Transcript of the above video:

First of all, show note. Yeah, those of you who watch this channel with any kind of frequency you will probably see that we are using a different format at the moment. I usually do these standing up, I would prefer to be doing that now. Unfortunately I have the flu and I am just trying to keep getting the information out here, so if you bear with me. I am hoping next week I will be back to my usual posture in these videos. 

In any event, as the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question is it easy for a foreigner to set up a business here in Thailand? I would say there are sort of two answers to that question. The first one is the business itself and that is a different thing from the legalities and the formalities associated with setting up for example a Company structure here in Thailand. So yeah, you may find a dynamite business idea that goes like hotcakes but as a foreigner here in Thailand you have got to remember, you have got to deal with work authorization, you have got to do with Business Visas and on top of that you have got to deal with the corporate structure that you can go ahead and operate the business through and then you got to deal with tax compliance and everything associated with that. So they are sort of two different questions here and I tell many clients this all the time. I am not any kind of business consulting person, nor is our firm particularly. Now from time to time I do provide sort of my opinion to clients, but I make it very, very clear that it is just one man's opinion; in fact I have got some great business people as clients that have asked me stuff over the years. "What do you think of this idea we are going to do with this business?" And I have said, well I don't know if that is going to work, or I don't think that is a great idea or I don't think you should do that, and then they have done it and they have been absolutely right. I am not the end all be all especially when it comes to business ideas.

That said, we here at the firm, the Thai lawyers doing their thing with regard to Thai Law and where necessary me, with regard to American and international context kind of stuff and especially comparative law, yeah legality is a different thing, so that is first of all what you have got to understand. Secondly, yeah setting up a business, doing the business maybe relatively straightforward but then dealing with the rather sometimes Byzantine procedures associated with maintaining a company and maintaining ongoing Work Permit status and tax compliance, yeah those can be rather daunting, and especially for foreign nationals, especially if you have no knowledge of Thai, this is going to be something that you are going to want to have some assistance for. 

So what I would say to sort of round off this video is while the underlying business may be a pretty straightforward thing, it is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional to get assistance with all the admin and sort of the legal stuff associated with maintaining a corporate structure here in Thailand as quite honestly I don't think any actual entrepreneur out there really wants to get into the high weeds of how Corporate filings in Thailand work. No they want to deal with doing business; they want to get their business off the ground and get it going and that is what we like to think that we help with here is getting all those ducks in a row, dealing with all quite honestly the paperwork so that people can get on with doing their business here in the Kingdom of Thailand.