who is new to all this. I am planning to start doing transfers next month.

If I send in 40,000 baht every month from my US account to my Bangkok Bank account using TransferWise, will I need to transfer 40,200 baht? Should I call TW customer service to make sure my transfers are all coded as international transfers via Bangkok Bank?

After you get the multi-entry marriage visa, when would you need to show the 400k deposit proof? Is it after 3 months when you need to get an in-country extension?

How feasible is it to do visa runs via AirAsia every 3 months in and out of Malaysia?

MM2H requires $120,000 USD in a Malaysian bank account, dominated in ringgit. It's not a good currency to save in given that the ringgit has been devaluating a lot over the years.

9 hours ago, vinniekintana said:

OP...You shouldn't be asking this question in the first place

Just set up shop anywhere with a friendly visa regime.

 

In practice, that is what I am asking.

Where are the friendly visa regimes?

Has anything changed at Savannakhet since 2018?

Has anyone been asked to show 400,000 baht in a Thai bank?

Where digital nomads can legally "work" in Asia these days?

What I mean is foreign companies paying foreign currency into foreigners' bank accounts, but the foreigners are physically located outside their home countries.

As Thailand is becoming less and less of an attractive or even a legal option, we digital nomads would like to know if these countries are fit for remote workers.

Developing economies: Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia?

Advanced economies: Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan?

Many Eastern European countries like Estonia, Serbia, Georgia, and Armenia are openly welcoming digital nomads. What about Asian countries?

Just now, blorg said:

@Falconator you can transfer the 40k in from your own bank account. My understanding though is they don't look into this very much or need any proof of what it is or where it came from, just needs to be 40k going in each month.

Not bad at all. I will need to look more into this some more.

If I deposit 40k baht from my US bank account into a Bangkok Bank bank account for 10 months via TransferWise and make sure that they are coded as foreign transfers, would that qualify me for marriage visa extension since I'll have a 400k baht deposit via 10 transfers?

My US bank account statement will have evidence of me "working," so that's my main concern.

5 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

I've thought about your situation and I have a solution ( I think).

1) Talk to an agent about doing funds to do a Non O Marriage:

2) If fees are OK then get married and go that route:

3) Start transferring 40K to a Thai Bank. You can use this money to live on;

4) Don't worry about ED visa but you can do the combat training if you like.

You say that you are paid in US so you must be drawing on it to live.  Check with CU if they have better rates. There have been past about opening CU accounts from Thailand. 

Good luck

40k per month direct deposit into a Thai bank account is easy-peasy. Most DNs should be able to do this.

I was just hesitant about monthly deposits since I don't want it counting as against me as evidence of "working" in Thailand.

Which agents would you recommend?

2 hours ago, Thaidream said:

You are the one who has veered off by attacking people like me, indicating that because I am elderly- I don't know much about anything and that I am also a crusty person because of my age,  Your prior post insulted me and people like me.

 

Once you publicly apologize  for denigrating the elderly I will have an answer for your dilemma. The solution is not difficult. I have never attacked you personally or your family and never will.

I do fully apologize. Please understand that it was meant as a lighthearted quirky sense of humor, and I never intended to offend anyone. Most of us young people completely respect the elderly. Thai Buddhist culture has taught me this.

Now take a chill pill and watch this awesome vid bro.

Now moving on.

Let's talk some more about the visa situation shall we?

Again, forum members are veering off topic into ad hominem personal attacks and picking on strangers' family lives. These topics belong in another thread.

Let's talk about what's going on with the combat school visa situation. Don't worry about me. Forget about my family situation. I'm just one of the many dozens of students there who are trying to figure out what to do next.

Thai society also doesn't work like Western European and North American societies. Although I totally recommend trying to following the rules as much as we can, Thais don't view things as black-and-white rules. Their society is all about saving face, getting a piece of the pie, and making important connections rather than being sticklers about rules. This is why burning season bans have no effects, and despite all the talk about banning trash burning and enforcing motorcycle helmet wearing, in practice no one cares and it's not going to change anytime soon. Similarly, despite all the visa crackdowns, I don't see the immigration system suddenly turning upside down because Thai society as a whole doesn't work that way. Their society and their systems are always going to be full of loopholes as long as there are important people who need to get things done the way they want them to.

It looks to me as if HCMC still might be a viable option, and Vientiane could still be good in some cases.

Waiting for updates. Perhaps the army guys will figure out another way within a few weeks. They don't get shut down that easily, but things are gradually getting tighter everyday.

I think H2H just has to work it out in Vietnam and make some new friends.

They've been around for quite some time, and they seem determined to stay. I strongly suspect that they are just going find another viable route, but occasionally during tough "transition times," a few guys may end up being casualties as H2H's guinea pigs while they're testing out new consulates.

Getting back on track.

I mentioned in my original post that a guy (not me, but one of my classmates) got rejected at Hanoi for the H2H ED visa and was not even allowed to submit his visa application form.

HCMC (Saigon) could be another good choice, or even the US.

9 hours ago, Traubert said:

Like it or not, this is strikingly similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union, when stability suddenly collapsed and entire societies were suddenly thrown into new capitalist free market environments.

 

That's where I abandoned you. You aren't old enough to remember anything about it.

I wasn't even born. But we have history books, don't we?

https://theoutline.com/post/7243/the-sharing-economy-is-going-to-innovate-us-into-the-victorian-era

http://theconversation.com/the-gig-economy-is-nothing-new-it-was-standard-practice-in-the-18th-century-81057

Lack of stability = flexibility = enormous new opportunities

Hence causing new types of migrations, like Western Europeans flooding into Eastern Europe to take advantage of newly opened markets, and Eastern Europeans flooding into Western Europe looking for work opportunities.

And hence this thread.

4 minutes ago, Trujillo said:

What do "affiliated/online marketers" do? 

 

Most of the "titles" you mention I am acquainted with and the people engaged in these are few and to my knowledge, can't make a living out of it. 

Some make a living out of it, some don't.

Online marketing is very diverse. Here's a good intro.

https://www.oberlo.com/blog/beginners-guide-7-types-internet-marketing

11 minutes ago, Trujillo said:

 

"Many of us employ people around the world."

 

To do what, exactly? 

 

Pretty much the same kinds of jobs that digital nomads are doing.

Think about what you need to get done if you're making a living online.

Programming, web development, data entry, lead generation, sales, and far more.

5 minutes ago, Trujillo said:

Just curious but can you detail the following: 
"Western kids who know how to crank cash out of their laptops from anywhere in the world, earning more than 10 times what locals in their host countries are making."

 

Granted, Thailand's minimum wage is low by Western standards, but can you walk us all through what it is you do, exactly, while you make over US$100 a day in Thailand on your computers? 

 

I don't mean LivinLOS, who seems to be skimming off a percentage as a broker. I mean the grunt digital nomad. Please explain what you do and how much time you put in for this. Be specific, please. 

You're pretty much asking "what exactly do people sitting in front of their computers do to make money?" Some Thailand-based Western digital nomads are low-wage earners doing basic customer service and virtual assistant work. Others are entrepeneurs raking in millions. Same with Thai markets. Some stalls are raking in tons of baht, while others are flat-out broke.

Hang out at one of those co-working spaces and talk to people. Many of them can't be specific because they don't want to give out their trade secrets. But you'll run into:

Affiliate marketers, online marketers, AI/VR developers, iOS / Android developers, SEO strategists, coders, dropshippers, crypto guys, salespeople, web developers, graphic designers, artists, lead generators, photographers, online teachers, web content developers, writers, whatever you can think of. Some of them sound like low-paying jobs to the unacquainted, but are actually raking in good money. Others sound like fancy tech titles, but their earnings could be very mediocre.

We're like Thai street market vendors. Anything is possible.

3 hours ago, emptypockets said:

Who, apparently, take up to two years to bank 400,000 baht.

Wake up mate, it's like any job. Some do very well and make millions. Others

(the vast majority) just get by.

Make as much as you can doing this now because the digital nomad will be amongst the first jobs to disappear when AI really takes hold.

 

As an aside I read in the news that the IRS in the US are now chasing the crypto mob for taxes.

Interesting times indeed.

 

Easily saving up $1,000 per month and often more than $2,000 per month - not something most Americans can do these days if you know how the average American lives these days. I'm a debt-free mid 20s guy just just starting off, so this is most likely going to be increasing in the near future. These 400k-1 mil baht deposits are easily doable, but we need a bit of time first because it's not a good idea for online entrepeneurs to quickly dump all of their earnings into Thai bank accounts. We have to remain highly liquid in order to deal with unexpected market fluctuations. Many of us employ people around the world.

Living abroad allows us to save up capital in a way that would be more difficult to do so in a Western country.

How many Americans these days can save up this kind of cash? A very small percentage. Living costs are high and Americans are piled up in debt. I'm 100% debt free and saving up lots of money. This is financial paradise for most Thais (and English-teaching farangs in Thailand), who are heavily indebted and stuck in low-wage jobs with long hours.

2 hours ago, LivinLOS said:

Sorry but now I am with the younger crowd.. That models dead.. Pensions probably wont exist when I get around to claiming one, and I have refused to pay into any and created my own pot. I would far rather 5 mil in investments of my choice than 100k a year taxed and the promise of a pension if I live to claim it thanks. 

The internet gives scale, it allows unprecedented reach at price points that were unimaginable a decade ago. Someone who knows how to create content, catch the attention economy, can sell anything from spark plugs to travel plugs, and thats the lowest possible common denominator affiliate marketing type niches (recently discovered a guy netting north of 10k EUR a month selling baby products via facebook.. Why ? Because he spoke a european language and the search terms for those items in that country were simply not being hit.. There are still a million 'niches' which contain a customer base a million times greater than the reach of a physical store) if you move up the value chain to corporate world where sales is the lifeblood then the return on sales can be 10s of 1000s per sale, easily.. A little skill, the willingness to use black hat made scripting and chatbots, for corporate lead generation on linkedin, and you have the potential for a a multi 100k EUR income stream after a year or twos work in the right fields. None of these things are rocket science or need coder level 'flair' and skills. 

Thats without talking about the HYIP guy I knew running cryto ponzi schemes.. He hit retirement '<deleted> you money' inside 2 years.. But that is running some legit legal risk. Hes currently living in a very high end villa in southern europe, I dont think hes as retired as he claims ????  

 

+1000

What planet are these cranky old dudes living on? I have no idea how people can be so ignorant of this new technological and economic storm that has completely changed the world. There's a sharp disconnect between cranky old dudes with their young Thai wives living out in remote Isan villages VS. Western kids who know how to crank cash out of their laptops from anywhere in the world, earning more than 10 times what locals in their host countries are making.

My co-workers are based all over the world, from Europe to South Asia and even Africa. The ones living the best lifestyles are often skilled workers in developing countries who can charge the same rates as skilled Westerners, and they are living the dream.

I am appalled, and amused, by all the old geezers thinking of digital nomads as failures. That's like saying that everyone working in the restaurant industry is a failure at life because they can't make it into the corporate world. Not everyone is a barista or waiter making minimum wage. Lots of guys out there running fast-food joints are financially far better off than your average corporate drone.

Likewise, tech illiterate people are equating all digital nomads with Bangladeshi freelancers making $1-$5 per hour. You can make $1 per hour or over $200 per hour as a remote worker. The sky is the limit.

The baby boomers' refrain here is, "Go get a lucrative job in the US and work for a corporation the good old-fashioned way." But some digital nomads in Thailand are educated guys with postgraduate degrees who are working for foreign companies, but they are doing it all remotely.

If still confused, please consult your best friend Google.

In any case, the point is that we're simply remote workers from extremely diverse backgrounds who are looking for ways to live abroad because our currencies can take us further in many parts of the world, or because of family and lifestyle reasons. Most of us are not tax dodgers or broke hippies.

Staying on topic:

The reason we are mentioning digital nomads here is because the vast majority of combat school students are digital nomads aged 20-35. You don't see many older people enrolled in such schools, because they are usually on retirement or marriage visas.

So naturally, a helpful combat school ED visa thread would have a primary focus on digital nomads.

I'm sure this isn't the end of things. There's been a lot of pessimism about these tightening restrictions and crackdowns, but it's also for our own good. Good guys in, bad guys out.

There are still many different options out there. We just have to carefully spot them out.

1 minute ago, sanemax said:

Thai Government policy has responded though , they have made the visa rules more restrictive and their view is that if you have no reason to stay in Thailand , you cannot stay long term .

  Ten years ago, anyone could stay in Thailand for as long as they liked , cannot do that these days

That's their response to the exponentially increasing inflows of foreigners that include a whole bunch of random Chinese, Indians, and Russians.

It doesn't have much to do with tech-savvy remote workers. Not even the US government has responded fast enough to the gig economy. They still don't know how to properly classify and tax freelancers.

Some countries have responded by making it very easy for remote workers to stay into their countries. Not surprisingly, Georgia, Armenia, and Serbia, which have some of the world's highest per capita rates of online freelancing, are very digital nomad-friendly because they all know what it is. But digital nomadism isn't widely known in Thailand, so they don't really understand or know what to do with this new phenomenon. Most ordinary Thai people in Chiang Mai can't actually fully grasp the concept, even though Chiang Mai is supposed to be one of the world's top digital nomad hubs.