Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing work authorization also known as Work Permits. So there are Work Permit requirements for foreigners in Thailand. If you wish to come in to Thailand and undertake work, you do need to go ahead and obtain a Work Permit before doing so. As we have discussed in other videos, the definition of work is pretty broad. It's so broad as to be almost anything if it were so deemed. That said, there was a time when things were far more restrictive; that time has come and gone. Let me get into this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that's pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's 10 and 20 year visas face surging Chinese demand. Now the point of this video and the excerpt I am going to read doesn't really get to the thrust of the article. That article is rather interesting, I urge those who are watching this video go check that out but I am going to quote a quick excerpt here. Quoting: "Although Elite Cards do not include the granting of a Work Permit, special decree amendments already made to the Alien Labour Act mean that attending business meetings and acting on behalf of a foreign corporation no longer carry threats of fines, jail and deportation." My response to that is yes as far as it goes and I will get into this in a moment.

First off, yeah we talked about this on this channel going back years now when there were a lot of people saying "Oh you don't need a Work Permit anymore to work in Thailand. You can just come to Thailand." I saw this a lot in the context of the Amity Treaties, Amity Treaty companies, people were saying, "oh you don't need a Work Permit to come in and work inside of an Amity Company." Well no in the sense that to just simply come in and attend like a Board meeting, you wouldn't necessarily need a Work Permit but anything basically other than that associated with the Company, yeah it is pretty clear that you would need work authorization. They did make some special dispensations for specific corporate formalities: again shareholder's meetings, board meetings, Board of Directors meetings, because there were a lot of onerous restrictions associated, especially with multinational corporations where somebody had to come in to Thailand and essentially get temporary work authorization just to sit through a Board meeting which in many cases oftentimes is arguably a formality, but yeah okay so they did that with respect to employment. 

Meanwhile they also bring up the issue of "and acting on behalf of a foreign corporation". Yes in a specific context there's no longer a Work Permit requirement most notably in the Representative Office context yeah you don't need a Work Permit if you are heading up a Representative Office here although there are specific limitations to that exemption. I know folks that work in a Representative Office that do need a Work Permit. It is simply the one that is acting as the main rep., the person who is kind of heading up the Representative Office may not necessarily need a Work Permit. That has turned out to be kind of a double-edged sword, I have seen a lot of folks that have had a lot of troubles associated with that because then other Government Agencies other than for example the work authorization Department, I should say the Labour Department they still want to see a Work Permit which created all kinds of issues. So again, shades of gray on this, there is nuance to it, but yeah long story short with respect to like a passive shareholder of a Thai Company, especially an SME, yeah it is possible to fly in and just sit in a shareholder meeting and even vote one's shares without needing to worry about work authorization, but literally anything else, could be deemed to be a Work Permit violation.