How hard is it for a Brit to get a work permit to look for a job in Thailand if married to a Thai? Looking for IT job, not teaching.

It works the other way around. One needs to find a job first before a work permit can be issued (for that specific job). To be issued a work permit, one first needs a non-immigrant visa. Being married to a Thai should qualify one for a non-immigrant 'O' visa.

Ovenman is correct. The sequence is:

1. Use marriage registration (and wife's identity) documents to obtain a non-immigrant Class O visa from a Thai diplomatic post outside Thailand.

2. Enter Thailand, receiving a 90 day non-immigrant entry permit upon arrival.

3. Using that "Class O" entry permit, you may obtain a work permit for virtually any Thai employer who will have you. Being able to document a univeristy degree makes the process easier. That work permit will only be good until the expiration date of the 90 day entry permit against which it was issued. If employer has its paperwork act together, the entire work permit process takes less than 10 days.

4. In order to stay on in Thailand, foreigner will have to depart Thailand and return on a fresh non-immigrant entry permit - every 90 days (must actually returning to Thailand on or before the work permit expiration date). Or - he may apply for an extended entry permit, as per following section.

5. If foreign employee is married to a Thai, employer need satisfy NO OTHER qualifying criteria, in order for that employee to go on to obtain (on his own) an extended entry permit - and then a matching long-term work permit. The only qulaification is that the foreigner must be paid a salary of at least 40,000 baht per month. The extension process for extending an entry permit on the basis of supporting a Thai spouse takes roughly 40 days - and your application can only be submitted when you are within 30 days of expiration of your initial entry permit.

Everything I write above is routine - and straight-forward. But - here is the bad news:

It is fairly tough to get a job paying here paying 40,000 baht per month - because for each such job, there is a long queue of foreigners eager to hang on in Thailand at this wage level. And - although being married to a Thai makes it very easy for an employer to hire this individual without satisfying most other criteria - by hiring this person, it makes it harder for the employer to qualify to sponsor long-term entry permits for OTHER foreign employees that are NOT married to Thais.

In general, Thailand is not a place to come as an unemployed individual, in hopes of finding a decent job. This is doubly true for anyone without ability to document a university degree.

Good luck!

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

[email protected]

www.thaistartup.com