Employment of foreign consultant

[MRtommyR]

Good afternoon

My business requires the services of a foreign consultant (British national) who is currently retired and living in Bangkok, to facilitate the establishment of a new contract. However we do not have a sufficient number of Thai nationals to employ this person on our payroll and apply for a work permit for him. I understand that we could arrange a consultancy agreement to pay him and that we would not be deemed to be employing him providing he only comes to our office for meetings. Can anyone with experience of an arrangement like this verify this?

 

Even if we as a business are acting fully lawfully, is the consultant exposed to personal risk for not having a work permit? Is it even possible to work as a consultant in Thailand given the very nature of the job is that you are not working for a single employer?

 

Many thanks in advance

 

 

[NanLaew]

If this foreign consultant is already staying in Thailand on a retirement extension, then he is prohibited from getting a WP. A Thai WP can be issued against a marriage extension (Thai spouse). If your company does increase the local hire count and thus qualifies for an additional foreigners WP, it is possible to get the retirement extension changed in Bangkok. My friend did this about 2 years ago but it wasn't a quick and easy procedure and the company that hired him was a large multinational. Smaller companies may find the time and costs too restrictive and regional immigration and labour offices may refuse to assist.

 

There is no visa class that would directly embrace this 'consultancy agreement' as you describe it. AFAIK, that class of work is not defined in any immigration or labour department rules. Once again, up until about 10 years ago, temporary 'consultancy' work was possible with the consultants using either Tourist visas or visa-exempt entries and being paid overseas. This all dried up around 2010 when they started clamping down on this practice. I witnessed a Korean manufacturer of a turbine having their whole commissioning team rounded up in Sattahip port and being sent home after they were found to be working on visa-exempt entries. Even the offshore sector which had a largely unwritten 'agreement' to bring in short-term, project-specific consultants on 'temporary' WP's has seen more oversight on who qualifies for and who is sponsoring such work. Note this was not the the 'EX' visa which is detailed below.

 

If you want to retain him as a short-term consultant and not an employee, then I believe he has to take care of getting the appropriate visa from his country of citizenship which would be a Non-Immigrant 'EX' visa. This visa is issued "For short-term visit to Thailand for the purposes of doing skilled work, or to work as an expert or a specialist." The MFA consular services webpage lists the 'EX' visa but do not specifically detail what additional paperwork is required from the sponsoring/hiring company but assume at minimum it will be the same as for the Non-O visa that allows a WP and legal work. Otherwise, there's the Non-O visa but note that the failure rate for this type of visa application in London has reportedly increased.

[mstevens]

I don't ever like to suggest that someone breaks the law, but is this not something that could be done under the table?  A consultant will often work alone and if that can be done in this case, is it not possible for him to do his work away from your business premises and present you with the report or whatever it is he is tasked with doing without anyone seeing what he is doing?  Of course that means you'll have to pay him with cash and not write off the expense....but that's got to be easier than trying to do it by the book.

[RBOP]

There are many human resources / man-power / staffing companies in Thailand that your consultant can work through and second to your company. They will take care of work permit, visas, medical insurance, inxome tax, billing etc. But expect to pay 10 to 25% more. A Google search will you find many Companies that do this.

Edited September 9, 2017 by RBOP

[eeyang wah]

And that, right there, is one of the main reasons Thailand will always fall behind.

 

Although the previous poster is correct that there are legitimate ways around this problem. 

[DTiger]

On 09/09/2017 at 8:17 AM, RBOP said:

There are many human resources / man-power / staffing companies in Thailand that your consultant can work through and second to your company. They will take care of work permit, visas, medical insurance, inxome tax, billing etc. But expect to pay 10 to 25% more. A Google search will you find many Companies that do this.

As far as I am aware - but please correct me if I'm wrong - these companies "offer" yearly full-time contract(s) and so WP, not temporary ones as 2 days, 1 week or so. Which means the consultants need enough clients to cover the equivalent of a full-time long term job.

[Maestro]

On 08/09/2017 at 1:04 PM, MRtommyR said:

My business requires the services of a foreign consultant (British national) who is currently retired and living in Bangkok, to facilitate the establishment of a new contract.

 

If you had mentioned the period for which this foreigner's consultation is needed and if this period were not longer than 15 days, one could examine whether a NOTIFICATION FOR ENGAGEMENT IN NECESSARY AND URGENT WORK UNDER SECTION 9 (WP.10) might have success.