Integrity Legal - Law Firm in Bangkok | Bangkok Lawyer | Legal Services Thailand Back to
Integrity Legal

Legal Services & Resources 

Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.

Contact us: +66 2-266 3698

info@integrity-legal.com

ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai Officials Discuss Business Visas for Those Without Work Permits

Thai Officials Discuss Business Visas for Those Without Work Permits

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Business Visas yet again. We are discussing specifically the concept of someone coming to Thailand for business purposes that doesn't necessarily have a Work Permit. 

For those who are unaware, as of the time of this video at least, it is still required that most of those coming to Thailand for business purposes have work authorization.  Now that can either be an actual issued Work Permit or in some cases a WP3 work pre-authorization document. For those unaware of what a WP3 is, we have other videos on this channel discussing the WP3 in detail but it is basically as noted, it is a letter noting that someone has pre-authorization to work in the Kingdom and then presumably will get a Work Permit upon arrival in the Kingdom.

Quoting directly from a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, that article is titled: Emergency Decree Extension, New Visas Approved. Quoting directly: "Taweesilp Visanuyothin," and to be clear he is the medical doctor that is the point man if you will on the CCSA, that is the COVID Situation Administration Committee here in Thailand; quoting further: "Spokesperson of the panel added after the meeting that Non-immigrant Visas of various types could also be issued for businessmen who do not have Work Permits. Copies of bank statements showing deposits over six consecutive months of not less than 500,000 baht are required. More details are not available at this stage." So it looks like and I have said this before, they are trying to move forward, move toward a more open Immigration system allowing more folks to come in especially in a Business Visa context. They want to allow business travel because obviously that would promote trade which would be good for the economy which Lord knows we need it here in Thailand. But the thing to take away from this is, yes they are looking at allowing folks in who do not necessarily have a Work Permit but they are not necessarily looking at this in the context of any time in the relatively near future I think.

So while we may see something I would say around the turn of the year, around early 2021, I do not think that it is safe to presume that we are going to necessarily see business folks being able to enter Thailand without a Work Permit probably in this last quarter. I hesitate to ever speculate. I don't like to do that but based on what we are currently seeing in terms of the infrastructure in place now and in terms of the legal framework associated with moving these cases through, I don't think it is prudent to presume that we will see folks being able to come in without work authorization before the end of the year. I just don't think that that is particularly likely.