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Comment by nnd | Hacker News Reader

Any idea how would they evaluate highly skilled professionals?

Most importantly, a lot of people living in Thailand have an offshore source of income (a business or a freelancing contract), those people don’t need a regular work visa as they are don’t participate in the Thai Labor market. Is this law somehow applicable to those people?

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> those people don’t need a regular work visa as they are don’t participate in the Thai Labor market

Sorry that isn't how the law works. Unless those people travel out of the country to conduct their work, they're breaking Thai law - it doesn't matter where the company is, what matters is that they're doing work in Thailand.

Absolutely not correct. One time the police raided a coworking space, and then before the day was out realized it wasn't a problem and let everyone go. In fact there have been posts online from government officials that there isn't a problem doing remote work here. Only a problem if you start to try and work at a company or do businsss that needs physical access to the country, like a tour guide

I've been pulled over for exceeding the speed limit (I left cruise control engaged on a decline and didn't brake), and when the cop realised I was driving in state A in a car registered in state B, with a licence addressed in state C, it was all too hard, and off I went.

By your logic, it is legal to drive over the posted speed limit in Australia.

Thailand is notorious for how it's laws are enforced. Earlier today I had to stop and wait (on foot) in a traffic lane, because a motor scooter was driving the wrong way in the parking lane past a police officer, who did nothing.

Statements from officials are not case law.

Just because the immigration chief in Chiang Mai over 3 years ago said remote work is ok, doesn't mean it will always be this way.

You are at the mercy of the officer in front of you.

Can you please cite sources for that? I really don't think that's the case.

It makes more sense that you'll cite something, as what he described is the de-facto standard of work permits pretty much anywhere. You'll be usually violating a law if you live and work somewhere without the legal framework - be it US, India or Japan. I don't see a reason Thailand would be any different.

Not sure for Thailand but I've heard the same for Japan.

The counterfactual would be that if this were possible, every foreigner in Thailand would be made an employee of a company in Ireland or something to avoid dealing with visa issues (or tax issues )

You can't licitly work for a foreign company from Japan without a work-capable visa, though Japan won't work too hard to detect and penalize this given that you're keeping your nose clean. I'd strongly recommend keeping it legal; it starts to matter a lot more as you put down roots and get asked "So what were you doing last N years?" by various authorities.

hey, I tried emailing you at the address in your profile but didn't get a response , so am assuming you didn't get the message

I wrote a blog post on this a few years back:

https://ashleyconnor.co.uk/2014/09/07/the-digital-nomad-and-...

You can't really work anywhere in South East Asia without a work permit. Cambodia used to be the easiest place but last time I looked they were changing the law.

A lot of these laws were made before remote work was even a thing.

Some countries do allow remote work. Canada being one of them.

Yes, it is the case, the digital nomad scene is illegal in most (all?) countries. The plus side is nobody knows what you're doing and typically you don't have any money going through Thai bank accounts. There have even been rare examples of co-working spaces being raided.

In reality, it's a non-issue for the reasons above.

There is only one raid that I've heard of, which was on the Tha Phae Pun Space I think. And eventually they let everyone go when they realized they weren't actually working for Thai companies

My business lawyer in Thailand?

People doing this (me included) have just been flying under the radar. We know it's not legal, but Thai authorities have generally not been interested in going after expats working remotely so long as they don't overstay or do repeated visa runs.

I never did it long term, so I never had to worry about repeated entries, but when I spent a few weeks working remote from Thailand I knew full well I was violating the terms of visa-free entry.

We will see, but most likely it will be a letter from a legitimate employer and bank statement showing a particular level of wealth or regular income, similar to the Business Visas you could get until recently. Previously, at many consulates you could get a 1 year Business visa without a Thai employer, usable by telecommuters or oil-fields style workers for instance, but that stopped maybe a year ago.

Interesting that this got on the radar and might happen. Thai visas have not progressed for decades, and many changes have been regressive tightening of border regulation rather than tackling the sources of problems (mostly foreigners working without work permits, where making regulation more onerous punishes companies trying to follow the law and rewards the ones prepared to flout it).

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