The mystery of exactly how many expats live in Thailand

[Jimdandy]

1 minute ago, SPREX said:

Off course Amnesty international is an official organisation approved in the kingdom 

you canot stay and work volontary for this organisation you need any time a visa 

I think there is miscommunication. I am not interested in working for an NGO. I am asking is there one where expats can go to advocate for themselves

[sirineou]

9 hours ago, Isaanbiker said:

Amazing, how they could forget Aussies @ their research. 

 

They did not forget them, they are hoping that if they ignore them they will go away.

[ToddinChonburi]

Go to the big paper storage warehouse and start counting copies.

[turgid]

Select

 

Passport Country

Age

Visa Type 

Visa expiry date

 

That could be run overnight on the immigration database and you'd have the list tomorrow in an excel spreadsheet you could filter by . It wont include illegals of course.

[Thaifriends]

The numbers or stats only matter to any govt if those are based on collecting revenue from expats. I mean who pay direct taxes while working for a company or do business to give jobs which intrurn gets tax revenue. In simple what benefits to TH economy other then visa(s) fees.

[murraynz]

6 hours ago, HiSoLowSoNoSo said:

Used to be 20.000 Swedes in Thailand, now only 19.999 (I left). Now there are more Thais in Sweden than Swedes in Thailand (I recon most of them are females).   

lucky for sweden

[tjo o tjim]

The numbers I have seen from the US State Department are close to the 40k number, but that likely includes tourists here averaged over the year. 

[NCC1701A]

Sign the petition to reform Thai Immigration and Article 37

http://reform-thai-immigration.com/

[ttrd]

Yes - not easy if not impossible to understand it by a logical point of view ...

 

What they say means we want you to stay ...

 

What they do means we want you away ...

 

Understand it those who are capable to do so - accept it those who don't ...

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by ttrd

[balo]

If you combine the numbers of expats and people living here long term most of the year (own a house/condo) , I am pretty sure the numbers are much higher, more than 1 million people.
 

[Lancelot01]

10 hours ago, jlwilliamsjr18 said:

Expats are in fact one of the golden geese of Thailand. Do the math, if each one, spends 100 dollars a week, thats a sizable hunk for the economy.  So, why kill this golden goose?

And if each retiree has between THB400.000 - 800,000 locked into their bank account, it's a nice 'foreign asset' for the government if the retirees cannot utilise those funds.

[emptypockets]

1 minute ago, Lancelot01 said:

And if each retiree has between THB400.000 - 800,000 locked into their bank account, it's a nice 'foreign asset' for the government if the retirees cannot utilise those funds.

How is it a foreign asset. Most Thai banks are private organisations. Nothing to do with the Thai Government as far as I'm aware.

[mlmcleod]

I think that there are at least 5,000 Russians in Pattaya alone.  These numbers are way off.  I guess no one in Bangkok has a computer with all of this info?

[manhood]

As they have computers but no system they should look on the million of copies they need for nothing. With the paper of the copirs you could reforest Thailand

[Sheryl]

It is hard to figure out what the table on the first page means with regard to "stay with Thais" and "stay with resident family".

 

These seem to be translations of immigration categories for temporary extension of stay. The "thai spouse" and "retirement" categories are self evident as are the investment categories but these 2 categories have me stumped.

 

My best guess is that they refer to extension of stay based on  family relationship (e.g. Thai child) and being  dependent of someone one a non-O or non-B visa but I would not have expected the numbers for these to be this large, whiel the number given for marriage seems too low.

 

???

 

Obviously the table does not include people living here on strings of visa exempt or TV entries. Also does not seem to include Elite or permanent residency.

[oslooskar]

13 hours ago, Isaanbiker said:

Amazing, how they could forget Aussies @ their research. 

 

They didn't forget the Aussies; they're just counting the important people first. ????

[rickudon]

A lot of figures being thrown into the ring, most with no clear categorisation or source. I did try to follow some posted links but they just led to vast dumps of information, which didn't actually seem to have information on categories of foreign migrants ..... maybe buried in there somewhere, but where?

 

As has been said, it should be possible for immigration to just search there database, but maybe not ......

 

I did see a figure mentioned of about 85,000 UK citizens (but which year?). There was some information released by the UK embassy a short while ago, which said 71,000, which would seem to suggest numbers are falling, but where they got the information from is not clear either. But those figures of 71-85 thousand British would make 50% of the overall original claimed numbers British, so obviously this data is about as useful as a chocolate teapot .....

 

The other question is are the figures only for those on annual extensions, original visas (who may or may not be in the country at any one time), short term extensions or visa exempts. Some people use multiple categories.

 

I can only go by what i see  myself, which would be about 0.5% of the population are of western origin in Udon.

[ericthai]

13 hours ago, frankholland said:

Maybe we can make an estimation ourselves. I live in Korat, and do my retirement extention begin september. The extention has a number. The average number for the last 4 years is 4500. So that means in a year the korat immigration issues about 6750 retitement extentions a year. The most expats live in Bangkok, Pattaya, changmai, pucket and udon thani. If people from those regions make the same estimations for their province, we can see if we come close to the 72000.

you're assuming they start at "0" each year?  Also, I'm sure that would include migrant workers from Cambodia.

[sawadee1947]

14 hours ago, Isaanbiker said:

Now you can see them everywhere, at shopping malls, restaurants, and other places. 

Yeah, breeding like rabbits... ????????????

[khunPer]

18 hours ago, rooster59 said:

A study carried out by the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University using data from 2010, suggested that there were approximately 440,000 expats living in Thailand, which included 141,000 Chinese, 85,000 Brits, 80,000 Japanese, 46,000 Indians, 40,000 Americans, 24,000 Germans and 23,000 French nationals.

More mystery: If I count these figurs I get 439.000 leaving only 1,000 for all other nations – that's less than what is estimated from my own home-country Denmark...????

 

Perhaps the above nations are 440,000 of the foreigners living in Thailand. The study in Thai language do have an English abstract-section, stating that "a total of 2,581,141 foreigners residing in Thailand as of September 1, 2010" and "foreigners in this article were defined as people who were not Thai nationals, excluding undocumented hill–tribes and ethnic minorities".

 

Furthermore it says that: "The Southeast Asian foreigners were the biggest group among non– Thais in Thailand, comprising 72% of the total. In addition, Burmese, the most prevalent, accounted for 1.3 million foreigners."

 

So if we take the remaining 28% – i.e. excluding Southeast Asians – of the 2,581,141 foreigners residing in Thailand, we get 722.719 persons. If 440.000 are the nations above, there are space for 280.000 from other nations.

Does that make more sense?

 

The study also states that: "There were 2.3 million foreigners aged higher than 15 years. Among them, 20% did not work. A high proportion of unemployed foreigners was found among those who were from East Asia, Europe, Australia and Oceania, and North America. Most working foreigners (78%) were private employees. Those whose working status was not employee (employer, self–employed, unpaid family worker, and member of cooperative) accounted for 16%. These working statuses were slightly different across regional groups of foreigners."

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

9 hours ago, murraynz said:

lucky for sweden

Well at least they (The Thai girls) looks better than the other riff raff that been invading Sweden coming from the Arab world and Africa.

[The Preacher]

20 hours ago, dotpoom said:

(Or... Irish ????)

 

Irish are Brits.

[ICELANDMAN]

22 hours ago, BobbyL said:

80,000 Japanese! 

 

Apart from the Yipoon guys I see on the golf course, where are they all? Especially the Japanese females ????

Of course is famous, Japanese busy work also the night, wife girls stay Japan waiting you ???? what you waiting ?

[ICELANDMAN]

12 hours ago, Lancelot01 said:

And if each retiree has between THB400.000 - 800,000 locked into their bank account, it's a nice 'foreign asset' for the government if the retirees cannot utilise those funds.

This because the bath is so strong ☹️

[marcusarelus]

8 minutes ago, ICELANDMAN said:

Of course is famous, Japanese busy work also the night, wife girls stay Japan waiting you ???? what you waiting ?

They are in church or study the bible in special schools.  Pay for English teachers is really good.  I have friends who do it if you can stomach all the christian stuff.  

[marcusarelus]

3 minutes ago, ICELANDMAN said:

This because the bath is so strong ☹️

1.  There are only 12 people in all of Thailand who use the 800k method all the others are on income or fake agents and 2.  The banks for the most part are not part of the government.  

[eddysmit]

On 7/28/2019 at 9:47 AM, Isaanbiker said:

   

Just looking at a city in the lower northeast makes me believe that more foreigners are living here full time.

 

    When I arrived here in 2002, you could hardly see foreigners here.

 

    Now you can see them everywhere, at shopping malls, restaurants, and other places. 

 

   Pretty hard to understand that the number of expats has declined.

 But when is a foreigner considered an expat? After 5, 10, or 15 years?

 

  

 

  

Most of those could be 'tourists' on a 'shortish' stay.

[ellathai]

On 7/28/2019 at 10:06 AM, FarFlungFalang said:

I have an Australian passport and I know that after 2 years out of the country and I cease to be a resident of my own country,so my guess would be 2 years.

Actually it's 6 months for tax purposes 

 

[bwpage3]

On 7/27/2019 at 11:09 PM, jlwilliamsjr18 said:

Expats are in fact one of the golden geese of Thailand. Do the math, if each one, spends 100 dollars a week, thats a sizable hunk for the economy.  So, why kill this golden goose?

Your joking right?

 

Expat's contribute very, very little overall to the economy of Thailand.

 

Do you have a clue how many Thai's are considered rich? Own properties overseas? Etc.

 

It dwarfs the number of expat's contributing.

 

With half the expats shown being listed as retired, that is really not of a golden goose is it?

 

 

[Yinn]

On 7/28/2019 at 10:52 AM, geoffbezoz said:

One or two of our members are married to people from the hilltribes so guess they will consider it quite insulting for you to say  "no natinality I think like the hilltribe people", or did you say that as a joke ?

You don’t know the situation. 

Boring explain to you. 

They not have thai ID card. Not have foreigner passport.

 

you insult thai people and Thailand everyday. Many member married to thai so guess they will consider it quite insulting.

you like to argue.