Visa for 'Home ' working

[Delight]

My Farang friend wishes to work from home.

 

He has a job in the UK . His employer is of International status.

 

The job is online only. He is aged sub -50 years

The complication is that he wants his 'Home' to be in Thailand.

Q. Is there any type of legal visa that will satisfy both his UK employer and the Thai authorities?

Edited April 17, 2023 by Delight

[Jack1988]

he doesn't needs a work permit, he can work from home, just do not tell to anybody

[Delight]

20 minutes ago, Jack1988 said:

he doesn't needs a work permit, he can work from home, just do not tell to anybody

You mis -read the post. His employer has to be satisfied that all is legal. Fully legal

[Jack1988]

28 minutes ago, Delight said:

You mis -read the post. His employer has to be satisfied that all is legal. Fully legal

Many are working here from home, for a company that is abroad, and they never needed that all is legal

[Delight]

1 hour ago, Jack1988 said:

Many are working here from home, for a company that is abroad, and they never needed that all is legal

 The employer of this Farang insists that all is visibly legal

Edited April 17, 2023 by Delight

[Pib]

Long Term Resident (LTR) "Work from Thailand" Professional visa might be an option.  

https://ltr.boi.go.th/index.html#what

https://ltr.boi.go.th/documents/LTRbrochure_EN.pdf

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Pib

[Red Phoenix]

It does not address your specific question, but the link to this recent thread addresses several options for staying in Thailand and doing on-line work for non-thai customers.

https://aseannow.com/topic/1291197-possibility-for-legally-doing-remote-work/#elControls_17997648_menu

 

[BritTim]

The LTR visa (mentioned above) is the solution to satisfy the corporate lawyers. It is a fact that remote work without connections to Thailand is 100% tolerated. However, it is not technically legal, and corporations are paranoid.

[Red Phoenix]

3 hours ago, BritTim said:

The LTR visa (mentioned above) is the solution to satisfy the corporate lawyers. It is a fact that remote work without connections to Thailand is 100% tolerated. However, it is not technically legal, and corporations are paranoid.

Exactly right!

[Freddy42OZ]

14 hours ago, Delight said:

 The employer of this Farang insists that all is visibly legal

Sounds like they are making excuses to stop him doing it. 

There is no risk to the company, the worst that could happen is the guy moves here and starts working, then something happens to put him in the spotlight with immigration somehow and he finds himself being deported back to the UK. The chances of this are so slim it's not worth worrying about.

The real difficulty is him staying here at under 50 years of age without having to spend part of the year outside Thailand.  

[Delight]

1 hour ago, Freddy42OZ said:

Sounds like they are making excuses to stop him doing it. 

There is no risk to the company, the worst that could happen is the guy moves here and starts working, then something happens to put him in the spotlight with immigration somehow and he finds himself being deported back to the UK. The chances of this are so slim it's not worth worrying about.

The real difficulty is him staying here at under 50 years of age without having to spend part of the year outside Thailand.  

 Thanks for your reply.

You know that there is no risk to the company-however it is likely that the company cannot be persuaded.

My suggestion to him is that he tries to persuade the company to make him self employed i.e. they give him  a contract.

Then he can work anywhere he pleases.

[jacob29]

5 hours ago, Freddy42OZ said:

Sounds like they are making excuses to stop him doing it. 

I don't think that's the case. Look at job postings listed as 'fully remote', almost all of them (I would estimate well over 90%) will only permit remote work within specific countries - usually those they have a presence in. If the listing doesn't explicitly say work from anywhere (worldwide), it's very likely they will have restrictions. I've contacted many recruiters about 'fully remote' opportunities where they didn't specify, and all were restricted to specific countries. Even one that explicitly said work from anywhere (worldwide), turned out to mean work from Canada.

 

They may be operating on bad information, but they're not trying to prevent people from doing it - it's just an additional compliance headache they don't want to deal with. I've asked a few recruiters about this, and it seems a case of accounting isn't sure, and they just don't want the hassle.

Edited April 18, 2023 by jacob29

[Tuvoc]

On 4/18/2023 at 4:06 PM, Delight said:

Thanks for your reply.

You know that there is no risk to the company-however it is likely that the company cannot be persuaded.

There is most certainly a risk. When he becomes tax resident in Thailand, his UK employer may be liable to account for Thai tax and social security etc.  I struck this when working from home in Thailand remotely during Covid. My employer insisted that I not become tax resident in Thailand, and I had to return to the UK to make sure that I did not exceed the 180 days in the calendar year.