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Thai Business Setup: Social Security, Work Permit, and Visas?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai business setup here in Thailand. One of the issues associated with Thai business setup for foreigners, and foreigners are going to need Business Visas and Work Permits in order to operate legally in Thailand by running their own business, you have to deal with Social Security.
Social Security can be a less than easy bureaucracy to deal with. I for the life of me do not understand why because quite frankly if people want to come to Social Security and start contributing, why not let them, the more money the better in my opinion. That said "bureaucracy gonna bureaucracy", as they say, to use the parlance of our times, and that is kind of what we are dealing with, and it is not one of these insurmountable things. Quite honestly, most of our clients don't even know Social Security is an issue. We deal with it; I have Thai staff here in the firm. We also have an accounting division that deals with a lot of matters pertaining to Social Security and they deal with them quite frequently, but they can be a little bit, I hesitate to say difficult but they can be a little bit stringent in how they apply their own internal rules. This can result in sometimes a little bit of delay in getting documentation correctly on file so as to then be able to go ahead and apply for things like Work Permits and Business Visas.
So the thing to take away from this video and to understand is at the end of the day, there are many different processes that go into getting a Thai Company set up. There are also a number of different processes that go in to getting a Work Permit and a Visa. For those who feel overwhelmed and those who are foreigners, especially those who don't speak, read or write Thai, it can be very, very overwhelming. It is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.