Any Potential Probs. Applying For Work Visa Working In Daycare Business?

[thaitang]

My Wife and I are planning to open a daycare. We have been to the depts. of human/child/women welfare, overseeing and issuing operating licenses for daycare centers, and commercial affairs that oversee and issue licenses for operating a business (in LOS). The only thing left to check out is the dept. of immigration to get the skinny on details about my working in the daycare.

Currently I live in LOS on marriage visa. I thought it prudent before I go to the immigration office asking questions about potentially working to ask some questions/advice first so I do not raise any unnecessary alarms or red flags of suspicion.

We will open the business in my wife's name, who is a gov't officer and will continue to work as such, and will thus hire me as co-ordinator of the daycare, with which neither of the above mention depts. we already visited had a problem. Does anyone think dept. of immigration will have any issue with me transitioning to such a role and switching from my marriage to a work visa?

I am not (yet) qualified to instruct toddlers (children younger than 6 years old I think was the definition) and so we will hire a qualified instructor to do so. I can then work in an assistant capacity for a year and then be considered qualified to instruct, according to dept. of human/women/child services requirements. However, I wonder if the dept. of immigration might balk at this idea, stating that they do not issue visas for non-Thais to live here to qualify for such jobs. Absolute speculation on my part of course, but I just want to think of any issues which might potentially arise to cause grief.

Any related thoughts or shared experiences would be great to read.

thanx

[tombkk]

You do not need to change your visa, you can apply for a work permit with a marriage visa, or an extension of stay based on marriage.

You need to qualify for the job for the work permit to be issued. You may be qualified for other positions within the company, such as administration or general manager.

If your questions are about visa and work permit only, I will move this topic to the visa and work permit forum where you can get more detailed replies. If you have other questions about opening or running the company, please advise. But it seems you have that part under control already.

[thaitang]

You need to qualify for the job for the work permit to be issued. You may be qualified for other positions within the company, such as administration or general manager.

Well my main concern is whether or not the Thai gov't, visa issuning process will look down on my application for a visa with intent to work initially as an assistant operator (is the word they like to use for daycare centers in lieu of teacher), which after a year the dept. of human/women/child services would then recognize me as an operator via experience.

B/c my wife will continue working her regular job I will infact be hired as the daycare's co-ordinator (their word for manager) managing the daycare for the owner. Again neither if the two depts we have already been to talk with had any issue with our plan as I have laid it out. But they both mentioned our next job is to find out visa details, and this is the part that concerns me.

So is there any kind of list available detailing for which jobs farangs can qualify to apply?

cheers

[tombkk]

Moving to visa and work permit forum.

[Mario2008]

The labour department is charged with giving you a work permit or not and has criteria for that.

Immigration is charged with giving you an extension of stay or not and has its own criteria. As you know, you can stay in Thailand based on your marriage if you have 400,000 baht in the bank or 40,000 a month income.

You will change (part) of your income to being from within Thailand. For that you need to show immigration your work permit and your Thai tax papers.

You can also apply for an extension of stay based on work, but in that case your income from within Thailand needs to be 50,000 a month. It will also require tax papers from the company, which a new company will not have for the first 2 years.