What's the best visa/work permit option for digital professionals?

[MatthewMalone1985]

I'm a digital illustrator working for a Singapore-registered company. I was told about a company called Iglu that helps arrange visas and work permits for remote professionals, but when I reached out to them I was told that they are no longer accepting new customers.

 

Can someone please tell me whether there is a comparable alternative to Iglu?

 

Thanks in advance!

[ChiangMaiNomad]

@MatthewMalone1985 There is a new Chiang Mai-based company similar to Iglu called Shelter  who can help get visas and work permits for digital professionals (I'm a software developer myself). Several of my friends and I received visas and work permits already.

 

The process around around 2 weeks and it was a lot cheaper than Iglu!

[wolf81]

I looked into Iglu and thought they asked too much, 30% or 35% of my income. And you'd needed to earn at least 2000 USD per month or something like that. As someone who earns around 8.000 USD per month, I didn't like the idea of paying Iglu ~2.500 USD per month. Of course there could be ways to avoid paying this much. One could setup an offshore company and employ oneself through the offshore for the minimum wage required by Iglu and keep the rest of the money in the offshore company. But I didn't want to bother. I am not sure how similar Shelter is compared to Iglu.

 

In the future I will seriously look into setting up a Thai company. One company structure that seems ok for my purpose would be a Limited Partnership. I would still need to discuss with a lawyer of course, but my thinking is the following:

- I should be able to get a business visa with this structure

- Can be setup with just 2 people (so just me and my girlfriend, for example)

- I don't need to employ people as far as I can see, which is not the case for some other business structures

- The monthly money I sent to my girlfriend (shared money we use for our monthly costs, currently 45.000 THB) I can sent to her as a wage for her director role, this way she has some registered income (currently she doesn't have this, as a stay-at-home mom)

- The registered income should allow my girlfriend in the future to get a loan or mortgage, which we might need in the future to buy a house (I would like to finance 50% myself, 50% through my girlfriend) 

- I would still keep a lot of my income in my offshore company and in my home country regardless, just to be safe, so the risks of the limited partnership would not be to great for me … 

 

[CraigInBangkok]

I have lived here for around 17 years and up until a year ago I worked legally for thai companies as 3d technical artist. I have been offered a lot of freelance work but have never taken any of it due to legality. I am now on a marriage visa and allowed to work with a work permit. Can't get a work permit as a freelancer though. It seems rather silly to me that they don't issue work permits for freelancing as I am sure many would be happy to pay tax and I am also sure there are many working with offshore accounts to avoid this issue.

As for iglu it just seems like a massive rip off to me.

[ubonjoe]

9 minutes ago, CraigInBangkok said:

I have been offered a lot of freelance work but have never taken any of it due to legality. I am now on a marriage visa and allowed to work with a work permit. Can't get a work permit as a freelancer though. It seems rather silly to me that they don't issue work permits for freelancing as I am sure many would be happy to pay tax and I am also sure there are many working with offshore accounts to avoid this issue.

Set up a 51/49% partnership with your wife and register it with 1 million baht of capital. Then get the work permit and bill your customers in the name of the partnership.

[CraigInBangkok]

Just now, ubonjoe said:

Set up a 51/49% partnership and register it with 1 million baht of capital. Then get the work permit and bill your customers  in the name of the partnership.

thanks Joe ... will definately look more into this! Does setting up a partnership still mean you have to pay a salary? Or is it different to setting up a company? We are fairly okay financially, so if I was to freelance it would'nt be a monthly income just a few times a year.

[ubonjoe]

1 minute ago, CraigInBangkok said:

thanks Joe ... will definately look more into this! Does setting up a partnership still mean you have to pay a salary? Or is it different to setting up a company? We are fairly okay financially, so if I was to freelance it would'nt be a monthly income just a few times a year.

There is no salary requirement to get the work permit. Your income would be any profit the partnership has.

[CraigInBangkok]

Just now, ubonjoe said:

There is no salary requirement to get the work permit. Your income would be any profit the partnership has.

thats great news .... thanks again Joe!

[Maestro]

Removed a troll post.

[PDPA2024]

23 hours ago, ChiangMaiNomad said:

@MatthewMalone1985 There is a new Chiang Mai-based company similar to Iglu called Shelter  who can help get visas and work permits for digital professionals (I'm a software developer myself). Several of my friends and I received visas and work permits already.

 

The process around around 2 weeks and it was a lot cheaper than Iglu!

Do you know by chance how many % goes to their fees and taxes?

I believe Iglu charged 30% with $2500/mo minimal income (until they got busted).

[ThomasThBKK]

1 hour ago, wolf81 said:

I looked into Iglu and thought they asked too much, 30% or 35% of my income. And you'd needed to earn at least 2000 USD per month or something like that. As someone who earns around 8.000 USD per month, I didn't like the idea of paying Iglu ~2.500 USD per month. Of course there could be ways to avoid paying this much. One could setup an offshore company and employ oneself through the offshore for the minimum wage required by Iglu and keep the rest of the money in the offshore company. But I didn't want to bother. I am not sure how similar Shelter is compared to Iglu.

 

In the future I will seriously look into setting up a Thai company. One company structure that seems ok for my purpose would be a Limited Partnership. I would still need to discuss with a lawyer of course, but my thinking is the following:

- I should be able to get a business visa with this structure

- Can be setup with just 2 people (so just me and my girlfriend, for example)

- I don't need to employ people as far as I can see, which is not the case for some other business structures

- The monthly money I sent to my girlfriend (shared money we use for our monthly costs, currently 45.000 THB) I can sent to her as a wage for her director role, this way she has some registered income (currently she doesn't have this, as a stay-at-home mom)

- The registered income should allow my girlfriend in the future to get a loan or mortgage, which we might need in the future to buy a house (I would like to finance 50% myself, 50% through my girlfriend) 

- I would still keep a lot of my income in my offshore company and in my home country regardless, just to be safe, so the risks of the limited partnership would not be to great for me … 

 

 

Most of that are taxes.... how much cheaper do you think setting up a company accounting,taxes etc....is?

 

If you don't route all your profit through it, it's still not legal, so whats the point?

 

 

[ThomasThBKK]

1 hour ago, ubonjoe said:

Set up a 51/49% partnership with your wife and register it with 1 million baht of capital. Then get the work permit and bill your customers in the name of the partnership.

It needs at least 2 mio THB per work permit capital.

[ubonjoe]

8 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

It needs at least 2 mio THB per work permit capital.

Not if married to a Thai. It only 1 million baht for those married to a Thai.

[khunPer]

2 hours ago, wolf81 said:

As someone who earns around 8.000 USD per month, I didn't like the idea of paying Iglu ~2.500 USD per month.

Digital nomads with that kind of earnings – with foreign customers, and off-shore financial transactions only – could consider Elite Card.

[wolf81]

20 minutes ago, ThomasThBKK said:

 

Most of that are taxes.... how much cheaper do you think setting up a company accounting,taxes etc....is?

 

If you don't route all your profit through it, it's still not legal, so whats the point?

 

 

I don't see why it would be illegal. An offshore company could outsource work to a local Thai company and pay the company for the efforts. I don't see why the offshore would need to pay all their earnings to the local company in Thailand.

 

If the income isn't very high, I believe taxes can be quite low in Thailand. There are some deductibles if wife is not working, if you have a child, etc… Even if you earn a lot, taxes wouldn't be near to whatever a company like Iglu was asking. 

Setting up an offshore can be done pretty cheap (I did it myself for 1.500 EUR or so IIRC and where I setup my company I don't need to pay tax, just a yearly maintenance fee of around 1.000 EUR).

Setting up a local company in Thailand shouldn't be too expensive either. 

[wolf81]

29 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Digital nomads with that kind of earnings – with foreign customers, and off-shore financial transactions only – could consider Elite Card.

Digital nomads could choose to do this, though it should be noted that the Elite visa is a tourism visa and therefore a digital nomad isn't technically allowed to work here with that visa.

 

Also, one benefit of the business visa might be that after some years it should be possible to get Thai citizenship which will make life in Thailand easier (no need to visit immigration, for example). It's not possible to earn the Thai citizenship on a tourist visa. 

[khunPer]

16 minutes ago, wolf81 said:

I don't see why it would be illegal. An offshore company could outsource some work to a local company here and pay the company for the efforts. The clients deal with the offshore company. 

 

If the income isn't very high, I believe taxes can be quite low in Thailand. There are some deductibles if wife is not working, if you have a child, etc… Even if you earn a lot, taxes wouldn't be near to whatever a company like Iglu was asking. 

Setting up an offshore can be done pretty cheap (I did it myself for 1.500 EUR or so IIRC and where I setup my company I don't need to pay tax, just a yearly maintenance fee of around 1.000 EUR).

Setting up a local company in Thailand shouldn't be too expensive either. 

Yes, your suggestions should be possible.

 

The benefit of using a registered company, or partnership limited, is that you can split the income and payout into best taxable bits, between personal income tax and dividend tax.

 

You will of course have some expenses for accountant– depending of number of lines in books, but hardly less than 1,000 baht a month – and for annual report and tax statement, which would be in the level of 15,000 to 20,000 baht. You should pat 10 percent Social Security of paid out salaries, minimum 500 bvaht and maximum 1,500 baht a month. Your accounting and SS expenses would be not less than 45,000 baht to 50,000 baht a year.

 

The limited partnership – or any company – should have a small profit in the it's tax-returns, eventually enough for a few thousand baht in tax.

 

A personal income tax calculator can be found here,

and a the official income tax information page is here.

 

In long term it's a benefit for your girl friend to be member of the Social Security system.

[khunPer]

3 minutes ago, wolf81 said:

Digital nomads could choose to do this, though it should be noted that the Elite visa is a tourism visa and therefore a digital nomad isn't technically allowed to work here with that visa.

 

Also, one benefit of the business visa might be that after some years it should be possible to get Thai citizenship which will make life in Thailand easier (no need to visit immigration, for example). It's not possible to earn the Thai citizenship on a tourist visa. 

You could opt for "permanent residency" instead of citizenship, depending of your origin it might be a better option.

 

However, immigration is not that difficult, especially if you possess an Elite Card...????

[ThomasThBKK]

4 hours ago, wolf81 said:

I don't see why it would be illegal. An offshore company could outsource work to a local Thai company and pay the company for the efforts. I don't see why the offshore would need to pay all their earnings to the local company in Thailand.

 

If the income isn't very high, I believe taxes can be quite low in Thailand. There are some deductibles if wife is not working, if you have a child, etc… Even if you earn a lot, taxes wouldn't be near to whatever a company like Iglu was asking. 

Setting up an offshore can be done pretty cheap (I did it myself for 1.500 EUR or so IIRC and where I setup my company I don't need to pay tax, just a yearly maintenance fee of around 1.000 EUR).

Setting up a local company in Thailand shouldn't be too expensive either. 

 

Because your base of taxation is here... it's not that easy to avoid paying taxes.

Your offshore income is also assessable (Taxable) income as you owned it while working from Thailand.

 

it's basically all a farce, you need a better construct, ask a proper tax attorney.

 

Or you just spare yourself that and do it like most other people...

 

Quote

Economic employer approach

Do the taxation authorities in Thailand adopt the economic employer approach¹ to interpreting Article 15 of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) treaty? If no, are the taxation authorities in Thailand considering the adoption of this interpretation of economic employer in the future?

Yes. KPMG in Thailand notes that the Thai tax authority does not refer to economic employer but instead adopts the general rule that is, during the assignment period the assignee works for Thai entity and if the Thai entity absorbs the assignee’s remuneration or the Thai entity sponsor the work permit and visa, the Thai entity is a payer of income and is deemed employer, DTA does not protect.

 

 

Quote

Is salary earned from working abroad taxed in Thailand? If so, how?

Salaries receive from employment exercises outside of Thailand are exempt from Thai tax, if not paid in or remitted into Thailand within the same calendar year it is received and provided the cost is not recharged into Thailand.

 

You are working from INSIDE thailand. 

 

PWC: http://taxsummaries.pwc.com/ID/Thailand-Individual-Taxes-on-personal-income 

 

Quote

Thailand taxes its residents and non-residents on their assessable income derived from employment or business carried on in Thailand, regardless of whether paid in or outside Thailand. Residents who derive income from abroad are taxable on that income if remitted into Thailand in the year in which it is received.

 

https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2011/12/thailand-income-tax.html

 

Check calculation of taxable income, based on days in Thailand. 

 

 

TL;DR - let others work, be a lazy beach bum, don't contribute anything to economy - then you benefit most. 

 

There's for sure a way to structure it correctly, i would assume, but it's def more complicated.

[JCP108]

Anyone think at some point the Thai government will figure out that they actually have quite a lot of digital nomads/freelancers willing to properly register/be legal and pay Thai taxes? It's such a narrow situation, seems like they could carve out the situation of someone physically located in Thailand doing work via a computer and taking money from clients who are not physically in Thailand at the time of the service. Create a special work permit for that situation and problem solved for everyone.