Farang employed under Thai wife's Sole Proprieteoship

[tangdio]

As an independant contractor who receives offshore income, I am in need on a Thai domiciled employer to recieve my income and pay it to me as a salary. 

If my Thai wife has registered a sole proprietorship:

1) Can I  be hired as her employee (non-restricted occupation), with a Work Permit (assuming I have the right visa)? 

2) Would this sole proprietorship of hers allow me to attain a business (B-visa), or is a so-called "marriage visa" the only viable visa?

3) Would there be any business requirements in this scenario (e.g. number of Thai employees, capital, minimum salary)?

Thank you kindly

TD
 

[NiwPix]

First off, my answers are based on personal experience and may differ in other regions of the country...heck, it may even differ which government official you get on a certain day :). I am in Ubon Ratchathani.

1) Yes

2) No. To obtain a B visa you/she needs to provide documents that are not available as sole proprietorship. With a O-Visa based on marriage you will be able to get a work permit ( if that is your concern regarding the b visa ).

3) yes.
a) minimum 4 thai employees ( wife not included ). I heard stories that married to the business owner, you can get away with 2 thai employees, but I can not confirm that.
she would need to provide / show 2 million baht registered capital. ( there are loopholes around this )
C) depending on your country of citizenship, minimum salary differs from somewhere around 30k to 40 and 50k...whereas 50k seems to be the majority of countries.


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[tangdio]

Above post very helpful indeed! Do you have sources for this information (but thank you for personal experience)?

as for (3), do these restrictions even apply to sole proprietorship (in my wife's name)? I cannot imagine, for example, a handicrafts business needing 1 or 2 M capital, especially when revenue is less than 1.8 M.

I will share some quotes from another relevent thread shortly.

Edited February 1, 2018 by tangdio

[Monomial]

8 hours ago, NiwPix said:

3) yes.
a) minimum 4 thai employees ( wife not included ). I heard stories that married to the business owner, you can get away with 2 thai employees, but I can not confirm that.
she would need to provide / show 2 million baht registered capital. ( there are loopholes around this )
C) depending on your country of citizenship, minimum salary differs from somewhere around 30k to 40 and 50k...whereas 50k seems to be the majority of countries.
 

 

Can you explain what you mean by registered capital in the context of a sole proprietorship?  A sole proprietor and an individual are legally the same thing. How can a person have registered capital? Do you mean personal assets worth 2 million?

 

Very interested in this topic as well, but your answer is confusing.

 

 

[tangdio]

Perhaps he understood "this scenario" to refer to a partnership or company. Currently, I am focused on sole proprietorship.

Thanks all

[tangdio]

 

[BEVUP]

Hello all, interested as well

So bit of a summary as to the way I see the above & some ?

 

Scenario - Wife buy's / lease a 3 story shop/ house

 

* No doubt wants to open the ground floor as shop ( only selling goods by herself ) Sole  Trader

  ? Does she still need to hire Thais

 

* So if on MV, one should just be able to get work permit & then recieved a wage of 40,000 bht as is needed in proof for Immigration on such Visa

 

* No doubt she will need to show finances to support her Sole Trader business & maybe have to register you for Pension Ect

 

[tangdio]

I don't imagine it is much more complicated than that.

[NiwPix]

Apologies about my above post...It does seem to be confusing about the 2 million registered capital and I should have elaborated on this a bit more.  I remember there being a section on my Work permit application ( NOT Visa ) about registered capital. Since this was my first work permit, I had a Law Firm help me through this. They entered 4 point something million baht ( we were going to need to work permits ). We didnt hand in any other proof of the 4 million and it was easily accepted. Unfortunately I do not have or at least can not find a copy of my initial work permit application to give more details. However, I just noticed that this question is also on the work permit renewal and we've been keeping it blank and havent had any issues renewing our work permits. So it seems as it is not required as a Sole Proprietorship.

How in post #6 it is possible to get a work permit with less income and no thai workers is beyond me. As far as I know you need the minimum salary to obtain a work permit ( and possibly even Visa extensions if you can provide the 400k minimum on the bank account ).

Again, my case in from personal experience and worked fine. It MAY be possible to have less requirements and still get the Visa and workpermit, however, I am not so sure on that.

[tangdio]

Thank you for the input!

 

Please clarify whether or not your permit was under which type of business: Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, or Company.

[tangdio]

Also: 

[tangdio]

Another one:

On 8/31/2016 at 7:40 AM, ubonjoe said:

If you have a non-o visa or an extension of stay based upon marriage there would be no requirement for it to be registered company or have 4 Thai employees.

What is required to apply for a work permit would depend upon the office you go to. At one time if married to a Thai it was only 2 Thai employees but the ministerial regulations were changed in 2010. I have not seen the latest regulations since they were not made public or announced other than in the royal gazette. 

 

[NiwPix]

It is under sole proprietorship. It’s will be changed to company sometime this year though.
My accountant has advised it would be better to switch to company as the revenue department is trying to “push” people into companies instead of sole proprietorship. One step they supposedly did was raise the taxes by a lot. I will find out soon enough when I file last years tax returns.


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[rwdrwdrwd]

[Edit] never mind, I see the answer to my question - good luck with the citizenship process.

Edited February 1, 2018 by rwdrwdrwd