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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Representative Offices in Thailand. I have made other videos on this channel discussing this in some detail; we will reference them in the description below. I recently got some correspondence from a viewer asking the following: "What is a Representative Office and what kind of work authorization applies to a foreigner working in such an office?" With respect to work authorization, I made another video contemporaneously with this one discussing that in detail. I urge you to stay tuned, it will probably come up soon.

As far as what is a Rep. Office because I think to understand the difference between Rep. Offices and just standard entities for example a Limited Company here in Thailand, you really need to understand the details of the Rep. Office. A Rep. Office, the way I look at it, it is sort of like planting a foreign companies flag if you Thailand. You often see this in quality control. That is where we have seen a lot of Rep. Offices set up where a company for example in Germany or Sweden or Brazil or America wherever you know the United States, they build a widget if you will and they ship it to Thailand but there are quality controls issues associated with that widget or that car; whatever it is. They don't really want to operate in Thailand they just want to sell that product to buyers in Thailand. Oftentimes we usually see this through some kind of distributorship arrangement but that home office may have to provide ongoing services. We usually again see this in quality control where essentially they want to keep an eye perhaps on their distributor and make sure that they are not doing anything that falls outside of the quality standards of the seller, of the entity that sold it. So they set up a Rep. Office. Now Rep. Offices have very limited capacity. In other videos I have done on this we have got in the details of that; exactly what they can and cannot do. They actually can only incur certain types of expenses as well so they are a very limited entity. I would say many of the folks that contact us, especially SMEs, folks that are looking to set up a small business in Thailand or set up a Company in Thailand that operates in conjunction with the Company overseas but is more of an SME. In most cases a Rep. Office is not the optimal setup, it has been my experience. Oftentimes it is usually going to be some kind of standard structure here, maybe a Branch office but for the most part, a Rep. Office, and the widget quality control is just one example, but there is really just a very narrow subset of corporate activities where a Rep. Office is truly optimal. 

Again it is probably a good idea to assess what you are looking to do in Thailand, possibly contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance in the best way to not only set up an entity which may be a Rep. Office and gain some further insight into how best to proceed.