Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing work authorization as it pertains to the Destination Thailand Visa. As we have discussed in many other videos, this Destination Thailand Visa, initially touted as like the great saviour of all Visa options, is turning out to not be quite what it was touted to be. Yes there are going to be some folks that may benefit from it. I've said before and I'll say it again, I think it's a much more narrow subset than is being touted, but that said yeah, there are going to be people who benefit from this new Visa. That said, we've discussed this in other videos. I'm not sure people really understand this whole working in Thailand issue associated with it, as it is not work authorized for Thailand. What does that mean? Hold on just a second.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Blowback begins about latest visa Exemptions and DTV discretion. Quoting directly: "The DTV works best when receiving applications from digital nomads and remote workers whose income is based on overseas contracts without Thai customers." That's a clear thing here, and I don't think people are fully understanding this. I know this is a cause of conservation among some. We've had people contacting us saying: "well they say you can work on it." As we discussed in another video, they relaxed certain aspects of work authorization. There was a time when people would call me up and they would say: "hey I want to come to Thailand, I am going to retire there, but occasionally I have to call in as a consultant to something I do back home." And I used to have to say "well, as a practical matter, I'm not sure anybody's ever going to find out about that but strictly speaking you have to have work optimization in Thailand to work in any way." The work authorization relaxation that occurred under the Destination Thailand Visa pertains to exactly that scenario. To somebody who, they may hop on a call; they may send an email occasionally from Thailand or be working on something in collaboration with other people overseas. They have been clear; they're relaxing away from that probably because they don't really have the enforcement capability to deal with it. On top of that, that's not really their big priority with regard to foreigners in Thailand. But to be clear, it's still not work authorized for Thailand which is why in the vetting process for the Destination Thailand Visa, it now appears that they are extremely keenly assessing whether or not folks that are coming here to utilize this Visa are in fact completely sort of firewalled if you will from the Thai economy; they're not interacting with it at all. That's something to keep in mind. It's something to also bear in mind if you're looking to move here to Thailand, because at the end of the day, if you want to move here and you want to work here, you're going to have to get a proper Work Permit. It's not going to be possible to do this by sort of side stepping through some of these newly created Visa categories. 

That said, again as we have discussed in many other videos, this is certainly sort of an ongoing evolving situation and we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves. 

I'm going to do a quick bumper for a lot of these Immigration videos that we're going to be doing moving forward because there are a number of options that have come up here recently and unfortunately, there has just been a lot of nonsensical talk throughout the ether of the internet as well as in even like the mainstream press; the print press has been talking a lot about immigration and quite honestly not all of the conclusions that they are drawing are correct. So the point of this bumper if you will, is for me to just kind of remind people, it's not a terrible idea to contact a legal professional who deals with Immigration on a regular basis because there are a number of options now available for foreigners looking to be in Thailand long-term. Some of them are going to be more optimal than others, depending on your own circumstances.