Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, are there basically exceptions to Work Permit rules here in Thailand. For those who are unaware, Thailand takes a very protectionist view of its labour market. From my perspective, I think it is warranted based on Thailand's history and based on the fact that it needs to maintain a robust labour market for its own local citizenry. And that means that foreign nationals who wish to come to Thailand and work, in the vast majority of cases, they are going to have to obtain work authorization. Now as we will get to here in a moment in the article we are going to cite, there are exemptions for those rules, but for the vast majority of cases, if you want to come to Thailand and engage in work, you are going to have to get a Work Permit here in the Kingdom, so that is something to understand. 

Now as we have discussed in other videos, there are many ways to do this. We assist clients especially those who wish to be self-employed in Thailand, with setting up things like corporations in order to sponsor themselves, if you will, or effectively sponsor themselves for work authorization and ongoing Business Visas here in Thailand; so that is an option. There may be other options depending on your circumstances, if you are going to come work for a corporation here in Thailand, be an employee of someone else. Again you have to look at the specific facts in the underlying case to determine what the correct course of action is with regard to work authorization. 

That being said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Not many exceptions in Thailand for working without a permit. And yeah, I would say the title of that article is pretty spot on. Quoting directly: "Of course, there are exceptions. Foreigners attached to Embassies or the United Nations are exempt from the comprehensive Alien Labour Act of 2008." They go on in that article, and I urge those who are watching this video, it may not be a terrible idea to go check out that article in detail. They go on in that article and talk about, "oh folks that volunteer for the police etc. may be exempt." Well they may not be explicitly exempt. That may be a situation where there is kind of a, I hesitate to call it a "wink and nod" kind of thing, but it is basically like who is going to enforce a Work Permit violation against the police, if there is some foreigner that is acting as a volunteer for the police here. Pretty unlikely and again, the police oftentimes have need of translation services and things. Who they avail themselves for that is sort of their own business; so that is sort of is what it is. 

The point I am trying to make with this video is as noted, foreign Embassies, the United Nations, maybe as a volunteer for the police you might be exempt from needing a Work Permit. That is a pretty narrow subset of exemptions. For the most part - in fact in the vast majority of cases, and we have dealt with this - I get angry about this to a certain extent; I get all kinds of hate in the comments. They say, "oh, you are just trying to make people get Work Permits so you can get paid." Yeah, not real, okay. That is actually not the primary M.O. or raison d'être for me doing this. It is actually because I see a lot of people who get told, "oh, it is no big deal; don't worry about it," they get told, "Mai pen rai" and then they end up arrested and deported and then they are oftentimes blacklisted, okay. So it is better to get in line with the law and do what is correct, rather than just presume that you can do whatever you want and then you end up in trouble. That is why I make these videos primarily is because I see it. We deal with people in the Immigration Detention Centre; not a good place to be. And we deal with people who get deported from Thailand over work authorization issues. It is a problem. It is not a place you want to find yourself, so take it seriously. Yes, there are exceptions. That being said, the exceptions are quite narrow and tend to define the rule.