Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing LTR Visas, so-called Long-Term Residence Visas here in Thailand. As we have discussed in many videos on this channel, does not provide actual residency, it is basically a long stay visa and even then they call it a 10-year Visa. In reality it is more like a 5-year Visa with the option to renew. It is not a 10 year Visa in and of itself and it is not Residence in and of itself.

On top of that, they talk all the time about this thing being work authorized. I keep trying to find the legal authority for that work authorization. I have done some research here recently and the thing to understand is these LTR Visas are done under the auspices of the Board of Investment so I am going to go ahead and quote from the Immigration Act of 1979 and we will go ahead and throw this on screen, this is under Section 34: "Aliens entering the Kingdom for a temporary stay may enter for the following activities". Then subsection 6 it states: “(6) For as long as deemed reasonable by the Board of Investment for a case under Section 34 (7)” and then you can get into that.  Then later in the Act, it is section 37. "An alien who is permitted to stay in the Kingdom temporarily shall do the following: Not engage in an occupation or employment except with permission from the Director-General or the competent official designated by the Director-General." Quoting further: "Section 12. Aliens falling into any of the following categories are excluded from entering the Kingdom: Entering the Kingdom to earn livelihood as a labourer or be hired to do physical work and not skilled, or technical work, or to do other works in violation of alien working laws." Then under Section 6, so we are sort of starting at further in to the Act and then going back, going back to Section 6. There shall be established an Immigration Commission consisting of the Under Secretary of the Minister of Interior as Chairperson, with the following members: The Under Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Director- General of the Police Department, the Director- General of the Labour Department" (we will get to that in a moment), "the Director- General of the Public Prosecution Department and the Secretary-General of the Board of Investment." So they, and there is more folks on there, it goes further in detail about the commission. The point I wanted to make in this video is yeah, there is the Board of Investment and there is Labour so clearly there is a Visa category, again under Section 34, subsection 6 that allows Board of Investment folks, Board of investment to issue a Visa but I am not finding where in the Act the Board of Investment is directly authorized, and I could stand corrected on this, I could stand corrected on this. Just because I'm not seeing it, doesn't mean it's not there and I will keep doing research on this but I am not seeing where BOI unilaterally has the authority to issue work authorization and Immigration Department does not directly issue work authorization; Labour Department issues work authorization.

Now under the One Stop Service that you may deal with when you are dealing with BOI, that was specifically created with a labour component associated with it but where in this new creation of Visas did that labour component come from? Moreover, we are not talking about somebody coming here to set up a Company which has inherent labour certification associated with it, these LTR visas are just visas in their own right. The point I am trying to make, I am not trying to drag down the LTR category but the point I am trying to make is when things start just kind of happening “on the fly” so to speak, that can go a good way and that can go a bad way because if stuff starts happening “on the fly” in one way, you can see it happening “on the fly” in another way. And one thing that worries me is people that hold sort of the more standard visas, Business Visas for example, Retirement Visas for two main examples, a standard O Retirement Visa, a standard B Visa with a standard Work Permit, are we going to start seeing restrictions just made up “on the fly” for these standard categories sort of in counter point to the way that they seem to be making up work authorization “on the fly” associated with so called Long-Term Residence Visas here in the Kingdom of Thailand.