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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing volunteering in the context of Work Permits in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on one of our prior videos on this channel. Quoting directly: "Hmm, so when I move to Thailand, you won't have a Work Permit yet. But I am a club D.J. in Hollywood California here in the States and I would love to be an occasional guest D.J. at some of the clubs in Bangkok. I don't expect to get paid because I can't legally work, but if I am doing it on a volunteer basis with no pay I am wondering if that would be legal?" Yeah, it won't be. Long story short, it is not legal. 

As we have discussed in a number of other videos, work has nothing to do with remuneration. We have done a specific video, I'll link to it in the description below, where we discuss the definition of work specifically the Thai legal definition of work and quite honestly you could argue breathing is work or exerting, like moving your hand could be considered work under the very, very broad legal definition of "work" in Thailand. Long story short and one thing that is clear and we have known this ever since the Tsunami coming here in Thailand which was before my time but did sort of provide some factual basis for providing analysis on this which is at that time there was a number of folks that wanted to come to Thailand to volunteer and they were told they couldn't do so because they didn't have Work Permits. You have got to be work authorized even if you want to work in Thailand without getting paid. The getting paid part doesn't have anything to do with Work Authorization here in Thailand. Again, there are certain and it is a very narrow subset, we have discussed it in other videos, there are certain types of Volunteer Visas in the context of specific kinds of NGOs and charities here; that is a real rarity. Unfortunately it was somewhat abused and I doubt we are going to see Volunteer Visas in any meaningful way any time in the near future. Long story short, it basically has been sort of phased out as an effective Visa option. Also unfortunately, folks that had those, there are a lot of folks that have had problems including being blacklisted and deported in association with volunteer visas that were issued for activities that folks really weren't undertaking. 

But to the point in terms of this video, notwithstanding the fact one is not getting paid, yeah one still needs a Work Permit in order to come to Thailand. The volunteer part doesn't have anything to do with the analysis regarding the need for foreigners to have Work Authorization here in the Kingdom of Thailand.