For those working here & making 80k+ baht per month

[zeekgarcia]

For those working here & making 80k+ baht per month

 

What type of work are you doing?

How were you able to get the job you have?

What was the first type of work here that paid you 80k+ baht per month?

What education or technical requirements does one need to get into this type of work?   

And do you have any colleges or schools to recommend to get this education or technical requirements?

 

Any other helpful info for a foreign high school student that wants to stay here and either go to college here or study at an online college or school but live here with the desire to get a job here making over 80k+ baht a month. (having a visa while studying online will not be a problem) 

Thanks so much.

[Kenny202]

Dude, you could be anyone asking questions like that? And if someone was on a good thing like that why would they share it with the world? 

[Pravda]

In the past, before covid I was "working" online and making around 100k a month.

 

I was dropshipping on Amazon. I will not tell you the product I was dropshipping, but it wasn't Chinese junk from Aliexpress.

[jessc]

Be an entrepreneur, build business that allows you that amount of take home a month (how a lot of us do it).

 

The legally mandated minimum wage in Thailand varies a bit by province, but is generally about 10k a month. The legally mandated minimum salary in Thailand for a foreigner working on a work permit is 50k a month. Because foreigners working here should be doing jobs that the average Thai person - or even the average Thai university grad - is not qualified to do (and thus not taking jobs away from otherwise qualified Thais). 

 

So, if you want to have a job and earn a salary that's 8 times the minimum wage, you should be qualified to be a high level manager, a professional, a specialist, etc., and be at least functionally multilingual. The possibilities are too numerous to write down. But the main thing is, there should be a reason on paper (not just personality) why an employer should hire you as a foreigner (with the attendant extra costs and hassles that come with employing foreigners) over a similarly situated Thai person.

 

As someone who has employed foreigners before, you actually do need to justify the hire of a foreigner in these terms to the labor department and immigration. (Yes, I am sure there ways to get around it, but that's not how I have gone about it).

Edited July 23, 2021 by jessc

[elcaro]

Work online as full stack developer. 

No education, but year of experience. Work 30hours a week 110000k, with bonuses some months 150000.

[smccolley]

I was working worldwide in the Telecom industry, designing and building 3G and 4G back office systems. I stopped in Thailand in 2006 for a holiday. 7 days into a 12 day holiday I decided I would live here. I told the new friends I had met to "hold my barstool, I'll be right back". I flew back, did some networking and soon took the president of a small company out to dinner. Said I would do anything, just had to do it from Thailand. I did take a huge pay cut, because as a small company I never wanted to be the overpaid guy who would be first to go when money got tight.

 

I moved here 3 months  later, took over all deployments from Egypt to Fiji. Worked my butt off and we were bought out by one of the largest networking companies in the world in 2013. I still live in North Pattaya even though we only have offices in Bangkok. I am now making a bit more than I used to in the US (post dot-com bust). I hope to retire in about 3 years and will stay here forever. I'll never be rich but I would also never be happier.

[tomazbodner]

1 hour ago, jessc said:

The legally mandated minimum salary in Thailand for a foreigner working on a work permit is 50k a month.

Small correction - that varies (30/40/50/60k) depending on the nationality of applicant, but this is not minimum wage to have work permit, it is minimum wage to get annual extension in the country. If you had lower salary than that, you could still get work permit but would need to keep non-imm visa and run out of the country each time it expires, and issue new visa when it expires. I don't know how this works now during COVID.

[zeekgarcia]

19 hours ago, Kenny202 said:

Dude, you could be anyone asking questions like that? And if someone was on a good thing like that why would they share it with the world? 

I am trying to help a foreign high school student that wants to live here find info about this, I do faintly recall over the years reading people commenting on posts from time to time about working here on a work permit and making over 80k+ baht a month and to not take over someone else's topic that is not related to my topic, I opened up this topic.  

 

Plus to apply for PR or citizenship and not being married to a Thai, you have to have a minimum income of 80k baht per month from work performed within Thailand and you have to have a work permit, paying taxes etc for at least 3 years. 

[zeekgarcia]

18 hours ago, Pravda said:

In the past, before covid I was "working" online and making around 100k a month.

 

I was dropshipping on Amazon. I will not tell you the product I was dropshipping, but it wasn't Chinese junk from Aliexpress.

congratulations but working online I believe is not classified as working here, unless you have some setup where you are paying taxes here on your income, if so please let us know how you do this because this is required to apply for PR or citizenship. And thanks so much.

Edited July 23, 2021 by zeekgarcia

[zeekgarcia]

2 hours ago, jessc said:

Be an entrepreneur, build business that allows you that amount of take home a month (how a lot of us do it).

 

The legally mandated minimum wage in Thailand varies a bit by province, but is generally about 10k a month. The legally mandated minimum salary in Thailand for a foreigner working on a work permit is 50k a month. Because foreigners working here should be doing jobs that the average Thai person - or even the average Thai university grad - is not qualified to do (and thus not taking jobs away from otherwise qualified Thais). 

 

So, if you want to have a job and earn a salary that's 8 times the minimum wage, you should be qualified to be a high level manager, a professional, a specialist, etc., and be at least functionally multilingual. The possibilities are too numerous to write down. But the main thing is, there should be a reason on paper (not just personality) why an employer should hire you as a foreigner (with the attendant extra costs and hassles that come with employing foreigners) over a similarly situated Thai person.

 

As someone who has employed foreigners before, you actually do need to justify the hire of a foreigner in these terms to the labor department and immigration. (Yes, I am sure there ways to get around it, but that's not how I have gone about it).

Thanks for your time but one of main the important things we are trying to find is what are these numerous possibilities, we know it is possible because the requirements for a foreigner not married to a Thai to apply for PR or citizenship is to earn at least 80k baht a month from working here in Thailand with a work permit and paying taxes etc. for 3 a consecutive years. 

 

They are not interested in trying to start their own business because they do not know what to do or have the money to do it. 

 

But it would be very helpful if you could list some of these numerous possibilities that you spoke of that would not require one to open their own business. And thank you so much ???? 

[zeekgarcia]

1 hour ago, elcaro said:

Work online as full stack developer. 

No education, but year of experience. Work 30hours a week 110000k, with bonuses some months 150000.

But I believe this is not classified as working here, unless you have some setup where you are paying taxes here on your income, if so please let us know how you do this because this is required to apply for PR or citizenship. And thanks so much.

[Presnock]

If you are linguistically talented, speak, read, write Thai, English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese then you would be able to find something making probably more than 80K baht a month.  My daughter will graduate this coming year and has studied Mandarin for 5 years and this year AP Mandarin, is self-taught in Korean (tested through levels I and II of phase I and Level 3 of the Korean proficiency test) and is now starting to study Japanese probably online.  She is a native speaker, reader, writer, etc of Thai and English already.   She however, wants to leave Thailand behind and move on to richer territory.  Good Luck!

 

[zeekgarcia]

48 minutes ago, smccolley said:

I was working worldwide in the Telecom industry, designing and building 3G and 4G back office systems. I stopped in Thailand in 2006 for a holiday. 7 days into a 12 day holiday I decided I would live here. I told the new friends I had met to "hold my barstool, I'll be right back". I flew back, did some networking and soon took the president of a small company out to dinner. Said I would do anything, just had to do it from Thailand. I did take a huge pay cut, because as a small company I never wanted to be the overpaid guy who would be first to go when money got tight.

 

I moved here 3 months  later, took over all deployments from Egypt to Fiji. Worked my butt off and we were bought out by one of the largest networking companies in the world in 2013. I still live in North Pattaya even though we only have offices in Bangkok. I am now making a bit more than I used to in the US (post dot-com bust). I hope to retire in about 3 years and will stay here forever. I'll never be rich but I would also never be happier.

Because you replied I am guessing you make over 80k baht a month, therefore what types of education or training did you go through to learn how to do these things?

 

And are you a local employee of a company here in Thailand meaning they get you a work permit and you pay taxes etc here in Thailand?

 

Thanks for any info.

[smccolley]

7 minutes ago, zeekgarcia said:

Because you replied I am guessing you make over 80k baht a month, therefore what types of education or training did you go through to learn how to do these things?

 

And are you a local employee of a company here in Thailand meaning they get you a work permit and you pay taxes etc here in Thailand?

 

Thanks for any info.

I have a BS in Computer Information Systems from a second rate school in the US. When I moved here I had about 15 years of experience in rating, billing, provisioning and policy at about 150 telephone companies in 10 countries or so. The secret is I honed my skills outside Thailand so I was able to dictate my living situation before I came here. Although I have never had a project in Thailand (just workshops and demos to AIS, DTAC and True) my company is a multinational with offices in at least 87 countries, so I am considered a local employee. I have a work permit and pay taxes here, close to 1m THB annually (ouch). I never converted my visa to a business visa, I kept my marriage extension since I know I will live here longer than I will work.

 

Hope that helps.

[bbabythai]

1 hour ago, zeekgarcia said:

Plus to apply for PR or citizenship and not being married to a Thai, you have to have a minimum income of 80k baht per month

but if you marry a lovely thai girl that goes down to 40k a month and you dont have to apply for PR. You can go straight for citizenship

[arick]

22 hours ago, Kenny202 said:

Dude, you could be anyone asking questions like that? And if someone was on a good thing like that why would they share it 

 

[arick]

Find a rich forgiener. 

[Freddy42OZ]

2 hours ago, zeekgarcia said:

congratulations but working online I believe is not classified as working here, unless you have some setup where you are paying taxes here on your income, if so please let us know how you do this because this is required to apply for PR or citizenship. And thanks so much.

Why is this 'Foreign High School Student' you are trying to help bothered by PR or citizenship? 

 

[AustinRacing]

Nothing wrong with dreaming. Starting salary for masters degree qualified is around 20k. I have a couple of staff in that category. My masters degree staff with 10years experience are getting between 55 to 65k as junior managers. 80k would be for managers and above with over 10yrs experience. This is for Thai educated people. If you plan to study here without a degree you have 0 chance of making 80k in a Thai company ever. I wouldn’t hire someone who thought about money more so than the job. 

[tlandtday]

1 hour ago, AustinRacing said:

Nothing wrong with dreaming. Starting salary for masters degree qualified is around 20k. I have a couple of staff in that category. My masters degree staff with 10years experience are getting between 55 to 65k as junior managers. 80k would be for managers and above with over 10yrs experience. This is for Thai educated people. If you plan to study here without a degree you have 0 chance of making 80k in a Thai company ever. I wouldn’t hire someone who thought about money more so than the job. 

you are underpaying your employees...

[AustinRacing]

1 minute ago, tlandtday said:

you are underpaying your employees...

So they say ????. It’s a very big Thai company so my impression is that they pay the going rate and no shortage of applicants. 

[elcaro]

4 hours ago, zeekgarcia said:

But I believe this is not classified as working here, unless you have some setup where you are paying taxes here on your income, if so please let us know how you do this because this is required to apply for PR or citizenship. And thanks so much.

Yes I pay taxes. My wife has a company which employs me, which does contracts for company abroad. 

So yeah to do the same you need to be married

[bbabythai]

5 hours ago, Presnock said:

If you are linguistically talented, speak, read, write Thai, English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese then you would be able to find something making probably more than 80K

Yes, that sounds really easy... ha ha. 

 

Looking at OP's grammar I think he can barely manage with the English language!

[jessc]

6 hours ago, zeekgarcia said:

Thanks for your time but one of main the important things we are trying to find is what are these numerous possibilities, we know it is possible because the requirements for a foreigner not married to a Thai to apply for PR or citizenship is to earn at least 80k baht a month from working here in Thailand with a work permit and paying taxes etc. for 3 a consecutive years. 

 

They are not interested in trying to start their own business because they do not know what to do or have the money to do it. 

 

But it would be very helpful if you could list some of these numerous possibilities that you spoke of that would not require one to open their own business. And thank you so much ???? 

Be a lawyer (well, a counselor/arbitrator here for foreigners), or a doctor, university or grad school professor, advertising executive, account manager for a multinational... I think you missed the larger point of my post. You need to do a job that would warrant a high salary, same as in any country, really. Thailand has all those jobs too. Stock broker, fund manager, product development, scientist, engineer, architect, etc. All the same jobs as any place else, in BKK as a metropolitan area, anyway. In America, you may make... $15k USD a month as a brand manager for a major company, in Thailand, the salary may be 80-100k a month for a similar position. But it's essentially the same analysis. The world of white collar work is the same here as anywhere.

Edited July 23, 2021 by jessc
typo

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I think that the most successful foreigners in Thailand are either entrepreneurs who own their own companies, highly skilled technical people or senior employees and managers sent by multinational companies to work here. The latter often have extensive experience outside Thailand and earn home country-level (usually western) salaries and benefits. It would be difficult for a foreigner to work his or her way up the corporate ladder with a local education and the skills that the Thai workforce has. For both work permit and competitive reasons, a foreigner needs to have a skill or other dimension to their desirability in the eyes of an employer to make it worthwhile to employ them over a Thai.

 

Another avenue is the time-tested route via personal or family connections, but this is usually not a possibility unless one already has extensive connections here and such an individual would probably not need to raise the questions put forth in the original post.

 

A young foreigner might wish to think first about what type of career to pursue and how to obtain the necessary skills and experience outside Thailand with the eye to come here in a more senior position a bit later on. Perhaps a visit to one of the foreign chambers of commerce's offices and a look through their membership directory to see why types of jobs are held by foreigners who work at senior levels or who have their own companies. Then think about how a person would arrive at such a position in terms of education, training, ambition, etc. 

 

I would advise a young person to obtain the best education they possibly can and strive to be as successful and happy as possible. If living and working in Thailand can be woven into that, then that's wonderful. But I would not make living in Thailand the over-arching goal of my educational pursuits or career.

 

Just my thoughts on this and of course everyone's experience and ideas are different.

 

 

[saakura]

Good higher education from a reputed University would be his best bet. I had a Master's degree in Engineering from a highly recognized University, plus a few years of work experience when i applied to a Thai company which had just listed on the SET and had advertised job openings. Salary was quite reasonable with work permit, medical insurance, housing and transport provided. 

[HampiK]

7 hours ago, zeekgarcia said:

But I believe this is not classified as working here, unless you have some setup where you are paying taxes here on your income, if so please let us know how you do this because this is required to apply for PR or citizenship. And thanks so much.

There were companies (like Iglu) which hire you... you have your own customers, but the billing and everything goes thru this company.. they deduct some percent for themself. Not sure there are still companies like that open for foreigners, but they existed, and I think to remember that before covid was a big discussion about this. The share (%) you have to give to this companies was not small, but if you want to work with a work permit for a later PR -> Citizenship I guess would be an possible way!

 

[wordchild]

High School! forget it , for that kind of salary.

serve your time overseas, US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan , Singapore, HK, upgrade your education, get a competitive real job (overseas) in a hard environment, where you are up against talented people. Thailand is the softest of soft options for someone starting out, and would never be taken seriously on a future cv. 

In the company that i work for, we recruit internationally and have very few locally recruited staff that earn a high salary (i can only think of 2 off the top).

 

 

 

[treetops]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:34 AM, bbabythai said:

Looking at OP's grammar I think he can barely manage with the English language!

Not really relevant considering he's asking for someone else.

[stament]

On 7/23/2021 at 11:17 AM, bbabythai said:

but if you marry a lovely thai girl that goes down to 40k a month and you dont have to apply for PR. You can go straight for citizenship

Not that straight forward....