Living as an expat in Thailand seems to leave me with plenty of spare time on my hands.

 

Most of that time is used up by sitting at my PC chatting on forums and facebook groups in my nice cool lounge. The wife is out most of the day running our little businesses and bringing in the bacon which is nice but kind of lonely. I am not one for whiling away my days sitting in the bar or lounging around on the couch watching TV.

 

Recently I was watching a Youtube video of a British guy playing some farming simulation game while narrating through a mic, I found it quite amusing, the guy was a bit of an extrovert and seemed to know what to say that was quite engaging... I ended up watching his entire playlist and in one video he went into explaining how he got started on Youtube and how determined he was to build a passive income stream that allowed him to quit his job.

 

In just 2 years, he has built a Youtube gaming channel with some 76,000 subscribers, each video he uploads gets well over 10,000 views on its first day, and he has videos that have hundreds of thousands of views in little over a couple of months.

 

It got me to think about all this time I have on my hands... So I did a bit of research on the best ways to build a successful Youtube channel of my own.

 

About 2 years ago, i had dabbled in it, and uploaded a video of a Donald Trump interview and put it out on a couple of forums and Facebook groups, then I forgot all about it, I logged into the channel about three weeks ago and was amazed to see it had over 190,000 views and I had 160 subscribers and thought, this is a perfect base to start from... I went about setting up my channel completely with wallpaper etc and decided to focus it on conservative politics. 

 

I decided to set my goal of 1000 subscribers by Christmas Day and upload a video per day which I believed to be doable. The next video I uploaded just took off within its first hour. It was peaking at around 25,000 views per day. I have since stuck to around 1 video per day and the channel is growing faster than I ever could have imagined with very little work on my part. after just three weeks I have had about 180,000 views and 470 new subscribers and my Christmas Day goal has been blown out of the water, that has now been moved to the end of this month.

 

Once I get to 1000 subscribers I can monetize the videos which can bring in some nice revenue. Now the grey area is how do i go about making this all legitimate?

 

Technically while I am building the channel towards the monetizing threshold as far as I am concerned, this is nothing more than a hobby, once monetized I am more than prepared to take this down the legal route and declare it and pay tax and SSO on the income.

 

How would I go about this?.... The 'digital nomad' debate has been very confusing to me... I have head it is frowned on, I have heard expats have been arrested by the immigration police and fined, I have heard that a blind eye is turned on this and that the authorities are not that concerned with it.

 

The truth is, it does not affect Thai citizens, it injects money into the Thai economy and harms absolutely nobody. I know I could do this totally under the radar and not declare anything and just enjoy the income, But I kind of like to play with a straight bat.

 

Also, if anyone is reading this and are in the same position as me regarding excess time on their hands, then guys, Youtube is definitely worth a look... I am proof that it can be done. Feel free to drop me a message, I would be more than happy to give out any advice.

 

If anyone out there is already making a living on Youtube from Thailand, then I would love to hear about your experience.

 

Any advice is warmly welcomed.

 

 

How to get a Thai Tax ID Without a Work Permit - http://afarangabroad.com/2017/06/pay-tax-thailand-digital-nomad/

Sun Fruit Dan and his bare breasted now head "squashed" gf were making a bunch in Phuket off showing her boobs on YouTube and now he off of monetizing her death. Why not ask him? You can can check out their estimated incomes at https://socialblade.com/youtube/

I think you have already broken the law as you were working without a WP.  Whether you got paid or not is a separate issue.

On 5/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, Brewster67 said:

The truth is, it does not affect Thai citizens, it injects money into the Thai economy and harms absolutely nobody. I know I could do this totally under the radar and not declare anything and just enjoy the income, But I kind of like to play with a straight bat.

While i respect this, and completely understand it as you were raised as an upstanding citizen who pays his taxes, I would reocmmend you to reconsider it as it will bring you a lot of trouble and effort. My guess is it would be smarter in Thailand to stay under the radar and avoid work permit hassles, immigration hassles, police hassles, etc. 

 

(no first hand experience though)

5 hours ago, Bob12345 said:

While i respect this, and completely understand it as you were raised as an upstanding citizen who pays his taxes, I would reocmmend you to reconsider it as it will bring you a lot of trouble and effort. My guess is it would be smarter in Thailand to stay under the radar and avoid work permit hassles, immigration hassles, police hassles, etc. 

 

(no first hand experience though)

I have to agree with this sentiment. Make sure payments are made into a foreign bank account. Do not put any "Thai element" into your videos or your channel. Then keep your mouth shut - especially about any income. Any "official track" here is only going to make you sad.