Transcript of the above video: 

I have seen a lot of criticism out there regarding things I brought up regarding the Destination Thailand Visa, and this is going to be a video where I'm going to clear up some of those misconceptions that in some cases I think are being intentionally foisted out there because people have their own sort of agenda. That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article on asq.in.th, that's ask:thailand under the title: What Are the Challenges and Misconceptions Surrounding the Digital Nomad Visa (DTV) in Thailand. Let's be clear. It's not a digital Nomad Visa, it's the Destination Thailand Visa; that's its official name. There is no Digital Nomad Visa in Thailand. They might have when they created it said it's designed for digital nomads or whatever Kumbaya they were talking about, but as I've discussed in other videos, it was entirely the creation of the last what I would call rump coalition government, that was trying to put Paetongtarn Shinawatra into power and make her look really good so they basically just created this nonsense visa to get a bunch of people in telling them whatever they wanted to hear in terms of its terms, in order to get ostensible tourism numbers way up so as to make that particular person look good as they were trying to go into office. Frankly, it wasn't good long-term policy for the country; it's not good long-term policy in my opinion for the foreigners using it because they have an entirely out of whack conception of what their actual visa status is. They think they are work authorized in many circumstances when they're not. What are they, if they're not work authorized on a DTV or on any Visa where they say, “oh this remote work, we're not really going to worry about it.” What it means is they're just turning a blind eye is basically what it means. They're not out there actively looking for people who are on a phone to New York or on a laptop working with some team offshore. They're not looking for that. They're not looking affirmatively to find work authorization in those type of fact patterns. But that being said, as we have discussed in other videos, and actually let me just put this up from the Pattaya Mail, because this is kind of dispositive toward the issue of work authorization regarding the DTV specifically, quote and this is from Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thai Government tweets guidelines on latest visas. Quoting directly: "The Interior Ministry has issued fresh guidelines for the much-discussed Destination Thailand Visa." Quoting further: "The DTV is seen as groundbreaking as it frees remote workers from needing a work permit as long as their employment is with overseas companies or contractors. The Ministry has now doubled down by insisting that "such work must not impinge in any way on the Thai economy", a very broad distinction." 

Then this person again over on ask:Thailand under: What Are the Challenges and Misconceptions Surrounding the Digital Nomad Visa (DTV) in Thailand. Quoting directly: "Okay I don't want to look like a bore posting links to videos made by Benjamin Hart" - why would you look like a bore? I've been making these for 10 years. I don't know. Am I really getting a lot of negativity for my free content trying to help people? - Quoting further: "because he's otherwise a fairly good guy." - Well thanks for that, I guess. - Quoting further: "But I think the analysis he has made about the DTV and general working authorization is a little bit off base." Yeah, I'm glad for your thinking. I'm not. I'm just not. I'm literally citing the Interior Ministry on this. Quoting further: "This time he even seems to have a problem with the Pattaya Mail article he quotes from, which he would previously constantly praise." No. I have a problem with people misunderstanding the reality and those misconceptions becoming the conventional wisdom, which causes people to detrimentally rely on that conventional wisdom, and then cause themselves problems. That's what I call the Thai Visa forum phenomenon. The Thai Visa Forum used to be the main place where all the expats out here got their information regarding Immigration and things and there were huge misconceptions that were passed along through that medium that resulted in all kinds of problems for people. I'm not saying the Thai Visa Forum was inherently bad. What I'm saying is this phenomenon of just making the rosy presumption about what your posture is regarding your Visa in the Expat Community, will get you into more trouble than just being decisively objective about what the Visa actually confers so that you know what your posture is in this country and you don't get in trouble. Everybody wants to believe whatever they want to believe about the DTV, and quite honestly, the people that created it, created it with that thought in mind. It's very clear to me at this point they intentionally obfuscated the terms of it so they could get more people into it. There also seems to have been a plan to create some sort of tax mechanism associated with Immigration associated with the DTV at that time as well, which Thank God Anutin Charnvirakul, then Interior Minister, now Prime Minister, actually pushed aside in favour of rolling out the Digital Arrival Card here in Thailand. So people forget that they have been saved from some serious tax problems because this DTV was not fully implemented to the specifications that the rump coalition government wanted it implemented as; people seem to leave that part of the analysis out. 

That being said, quoting further, and the point of this video is we get down to quote: "he claims that the reason DTV holders can't get bank accounts (for the most part .. though exception still exist here and there)" - they're not exceptions, they're getting away with it. They've noted the policy. DTV holders are not supposed to have bank accounts. I've done the videos on it; I've cited the sources. Quoting further: "is because it's "not work authorized". Well LOL (laugh out loud) - The Elite Privilege and Retirement Visas aren't work authorized either and yet you need a bank account to qualify for retirement extension" - so what does that have to do with the Elite? The analysis on this that is supposedly refuting me is nonsense, okay. Elite doesn't have anything associated with a Bank Account requirement in country in Thailand. Retirement Visas do. So let's first of all understand. Elite Visa: It's a Visa where you join the Elite program, the Thailand Privilege Program; one of the benefits is the Elite Visa. You pay to join the program. They process you through the immigration apparatus, you get the visa. It has no work authorization; it is not work authorized affirmatively. Okay, meanwhile, quoting further: "And yet you need a bank account to qualify for retirement extension, so there's already one flaw in his argument." - No there isn't, because you are presuming that you get to compare visas as if you could compare apples to bowling balls. You can't. Each Visa is its own thing. This is the difference between the thinking of a layman and the thinking of a professional that actually knows what they're talking about. Each and every one of these visas is stove piped. They have their own set of requirements and rules, very similar to the US system, where each category, the K-1 for fiancés has a different set of criteria than does the CR-1 for spouses of American citizens, okay? No difference over here in Thailand. The O Retirement Visa has a different set of requirements than the O-A Retirement Visa. So simply saying oh, Retirement Visas aren't work authorized and they can get bank accounts, therefore your analysis on the work authorization of the DTV is sophistry at best. The comparison should not even occur to begin with. The only analysis that should be done is on the internal terms of that specific Visa itself, and all I have ever talked about is citations I take directly from sources who pertain directly to, like the Interior Minister or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that pertain directly to the adjudication of that status. 

So at the end of the day, the difference between all of these visas and the fact that they are not work authorized is irrelevant. They just aren't. That's part of the terms of the Visa itself and in the case of the DTV, it is not work authorized. Again, quoting directly from the Pattaya Mail, from the late Mr. Barry Kenyon who was quoting the Interior Ministry directly, quote: "Such work must not impinge in any way on the Thai economy." Now do you think that that's going to be interpreted at all times favourably for the holder of that Visa? If you do, that's a very imprudent way to think about immigration because that's never how it works as a practical matter. You may get lucky from time to time. You get an Officer that doesn't want to put the screws to somebody but in my experience, if you're detrimentally relying on the notion that an Officer is going to always positively exercise their discretion in your favour, then you are making bad moves when it comes to Immigration both here in the Kingdom of Thailand as well as worldwide.