Plan: Setting Up It Outsourcing Company

[BOFH]

Hi,

I’m planning on moving to Bangkok and setting up a web development outsourcing company with my Thai wife. We are planning to do the development work for a company back in the UK that I am a director of so will not be looking for any clients in Thailand. I have spent many hours researching visas, work permits, office space, houses, internet access, where to find staff, etc. There is a lot of confusing information out there but I think I have worked out a plan.

1) My wife sets up a company.

Does it need to be a Thai Public Company Limited, or can it just be a Sole Proprietorship to employ staff including me (and for me to get a work permit)?

2) Get a Non-Immigrant visa and a work permit.

As I am married to a Thai national I should be able to get a type O visa as long as we put 400k baht in the bank. I will need to do a visa run every 3 months and get my work permit renewed. Is this correct?

3) Rent a house and setup an office

As we don’t need to meet clients and won’t be taking on that many Thai staff (2 to 4 over first 6 months) I don’t see the need for a plush office in some tower or other in the CBD. Ideally I would like to have a large house and use one or two rooms for as an office. This way the house and the office can share the internet connection and the UK office can always get in content with me via the net.

However I have been told that the registered office of a company needs to have a document certifying it as the legal tenant of the property. For tax reasons landlords don’t like doing this. Can we use another building as the registered office and carry out work from home, even have staff working from our home office? Will this be legal?

4) Connect to the net

I got very excited about MetroLAN and MetroNET which promise a super fast 10mbit connection. So I enquired and found out it is only available in some of the large office buildings in the CBD and costs start at 70k baht per month for a 1mbit connection. Are they smoking crack? So I looked into satellite, adsl, and cable options. It looks like a cable connection from TelecomAsia is the best value for money. With 1 mbit down / 512 kbit up for around 11k baht a month. Anyone have a better suggestion?

5) Find some talented Thai staff.

I will be looking for talented web developers and flash designers. Does anyone have any suggestions of where I should look / post job adverts?

Thanks for the help in advance.

[Sunbelt Asia]

"Does it need to be a Thai Public Company Limited, or can it just be a Sole Proprietorship to employ staff including me (and for me to get a work permit)?"

You mean a Thai private limited company. Depends how much you trust her relatives if God forbid she dies or something else happens. I would go the Limited company route and get some control even though you are a minor shareholder.

"2) Get a Non-Immigrant visa and a work permit.

As I am married to a Thai national I should be able to get a type O visa as long as we put 400k baht in the bank. I will need to do a visa run every 3 months and get my work permit renewed. Is this correct?"

yes

"3) Rent a house and setup an office

.

However I have been told that the registered office of a company needs to have a document certifying it as the legal tenant of the property. For tax reasons landlords don’t like doing this. Can we use another building as the registered office and carry out work from home, even have staff working from our home office? Will this be legal? "

With the one year visa thats out as the government will visit your office and not see 4 Thais. You could do a virtual office and get a work permit with a multi entry visa. VAT people would visit the virtual office, no problem and neither would be the work permit people as you don't need 4 Thais with a multi entry visa.

4) Connect to the net

I got very excited about MetroLAN and MetroNET which promise a super fast 10mbit connection. So I enquired and found out it is only available in some of the large office buildings in the CBD and costs start at 70k baht per month for a 1mbit connection. Are they smoking crack? So I looked into satellite, adsl, and cable options. It looks like a cable connection from TelecomAsia is the best value for money. With 1 mbit down / 512 kbit up for around 11k baht a month. Anyone have a better suggestion?

Jinet 7,500 baht unlimited use for 256K. Works ell in our our office. Have 28 computers connected in our Bangkok office.

"5) Find some talented Thai staff.

I will be looking for talented web developers and flash designers. Does anyone have any suggestions of where I should look / post job adverts"

www.jobthai.com is a great site.

Regards

Greg Lange

Managing Director

Sunbelt Asia Co., Ltd.

www.sunbeltasia.com

[BOFH]

Thanks for replying Greg,

You mean a Thai private limited company. Depends how much you trust her relatives if God forbid she dies or something else happens. I would go the Limited company route and get some control even though you are a minor shareholder.

She is looking a little pale Perhaps there are not many more years on the clock. Just joking But point taken. The thai end of the operation will not be designed to make profit and will not gather much capital so I'm not that conserned.

With the one year visa thats out as the government will visit your office and not see 4 Thais. You could do a virtual office and get a work permit with a multi entry visa. VAT people would visit the virtual office, no problem and neither would be the work permit people as you don't need 4 Thais with a multi entry visa.

The virtual office option sounds the best at least to start with. Once we are up and running we may look at the other options after a year or so. One question my wife's family own a property in bangkok, could we do the paperwork and have this as our registered office. Or would it be best to pay some other firm to be our virtual office? I have been offered a virtual office service for 5k baht a month but cant help thinking it we could arrange for that property to be our registered office for less than 60k a year. Anyone know a good inexpensice virtual office ?

Jinet 7,500 baht unlimited use for 256K. Works ell in our our office. Have 28 computers connected in our Bangkok office.

I phoned telecom asia last night and after a few tries got through to someone who told me that the 11k baht a month does not include "internet charges" and is only for the connection. Which begs the question; connection to what ? Anyway I think I will take your advice and opt for a slower / cheaper connection. Internet prices in thailand seem very expensive to me compared to the uk. At the moment in connected via a 1Mbit line that only costs 2000 baht a month for unlimited access.

Thanks again for the help.

The more I know, the better things look.

Regards,

BOFH