Slightly complicated work permit question

[tomster]

Hi,

 

I am in the process of setting up a new business venture and think I have just been given some incorrect advice by a lawyer re work permits.

 

Scenario is as follows:

 

I am setting up a small shop that sells food and beverages (not cooked and consumed on the premises, purely retail to take away Mimimart/Supermarket style).

 

The company to operate the shop has been set up in my girlfriends name, we are not married but have kids together (my extension to stay is based on the kids, not the work permit). It's a standard limited company with 4 million Baht capital. We were not planning to use it at first and just let her trade under her own name until things get busy enough to warrant getting a company bank account etc and trading under the new company name.

 

I have a work permit attached to another unrelated business I own.

 

On that company objectives it states that the company can sell food and beverages retail and wholesale. It is located in another province to the new shop.

 

The shop location will be added as a branch to my company registration.

 

I presumed that would allow me to be on site in the shop in the back of house. However, the lawyer just said no, you can't.

 

I fully understand that I can't stock shelves or operate the till (and wouldn't want to), but not being able to work on a computer in the back of the building seems a bit crazy as the address would be in my company objectives and the type of the business would be in there as well.

 

Is the lawyer right or have I just been given bad advice?

 

Thanks in advance.

[mark5335]

I recall that sometime in the last 5 years the law was loosened so as to allow discretion for a foreigner with a WP to work pan-Thailand and not just at the designated physical address noted in the WP. 

[lordblackader]

You can use your existing work permit - the rules the were changed to allow WP holders to work multiple jobs without requiring an additional permit or approval. The only restriction is that additional jobs can't be Thai-only ones. 

[tomster]

1 minute ago, lordblackader said:

You can use your existing work permit - the rules the were changed to allow WP holders to work multiple jobs without requiring an additional permit or approval. The only restriction is that additional jobs can't be Thai-only ones. 

I think the grey area is that the business is retail sales. Part of that is front of house sales which is restricted to Thai's, obviously we are not allowed to take cash etc.

 

But if I am around that sales activity and directly supervising it from the back office - does that break the rules?

 

 

[lordblackader]

On 7/22/2021 at 11:06 AM, tomster said:

I think the grey area is that the business is retail sales. Part of that is front of house sales which is restricted to Thai's, obviously we are not allowed to take cash etc.

 

But if I am around that sales activity and directly supervising it from the back office - does that break the rules?

 

 

Fair point. Definitely not front end sales. Doing the paperwork, managing general affairs shouldn't be an issue. No different than a farang bar manager for example. 

[VyacheslavKHV]

You can do this. Your lawyer should catch up with regulations ????

[khunPer]

On 7/22/2021 at 5:34 AM, tomster said:

The shop location will be added as a branch to my company registration.

 

I presumed that would allow me to be on site in the shop in the back of house. However, the lawyer just said no, you can't.

Your company needs 4 Thai employees (your GF can be one, id she get a salary from the company) for one foreigner's work permit, and you can only do kind of manager jobs. You might be able to have another job/location added o your existing work permit, but the company must, to my knowledge, still be eligible for a foreign employee, i.e. 4 Thais employed...????