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Amended Social Security Documentation and Thai Business Visa Extension

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing business visa extensions here in the Kingdom and Thai Social Security filings. What does one have to do with the other? 

Well there are a great many documents that are filed in support of an application for a Business Visa extension. These documents seemingly are becoming somewhat myriad, and more and more we are seeing that the Immigration apparatus is increasingly stringent in its policy on documentation associated with a Business Visa extension. 

To provide some context, in the past there was kind of a cavalier attitude toward both Work Permit and Visa renewal by those who had done business in Thailand in prior years. The reason for the cavalier attitude is the fact that if one went to for example extend their Business visa and there was something amiss with for example their Social Security documentation, (Social Security documentation generally is looked at because there is a statutorily required ratio of Thai employees to foreign employees within a Thai company that needs to be maintained and Social Security documentation is good evidence of those Thai employees working during the duration of time when a foreign employee, either prospectively needs to be put into the company and has been in the company looking  backward), so the thing I am trying to point out here is Social Security documentation is one of many types of documents that operate in support of an application for extension of Business Visa status. In the past, if there were errors in that documentation it was possible simply amend the documentation and bring it back to have the Visa issued. More and more Immigration is taking much tougher a stance on this issue and in my opinion I think that they believe that such amendments are either pretextual or pretensive and in many cases we have actually seen folks who have simply been denied their extension, required to leave Thailand and return in order to maintain lawful status and basically start the whole process over again.

So it is one of the reasons we have our Accounting and Corporate Services Division as we have found over the years that one of the integral parts of maintaining one's visa and work permit status in Thailand is maintaining proper accounting and proper corporate maintenance and corporate compliance as the months and years go by and it really needs to be done incrementally. It is not something that can be a "hurry-up-and-wait" situation. It is a lot of documentation we are talking about and it has to be maintained on a regular basis and for that reason it is probably a good idea not only to have a professional assist with a Business Visa or the Work Permit applications themselves, but also have solid professionals who know how to deal with foreigners here in the Kingdom and the issues associated with Business Visa extension when maintaining one's Social Security filings or other accounting and corporate compliance filings while one is doing business here in the Kingdom of Thailand.