Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing guessing the opening of a restaurant business here in Thailand specifically. Over the years I have had a lot of experience assisting foreign nationals in setting up food and beverage enterprises here in Thailand especially in the context of assisting them with Work Permits, Visas, things of this nature. 

Again, foreigners coming to Thailand first of all need to realize they don't have a right to work so to set up an actual restaurant and to be operating within that restaurant you need to get your work authorization in order so that means you are going to need both a Business Visa and a Work Permit. Now there may be differences depending on folks, if you have a Thai spouse for example, you may not necessarily need a Business Visa but you still will need a Work Permit if you are going to operate the business.

You will also sometimes see folks talking out there, they will say: "oh you don't need a Work Permit if you are just a Director on a Company." Yes that is strictly speaking true for purely administrative matters associated with the Company. I have seen a number of folks over the years who were told this basically a bunch of hokum that "oh you don't need a Work Permit, you can just be a Director on a Company", and then they have been sitting in their business, in one case that I actually witnessed with my own eyes, this person wasn't really doing much of anything and Immigration Police came in and arrested that person; this was not a person who was a client of ours or anything. In fact I was only acquainted with them very sort of attenuatedly, I didn't really know them very well, yeah I saw that person get arrested because they thought that they didn't need a Work Permit and yes in fact you do.

So again, work authorization is very important especially see if you are setting up a small business here in Thailand the likes of a food and beverage business and maintenance of a Work Permit is very important because if you fail to have your Work Permit, you're very vulnerable to the possibility of not only detention but also deportation.