Minimum salary requirement for valid self-employment through registered Thai company?

[wml22]

Hi all, 

 

I want to execute the following plan:

 

A) Marry a Thai national.

B) Register Thai company with 1 million baht. 

C) Employ my wife's parents on paper as Thai employees of the company (to meet the "two Thai employees" requirement for issuing myself a work permit from my own company).

D) Use my marital status with 400,000 baht in a Thai bank account to have residence in Thailand through a marriage visa.

E) Buy an extra house in Thailand in my wife's name (for sake of example, let's say the rental value of the house is 5,000 baht per month).

F) Use the Thai company to be legally self-employed as an ESL tutor, with a combination of paying and pro-bono clients.

 

The reason for this being the preferred plan is that I don't want to be employed by a Thai school, but instead want to set my own hours and be free to choose my students as well as do pro-bono work for local poor children. The main potential obstacle that I can see is that I don't know if the monthly salary requirement, for my self-issued work permit from my own company, is going to be too high.

 

Question 1) Does this work permit still qualify for the lowered minimum salary for teachers if the work permit is issued to perform an educational role of tutor/teacher, even if not for a Thai school but for my own company that is co-owned with my wife?

 

Question 2) If so, what is that minimum monthly salary that I must be taking for the work permit to be valid in this case?

 

Question 3) Would there be any risk in passing the rental income from the extra house through the company as my salary, for the purposes of helping to meet the salary requirement?

 

Question 4) Assuming that item (F) above is my goal, is there any cheaper or more efficient way to accomplish this goal (I think the answer must be no)?

 

Thank you so much for any clarity you can help shed on my questions. Regarding the wife part, I've known this woman for years and we were first together while she studied in my country as a research fellow, and now she's a tenure-track university professor. We're approximately the same age. I trust her and that part of the plan is not a potential issue. We're just not sure if doing part (F) is financially sustainable assuming I want to do it on a more relaxed basis, but I think it's necessary for my psychological health to be doing something positive in the community and contributing to the household beyond the provision of a house (instead of simply doing nothing at all for work, or being put through the Thai foreign employment meat grinder which I know can be very exploitative, having lived in Thailand for 6-9 month periods in the past).

 

All the best,

Will

 

EDIT: One of the points that isn't clear to me is whether the minimum salary requirement is just an issue for residence through work visa, or whether it's an issue for the validity or renewability of the work permit. If it's a work visa issue but not a work permit issue then I'm home free, since I'll be using the marriage visa to maintain residence in Thailand. If it's a work permit issue despite using the marriage visa for Thai residence, then the big questions become whether the self-issued work permit for tutoring work qualifies for a reduced minimum salary requirement, and also, what that minimum salary requirement is / whether it's sustainable. 

 

EDIT 2: Is it true, as I've heard, that even with a small company of three employees (myself and my wife's parents), we will be required to spend about 1,500 baht per month, per employee (total = 4,500 baht per month) on providing insurance for the employees?

[BritTim]

51 minutes ago, wml22 said:

The reason for this being the preferred plan is that I don't want to be employed by a Thai school, but instead want to set my own hours and be free to choose my students as well as do pro-bono work for local poor children. The main potential obstacle that I can see is that I don't know if the monthly salary requirement, for my self-issued work permit from my own company, is going to be too high.

You can work while still having an extension of stay based on your marriage to a Thai, which could be granted with 400,000 baht in a Thai bank and no salary proof. There is no minimum salary for a work permit. The salary requirement is only for the extension of stay on the basis of working.

 

I do not feel qualified to opine on whether your larger plans have any flaws. I hope you are employing the services of a good lawyer to make sure all this is done correctly.

 

Actually, in your position, I would talk to a local language school to see if they will put you on their books for a percentage of your earnings, still giving you the freedom to choose your own students and hours. I can imagine many small schools being willing to consider this.

[wml22]

11 minutes ago, BritTim said:

You can work while still having an extension of stay based on your marriage to a Thai, which could be granted with 400,000 baht in a Thai bank and no salary proof. There is no minimum salary for a work permit. The salary requirement is only for the extension of stay on the basis of working.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. It is great to hear that there's no minimum salary required for the work permit. I guess that is because I'm the co-owner of the company and the normal wage laws (such as minimum wage) don't apply to the owner paying themselves. (On the other hand, I know the two Thai employees have to at least receive the national minimum wage.)

 

Regarding going on the books of a tutoring center or school, I think the problem there is that it's usually not worth it to these places to provide a work permit if the employee only wants to work 15 hours per week or something like that, because the number of work permits they can issue is limited so they're better off issuing them to farang that they can get more mileage out of. I also want the freedom to do meditation retreats when I want (e.g. possibly up to four weeks at a time). So I think that the lifestyle I want is only compatible with self-employment.

 

Since there's no minimum salary requirement for the work permit, the only remaining significant question for this thread is whether it's true that I'd be legally obligated to spend about 4,500 baht per month on insurance for the three employees of the registered company. 

[Airalee]

I wanted to do something similar to you (the part time working to keep myself occupied) and what I learned while looking into it is that I would have to teach a minimum of 16 hours a week (plus whatever outside lesson prep time).  The only potential issue I see with regards to plan is your desire to take 4 week meditation retreats.  Of course, the schools won’t let you do something like that but I wonder how it might work with a private company if you were to tell your students “hey, sorry, I’m going to be unavailable for the next four weeks” multiple times a year.  Might work for the adult learner, but for parents sending their children for tutoring, I think they will want more a consistent lesson schedule.  Hope everything works out for you whichever route you take. 

[wml22]

13 minutes ago, Airalee said:

I wanted to do something similar to you (the part time working to keep myself occupied) and what I learned while looking into it is that I would have to teach a minimum of 16 hours a week (plus whatever outside lesson prep time).  The only potential issue I see with regards to plan is your desire to take 4 week meditation retreats. 

Hi, yeah, I think that consistency might be important for the parents of the students. But to clarify, I'm talking about creating my company as a one man show doing private tutoring or small group classes, probably charging tuition on a per-class basis instead of a per-semester basis. I can't scale it to become larger than that because the capitalization requirement increases to be much higher than 1 million baht for each additional farang that receives a work permit from the company. So I'll be the only farang / only real employee. Since it's an extra-curricular tutoring outfit, not a school establishment with formal classes, I think what I'm planning can work with enough scheduling and vacation flexibility. 

[dirtybirty]

With a wp you don't need to show the 400k in a bank a.c. for the marrige non o based on marrige. per say there is no min wage on a wp just that you pay tax on earnings of 50k a month wether you earn that or not

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[ubonjoe]

There is no minimum salary requirement to get a work permit. 

If you have a non-o visa or extension of stay based upon marriage there is no minimum salary requirement.related to your work. The only salary requirement is 40k baht when you apply for a extension of stay based upon marriage.

There is other factors to consider as far as setting up a school and working at it. There be a need for licensing and/or registration of it.

[phantomfiddler]

When I had a work permit, during the process of filling out the forms I was required to sign a document saying that I was making 80,000 Bht per month, and I got taxed on that amount even though sometimes earnings were close to zero.

 

The permit ended up costing me, all up with accountants fees, around 23,000 Bht per month, which I found such poor value that I did not bother to renew after a few years. Fly low, keep your head down, and keep a low profile ????

[timendres]

On 9/29/2019 at 10:38 PM, wml22 said:

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. It is great to hear that there's no minimum salary required for the work permit. I guess that is because I'm the co-owner of the company and the normal wage laws (such as minimum wage) don't apply to the owner paying themselves.

That is not correct. The minimum salary is a requirement of getting an extension-of-stay based on a work permit. Since your extension-of-stay is based on being married to a Thai national, it has different requirements. So, if you deposit 400K THB in a back account, and use that for your extension, then you are good. If you are going to use the income method, then your income will need to be the 40K THB monthly requirement.

[problemfarang]

i dont know if its going to help you in your case, but this is what one of my friend did:

 

1) rent a small 3 store place. Redesign the place to fit classes. 

2) open a tutor, not language school because if you open a tutor its less paper work and easy. plus you can hire part time thai teacher to teach other subjects. But if you open a language school you need lot of things plus can teach only language. Tutor name is on her wife's name. Although what you need to be careful here is your wife must have a educational BA or master or likewise, otherwise you cannot open any kind of language or tutor school. Well, that make sense, thai government want if you open a school or any related thing... you need to have BA in education or likewise. So i hope your wife has it. otherwise every farang in thailand would open a tutor ???? 

3) his wife made him the manager of this tutor and gave him 40K salary and registered the tutor to the government and get her tutor can hire foreigners permission.

4) he got his work permit.

 

For the tutor you need 2 toilets for 1 female and 1 male students.

 

This is also my future plan soon. My wife is a director at a big school in khon kaen. So we have all the educational background they want to open a tutor.

[wml22]

19 hours ago, timendres said:

That is not correct. The minimum salary is a requirement of getting an extension-of-stay based on a work permit. Since your extension-of-stay is based on being married to a Thai national, it has different requirements. So, if you deposit 400K THB in a back account, and use that for your extension, then you are good. If you are going to use the income method, then your income will need to be the 40K THB monthly requirement.

There seems to be some confusion in some of the replies about what I'm trying to do:

 

I want to be able to work self-employed as an English teacher/tutor for my own company, without a minimum salary being needed. I want to do that while maintaining residence through a marriage visa based on having the 400,000 baht bank account balance.

 

I understand there is a minimum salary requirement for a work *visa* but others replying in the thread indicated that there is no minimum salary requirement for a work *permit* that is self-issued from my own registered company.

 

On 9/30/2019 at 4:24 AM, phantomfiddler said:

When I had a work permit, during the process of filling out the forms I was required to sign a document saying that I was making 80,000 Bht per month, and I got taxed on that amount even though sometimes earnings were close to zero.

 

The permit ended up costing me, all up with accountants fees, around 23,000 Bht per month, which I found such poor value that I did not bother to renew after a few years. Fly low, keep your head down, and keep a low profile

 

Was that for a work permit issued from a registered company that you owned (or co-owned)? And was that while your residence was not being maintained through work visa but through another kind of visa (such as marriage visa)?

[wml22]

12 hours ago, problemfarang said:

i dont know if its going to help you in your case, but this is what one of my friend did:

 

1) rent a small 3 store place. Redesign the place to fit classes. 

2) open a tutor, not language school because if you open a tutor its less paper work and easy. plus you can hire part time thai teacher to teach other subjects. But if you open a language school you need lot of things plus can teach only language. Tutor name is on her wife's name. Although what you need to be careful here is your wife must have a educational BA or master or likewise, otherwise you cannot open any kind of language or tutor school. Well, that make sense, thai government want if you open a school or any related thing... you need to have BA in education or likewise. So i hope your wife has it. otherwise every farang in thailand would open a tutor ???? 

3) his wife made him the manager of this tutor and gave him 40K salary and registered the tutor to the government and get her tutor can hire foreigners permission.

4) he got his work permit.

 

For the tutor you need 2 toilets for 1 female and 1 male students.

 

This is also my future plan soon. My wife is a director at a big school in khon kaen. So we have all the educational background they want to open a tutor.

 

Hi, thanks for all of the helpful details. The woman I'm marrying in this scenario is a university professor but in a STEM field. She has a PhD and teaches college students in university courses. She also had prior experience teaching high school students. So I think that would work (I doubt they'll consider it insufficient just because she wasn't an education major).

 

So to confirm, based on your advice it would be advisable and possible to do the following:

 

1) Register a Thai company for "tutoring classes" for 1 million baht with myself and my Thai wife as co-owners.

2) Neither of us have education degrees but she's a STEM university professor with a PhD, and I have a humanities masters degree from an ivy league US university (but no teaching experience).

3) Use my 400,000 baht balance in a Thai bank account to maintain residence through a marriage visa.

4) Use the Thai registered company to issue myself a work permit with no minimum salary (or maybe my actual salary will be about 15,000 baht per month working part time). The reason for this is that I want to do both paid and pro-bono tutoring work to keep myself from being bored and for small side income.

 

Can any others confirm that steps 1-4 are possible?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wml22]

PS: FYI, I made a new thread with better refinements of these questions (drilling down to what is still under controversy and expanding on what is still unanswered) in the business sub-forum: https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1126468-minimum-salary-and-insurance-requirements-for-self-employment-by-my-own-company/