Small businesses operated by farang people on Samui?

[xebozone]

I have see many western (farang) people here on Samui operating small businesses. This has made me ponder for quite some time.

Examples I've noticed include:

• The occasional man selling burgers in a small mobile kiosk (minivan) on a main road
• A small group of females selling cupcakes in a popular market
• Small cocktail/ice cream bars in a popular market
• Artists making portraits, or other art in a popular market

I was just wondering if this is legal? They seem to not have any problems with police as far as I can see.

I doubt that these people have the 2 million in capital, 4 Thai employees, a registered company and work permits.

I could be wrong... but it doesn't seem that way.

If one wants to open a small business such as this legally in Samui, what does it entail?

Are these people taking a huge risk, or is there really a way that a farang can operate a small business here on Samui without having a load of cash and potential staff to set it up legally?

Thanks, guys and gals!

[Tropicalevo]

My advice is to talk to a good accountant or a good lawyer.

The main reason is that the rules change - or how to interpret those rules changes over time.

I started off 14 years ago with little cash and no staff. I have had a work permit for 14 years and I have paid both private and company taxes for 14 years. BUT it may be different if I was to start now. I do not know.

You can get good advice from the nice folks on TV, but then again, some of them are wrong or out of date and some of them may be working illegally.

How do you tell the difference?

Let me know if you want the number of a good accountant. My accountant is excellent.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Tropicalevo

[Boater]

In some cases yes and some cases no . See a list below of jobs is westerners can't do ,

For all those who are keen on working in Thailand, be aware that there is a list of jobs were, you, as a westerner will not be able to get a work permit. The List is taken from The Thai Labor Department Website -http://www.mol.go.th/-

1.- Labour work except labour work in fishing boats under the next category below. The said work which is forbidden to aliens shall not apply to aliens who have entered into Thailand under an agreement on hire of labour concluded between the Government of Thailand and other nations, and also aliens whose status has been prescribed as legal immigrant and who possess a residence certificate under the law governing immigration.

2.- Agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry or fishery, except work requiring specialized knowledge, farm supervision, or labour work in fishing boats, particularly marine fishery.

3.- Bricklaying, carpentry, or other construction work.

4.- Wood carving.

5.- Driving motor vehicles or vehicles which do not use machinery or mechanical devices, except piloting aircraft internationally.

6.- Front shop sales and auction sale work.

7.-Supervising, auditing, or giving service in accountancy, except occasional internal auditing.

8.-Cutting or polishing precious or semi-precious stones.

9.- Haircutting, hairdressing, or beautification.

10.- Cloth weaving by hand.

11.- Mat weaving or making utensils from reed, rattan, jute, hay, or bamboo.

12.- Making rice paper by hand.

13.- Lacquer work.

14.- Making Thai musical instruments.

15.- Niello work.

16.- Goldsmith, silversmith, or gold/copper alloy smith work.

Stone work.

17.- Making Thai dolls.

18.- Making mattresses or quilts.

19.- Making alms bowls.

20.- Making silk products by hand.

21.- Making Buddha images.

22.- Knife making.

23.- Making paper or cloth umbrellas.

24.- Making shoes.

25.- Making hats.

26.- Brokerage or agency except in international trading.

27.- Professional civil engineering concerning design and calculation, systemization, analysis, planning, testing, construction supervision, or consulting services, excluding work requiring specialized techniques.

28.- Professional architectural work concerning design, drawing/making, cost estimation, or consulting services.

29.- Dressmaking.

30.- Pottery.

31.- Cigarette rolling by hand.

32.- Tour guiding or conducting.

33.- Hawking of goods & Thai typesetting by hand.

34.- Unwinding and twisting silk by hand.

35.- Clerical or secretarial work.

36.- Providing legal services or engaging in legal work, except arbitration work; and work relating to defense of cases at arbitration level, provided the law governing the dispute under consideration by the arbitrators is not Thai law, or it is a case where there is no need to apply for the enforcement of such arbitration award in Thailand.

Sent from my iPhone 6

using ThaiVisa app

[Boater]

But , you will see many westerners doing these jobs , I just think they put another occupation on there work permit

Sent from my iPhone 6

using ThaiVisa app

[BangrakBob]

you don't actually need to produce 2M in capital, the first year you can pay social security on 2 Thai staff without actually employing them to work, revised when you balance books year one. Each quarter you pay tax on the wages you supposedly pay yourself for being a MD of the company. You just need a good lawyer who knows what he is doing and he/she will charge for the service. This is from experience on Samui only and based on a certain type of business (not service/tourism reliant)

Edited June 28, 2014 by BangrakBob

[Rooo]

you don't actually need to produce 2M in capital, the first year you can pay social security on 2 Thai staff without actually employing them to work, revised when you balance books year one. Each quarter you pay tax on the wages you supposedly pay yourself for being a MD of the company. You just need a good lawyer who knows what he is doing and he/she will charge for the service. This is from experience on Samui only and based on a certain type of business (not service/tourism reliant)

Do you honestly think some of these people do any of the above?

[tolsti]

<deleted>..... they are working illegally and paying to do so.

[BangrakBob]

you don't actually need to produce 2M in capital, the first year you can pay social security on 2 Thai staff without actually employing them to work, revised when you balance books year one. Each quarter you pay tax on the wages you supposedly pay yourself for being a MD of the company. You just need a good lawyer who knows what he is doing and he/she will charge for the service. This is from experience on Samui only and based on a certain type of business (not service/tourism reliant)

Do you honestly think some of these people do any of the above?

Should have mentioned that I was answering this question only;

"If one wants to open a small business such as this legally in Samui, what does it entail?"

[Rooo]

you don't actually need to produce 2M in capital, the first year you can pay social security on 2 Thai staff without actually employing them to work, revised when you balance books year one. Each quarter you pay tax on the wages you supposedly pay yourself for being a MD of the company. You just need a good lawyer who knows what he is doing and he/she will charge for the service. This is from experience on Samui only and based on a certain type of business (not service/tourism reliant)

Do you honestly think some of these people do any of the above?

Should have mentioned that I was answering this question only;

"If one wants to open a small business such as this legally in Samui, what does it entail?"

Yes I understand that, I was just mentioning do we think they follow any of the legal format you have outlined.

[BangrakBob]

you don't actually need to produce 2M in capital, the first year you can pay social security on 2 Thai staff without actually employing them to work, revised when you balance books year one. Each quarter you pay tax on the wages you supposedly pay yourself for being a MD of the company. You just need a good lawyer who knows what he is doing and he/she will charge for the service. This is from experience on Samui only and based on a certain type of business (not service/tourism reliant)

Do you honestly think some of these people do any of the above?

Should have mentioned that I was answering this question only;

"If one wants to open a small business such as this legally in Samui, what does it entail?"

Yes I understand that, I was just mentioning do we think they follow any of the legal format you have outlined.

Haha no chance

[robsamui]

There must he hundreds (more?) of farangs on Samui who are earning an income (either here or abroad via the internet) without any kind of formal registration. This is all fine and dandy until it all goes wrong.

​Before I came to live here and knew nothing about anything, I decided to come to Samui because I became friends with a guy who had made his own "how to speak Thai in 20 minutes" comic book. It was all scissors and paste (no computer used) and photocopied - rough as hell but really very good. I was going to smarten it up and peddle it around the hotels with him. He had been walking along Chaweng beach openly selling copies for 500B a time, every day for two years. Each day when he had sold 3 copies, he lay in the sun with a beer. Four months later when I came here to live, he had disappeared. I was told that Immigration had nabbed him and thrown him out of the country.

The point is simple. Nothing will happen to these illegal immigrant workers until one of two things occurs.

1. They piss somebody off annoy someone and get shopped to Immigration.

2. Some ambitious new government boss appears and decides to have a blitz tidy up.

And then it doesn't matter what noises the unhappy alien victims make - they will be arrested and barred from re-entering Thailand, with a passport ban.

One friend of mine had this happen to him because he came here to write a novel. He went blue in the face protesting that he wasn't being employed by anyone and not even making any money. But the immigration officials bluntly told him that he was 'working' and threw him out.

Another friend of mine - a successful artist in his own country - came here to paint, had exactly the same thing happen to him, and was banned from Thailand after he was silly enough to hold a public exhibition of his work in a local 5-star hotel. He now lives and works in Indonesia and has since become appreciated and highly acclaimed there.

Plus I don't know *how* many people I've heard about who have bought a bar, put it in their wife's name, and then been arrested for carrying beer to the customers.

And I've also heard that someone I never met personally was ejected because he was shopped due to neighbour problems. He kept coming here on extended tourist visas and was net-working online and linking in with his employers in England. Yes - he was working online for employers abroad - and that's 'work' as far as immigration are concerned.

You can ride around for months on a motorbike wearing no helmet and never get a glance from a policeman. Then one day you'll hit 20 of them in a bunch nabbing helmetless riders. It's much the same with working here illegally. You'll be OK for a while and feel secure. But they *will* get you sooner or later, especially the ones who have a high (overconfident) visibility and are openly flaunting the law.

R

Edited June 28, 2014 by robsamui

[ParadiseLost]

Thongsala, Koh Phangan has a popular day/night street market every Saturday. Last week a group of 4 - 5 farangs (Italian?) quite happily set up a table displaying their wares - hand made jewelry... It only took about 10 minutes until a group of policemen turned up and bust them, taking their photos and warning them that if immigration police caught them they would be in serious trouble. My wife witnessed the whole thing, and found their expressions of shock and dismay quite amusing!

How idiotic and narcissistic to think you are somehow entitled to do as the locals do.

Each and every one who somehow earns money here without a WP - you are no better than a common thief, so drop the boasting and/or complaining - I for one am so tired of hearing how it should be, or how it used to be, or in my country...

[Tropicalevo]

Thongsala, Koh Phangan has a popular day/night street market every Saturday. Last week a group of 4 - 5 farangs (Italian?) quite happily set up a table displaying their wares - hand made jewelry... It only took about 10 minutes until a group of policemen turned up and bust them, taking their photos and warning them that if immigration police caught them they would be in serious trouble. My wife witnessed the whole thing, and found their expressions of shock and dismay quite amusing!

How idiotic and narcissistic to think you are somehow entitled to do as the locals do.

Each and every one who somehow earns money here without a WP - you are no better than a common thief, so drop the boasting and/or complaining - I for one am so tired of hearing how it should be, or how it used to be, or in my country...

[robsamui]

Thongsala, Koh Phangan has a popular day/night street market every Saturday. Last week a group of 4 - 5 farangs (Italian?) quite happily set up a table displaying their wares - hand made jewelry... It only took about 10 minutes until a group of policemen turned up and bust them, taking their photos and warning them that if immigration police caught them they would be in serious trouble. My wife witnessed the whole thing, and found their expressions of shock and dismay quite amusing!

How idiotic and narcissistic to think you are somehow entitled to do as the locals do.

Each and every one who somehow earns money here without a WP - you are no better than a common thief, so drop the boasting and/or complaining - I for one am so tired of hearing how it should be, or how it used to be, or in my country...

Well said

There is actually a thread running on the Online Community Pinboard where one particular guy is rating passionately about how and what needs to be done about Thai police and is furious that they do not actually 'police' in the proper way and how this is so wrong and that they need complete re-training blah blah blah . . . I gently suggested to him that this was Thailand and things didn't work the same over here - and got slammed for being negative and defeatist.

Reminds me of of the one-track, self-righteous fervour of all those Jesuit missionary zealots who got carted off to the New World with Christopher Columbus and the like. They might have slaughtered a few hundred thousand or so, but it didn't take them long to sort out the ignorant natives and put them straight . . .

Anyway, when I'm emperor I'm just going to shoot all those whinging alien free-loading gits and have done with it. That'll teach 'em.

R

Edited June 29, 2014 by robsamui

[Suradit69]

Thongsala, Koh Phangan has a popular day/night street market every Saturday. Last week a group of 4 - 5 farangs (Italian?) quite happily set up a table displaying their wares - hand made jewelry... It only took about 10 minutes until a group of policemen turned up and bust them, taking their photos and warning them that if immigration police caught them they would be in serious trouble. My wife witnessed the whole thing, and found their expressions of shock and dismay quite amusing!

How idiotic and narcissistic to think you are somehow entitled to do as the locals do.

Each and every one who somehow earns money here without a WP - you are no better than a common thief, so drop the boasting and/or complaining - I for one am so tired of hearing how it should be, or how it used to be, or in my country...

Well said

There is actually a thread running on the Online Community Pinboard where one particular guy is rating passionately about how and what needs to be done about Thai police and is furious that they do not actually 'police' in the proper way and how this is so wrong and that they need complete re-training blah blah blah . . . I gently suggested to him that this was Thailand and things didn't work the same over here - and got slammed for being negative and defeatist.

Reminds me of of the one-track, self-righteous fervour of all those Jesuit missionary zealots who got carted off to the New World with Christopher Columbus and the like. They might have slaughtered a few hundred thousand or so, but it didn't take them long to sort out the ignorant natives and put them straight . . .

Anyway, when I'm emperor I'm just going to shoot all those whinging alien free-loading gits and have done with it. That'll teach 'em.

R

"I gently suggested to him that this was Thailand and things didn't work the same over here - and got slammed for being negative and defeatist."

And I would gently suggest to you that things are pretty much the same "over here" as they are anywhere else. I'm always amazed at how many people apparently lived in a fog back in Farang Land, oblivious to all the corruption, all the rule breaking, all the bribery, all the profiteering, all the self-serving government & political & business executive types. It is amazing how childishly blind some people are to all that's wrong "back there" and how suddenly perceptive and all-knowing they come as soon as they arrive "over here." There are none so blind as those who see whatever fits their agenda and ignore everything else.

"Reminds me of of the one-track, self-righteous fervour of all those Jesuit missionary zealots ..."

Wow. Reductio ad absurum comes to Thai Visa

Edited June 30, 2014 by Suradit69

[cornishcarlos]

There must he hundreds (more?) of farangs on Samui who are earning an income (either here or abroad via the internet) without any kind of formal registration. This is all fine and dandy until it all goes wrong.

​Before I came to live here and knew nothing about anything, I decided to come to Samui because I became friends with a guy who had made his own "how to speak Thai in 20 minutes" comic book. It was all scissors and paste (no computer used) and photocopied - rough as hell but really very good. I was going to smarten it up and peddle it around the hotels with him. He had been walking along Chaweng beach openly selling copies for 500B a time, every day for two years. Each day when he had sold 3 copies, he lay in the sun with a beer. Four months later when I came here to live, he had disappeared. I was told that Immigration had nabbed him and thrown him out of the country.

The point is simple. Nothing will happen to these illegal immigrant workers until one of two things occurs.

1. They piss somebody off annoy someone and get shopped to Immigration.

2. Some ambitious new government boss appears and decides to have a blitz tidy up.

And then it doesn't matter what noises the unhappy alien victims make - they will be arrested and barred from re-entering Thailand, with a passport ban.

One friend of mine had this happen to him because he came here to write a novel. He went blue in the face protesting that he wasn't being employed by anyone and not even making any money. But the immigration officials bluntly told him that he was 'working' and threw him out.

Another friend of mine - a successful artist in his own country - came here to paint, had exactly the same thing happen to him, and was banned from Thailand after he was silly enough to hold a public exhibition of his work in a local 5-star hotel. He now lives and works in Indonesia and has since become appreciated and highly acclaimed there.

Plus I don't know *how* many people I've heard about who have bought a bar, put it in their wife's name, and then been arrested for carrying beer to the customers.

And I've also heard that someone I never met personally was ejected because he was shopped due to neighbour problems. He kept coming here on extended tourist visas and was net-working online and linking in with his employers in England. Yes - he was working online for employers abroad - and that's 'work' as far as immigration are concerned.

You can ride around for months on a motorbike wearing no helmet and never get a glance from a policeman. Then one day you'll hit 20 of them in a bunch nabbing helmetless riders. It's much the same with working here illegally. You'll be OK for a while and feel secure. But they *will* get you sooner or later, especially the ones who have a high (overconfident) visibility and are openly flaunting the law.

R

It sounds like you were the common denominator in all those stories !!

So I guess as long as I don't meet you, I won't get busted