ilms

I looked into this several years ago, as I have teaching experience and always had many people asking for tutoring. Unfortunately, you can't just set yourself up as a private tutor. To do it legally, you would need to form a legitimate business with minimum required capital investment, Thai shareholders, Thai employees (at least 2 if you are legally married to a Thai citizen and 4 if not). You would also have to adhere to certain accounting practices, which adds another layer of costs. The company you set up would then have to apply for a work permit for you in order for you to be able to teach. Your business would also need approval from the Ministry of Education. They have all sorts of rules about the size of the premises you must have to teach out of, number of bathrooms, waiting area, etc. As you can see, things get complicated and costly. I know several foreigners with Thai spouses that opened up tutoring centers. All of them wound up getting out of it after a few years, saying that the income from it just wasn't worth the hassle. Of course, you'll see many tutoring centers that are run by Thai teachers that don't seem to meet all the requirements. I think that they can get around things because the rules are applied differently for them. Many foreigners teach/tutor illegally. There are risks to that. I have actually heard immigration officers asking children in one neighborhood where I lived if any of their foreign neighbors were teaching them English. The IO's you see when you do your extensions are essentially office workers. There are other ones whose main job is to seek out and arrest foreigners who are working illegally. There's also a lot of jealousy here and it would be very easy for someone to report you. A foreigner always stands out here and is like low hanging fruit for the cops. It's unfortunate that it's like this because there are many areas where the local folks don't have access to competent tutors. Or, maybe you just want to help some of the local kids out and make a little money on the side. That probably won't give you anywhere near enough income to cover all the operating costs, if done legally. If there are any tutoring centers where you live, you can check with them, as some will employ foreign teachers.

I've traveled out of the country several times during under consideration periods. Just make sure you have a re-entry permit that covers it. Some IO's will allow you to submit the application for the new extension up to 45 days before your current extension expires. If you could do that, it might give you some extra time to make travel plans. Check with your IO. Also, I've found that no matter when I submit my docs, the under consideration period is always 30 days from the date of expiration of the current extension. That date seems to be set in stone for the IO and it is very hard to get them to change it.

Thanks for the replies. The IO where he would apply for it (Krabi) has said that in order to get the Type-O from them, the applicant would need to have the 800K seasoned for 2 months in an account at a Thai bank when the visa application is made. The IO suggested getting the Type-O in one's home country, as they think it would be difficult/impossible to open an account if here on visa exempt or tourist visa. Of course, an agent may be able to help with that, but my friend was hoping to just get the Type-O before he arrives. Hopefully the LA Consulate will adhere to what is on their website (no ins. requirement for 90-day Type-O). We've emailed the consulate to confirm this, but they just reply with a link to their website.

A friend would like to get a Type-O visa (90-day, based on retirement) at the Thai Consulate LA and then apply for a 1-year extension in Thailand. He would like to avoid the Type O-A due to the health insurance requirement (he has good insurance, but as it's from a non-Thai company, it may be a hassle to use it for visa purposes). The Thai Consulate LA's website lists the Type-O for retirement in the "visa types" section and there is no health insurance requirement, but we wanted to check as we have been hearing reports of some Thai Consulates now requiring health insurance for Type-O. Have emailed LA Consulate but they only respond with a link to their website. Hopefully, it will be as the website seems to indicate (no health ins. required for Type-O), but sometimes information is outdated or inaccurate. If anyone has recent experience with this and can share, we would appreciate it. BTW, we're aware that you can apply for Type-O in Thailand (with no health ins. req.) but local IO advised against it saying that it would be difficult/impossible for a person to open a Thai bank account without some kind of non-tourist visa. IO here requires that 800K be in Thai bank for 2 months before applying for Type-O. If they came on a tourist visa, maybe an agent can help with the bank account, but it would be preferable to just get the Type-O before coming to Thailand.