Paypal business account with Thai bank account

[pachoderm]

Hello,

             Has anyone had experience with the combination of a Thai Paypal business account with a Thai bank account? The questions I have are:

1. Do you have to be a permanent resident of Thailand to have income coming in to your Thai Paypal business account? I am not a permanent resident but a regular long term visitor that has just set up a Thai Paypal business account with a Bangkok bank account.
 

2. Did you have any difficulties in transferring Paypal funds from your Thai bank account via Transferwise - to a bank account in another country?
 

3. What is the law with regard to taxation - for a foreigner to conduct business as described above?

 

thanks for your attention!

[seancbk]

1.  You don't have to be a permanent resident.   

Your Thai Paypal account (doesn't matter if its a business account or a personal account) really has nothing to do with Thailand.  It's just a name to denote the fact that it was created from Thailand and can only be linked to a Thai bank.   I have a Thai account (created here), a Hong Kong account (created there) and a UK account (created there).   Paypal is another of those moronic companies that doesn't really cater to people who travel, live overseas, have multiple bases or use multiple international banks. 

2.  Again nothing to do with Paypal.   If the funds are in your Thai bank account then you just have to deal with the bank when doing an international transfer.  

3. Depends what the business is.  If you are selling online and getting paid into Paypal, then I don't see any reason to worry about Thai tax (the money is NOT in Thailand and the business is NOT in Thailand.    

[XGM]

54 minutes ago, seancbk said:

Paypal is another of those moronic companies that doesn't really cater to people who travel, live overseas, have multiple bases or use multiple international banks. 

Very true. They don't even allow you to add a phone number from country X if your account is "associated" with country Y. So if you need to verify your account for security reasons (happens sometimes) the only way to do it is by receiving an SMS / call to a number you probably don't use if you live overseas. I keep the foreign sim card specifically for such cases. 

[waxpro]

My paypal account was opened about 11 years ago, personal account, I created the account here in Thailand, and linked it with my local bank, ATM debit card details - not a credit card,

this account was inactive for number of years,

then started to use my account  in the recent years, mainly to buy products online,

in the last year was requested by a digital vendor to receive payments online, must upgrade to be business account, (business personal) not business for a company,

since then, I still using my account as usual,

Any purchase transaction they deduct automatically from my bank account, any refunded products also happen the same way, I am using my account quite often for any online purchase,

I told all the above historic details, to make it clear that my account was created around 2006 or 2007, I am not sure about the current conditions and requirements,

I don't have any residency, just normal working visa, extend yearly, 90 days reports etc,

hope this helps.

 

[XGM]

13 hours ago, pachoderm said:

2. Did you have any difficulties in transferring Paypal funds from your Thai bank account via Transferwise - to a bank account in another country?
 

3. What is the law with regard to taxation - for a foreigner to conduct business as described above?

 

As explained by seancbk above, there is nothing Thai about a "Thai Paypal business account", as far as Thai authorities are concerned.

 

But I think you have misunderstood additional aspects of operating here.

 

Legally, as a foreigner you can't do any business here on your own without a registered Thai company, a work permit, and usually a corporate bank account (and nobody really cares what arrangements you have with Paypal and how they label your account with them).

 

Outgoing bank transfers are difficult (incoming transfers, no problem :-)) - if this comes from a company account, you need to show an invoice from the receiver. If it's a private account of a foreigner, you need to show a work permit and salary that gets into the account (at least that's what I was told last time I wanted to do that). It's actually easier for a Thai to transfer funds out (from a bank account) than for a foreigner.

Edited February 8, 2018 by XGM

[wazzupnow]

1 hour ago, seancbk said:

1.  You don't have to be a permanent resident.   

Your Thai Paypal account (doesn't matter if its a business account or a personal account) really has nothing to do with Thailand.  It's just a name to denote the fact that it was created from Thailand and can only be linked to a Thai bank.   I have a Thai account (created here), a Hong Kong account (created there) and a UK account (created there).   Paypal is another of those moronic companies that doesn't really cater to people who travel, live overseas, have multiple bases or use multiple international banks. 

2.  Again nothing to do with Paypal.   If the funds are in your Thai bank account then you just have to deal with the bank when doing an international transfer.  

3. Depends what the business is.  If you are selling online and getting paid into Paypal, then I don't see any reason to worry about Thai tax (the money is NOT in Thailand and the business is NOT in Thailand.    

i agree fully with this i have 3 paypall accounts linked to 2 thai bank accounts 

transferring and receiving no problem at- all  worldwide

[weary]

While we are on the subject of PayPal:

I ordered an unfinished guitar body from the US, and paid in advance using PayPal.

To avoid speculations about a scam, this is an established luthier and seller, who has a registered business in the US, and has been active for 10+ years on eBay with thousands of transactions and a near 100% rating. He has a net presence using his real name and maintains a proper web page for his business - I've already verified that the eBay, FB and webpage/company email all lead to the same person.

He has finished and packaged the body, but when he tries to print the shipping label with my address (my real address, connected to my PP account), PayPal throws an error and says the street address is incorrect. This is the same address that I've successfully received eBay stuff on for 5 years. The difference is that this time, the transaction is only using PayPal.

The seller and I have tried to troubleshoot the address by moving info from one line to another, by removing things like the 'T.' for tambon, etc. but nothing works.

Has anyone experienced anything similar, and if so, what was the reason?

Also, do you have a solution that worked for you?
 

[scottiejohn]

6 hours ago, XGM said:

Outgoing bank transfers are difficult

Agree; but if the Thai Bank Account is the one linked to the PayPal account in Thailand and the overseas receiving PayPal account(s) are connected to the same overseas Country as the receiving PayPal account(a) then there should be  no problem provided you stick within the various Countries rules you are transferring to and from. I do it all the time, in small amounts, in both directions.

 

10MBaht might well raise red flags!

 

No one has said what volumes are being considered.

Under US $10000 Per Tx Per A/c per month should be no problem. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by scottiejohn

[Lee4Life]

I have used a Paypal business account linked to my bank in the U.S. for years, but when my wife opened one here in Thailand and we tried to link it to her Thai bank account Paypal froze it. As it didn't have much for funds in it at the time they froze it we just let it go, the steps they gave us to fix it was just not worth the hassle.