Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the BOI or Board of Investment here in Thailand. We have assisted a number of clients with matters pertaining to the BOI (Board of Investment), in obtaining concessions associated with BOI and there are many: there are tax concessions associated with BOI, certain Immigration concessions, labour concessions, Work Permit concessions etc. but there has been this curious situation that has been evolving where the BOI has been saying that they can confer on their own, labour authorization and I don't see any legal authority for this. I have been trying to do the research on it. Again I am layman when it comes to Thai Law so I'm just like anybody else, I'm just doing research but I can't find it. I have actually talked to folks who aren't even clients of this firm, they just watch the channel and have sent me correspondence who have said "yeah I've contacted them and pressed them on the issue of can you confer labour authorization and the responses I get are sort of opaque and nebulous.

That said, I thought of making this video after reading recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Does Thailand really want humble expats anymore? Quoting directly: "Together with the improvements for short stay tourists (well over 90% of all new arrivals will shortly get 60 days visa-exempt on entry)," it kind of remains to be seen but it's my understanding that is what is being rolled out. Quoting further: "The reforms are imaginative if sometimes confusing to the general reader." Well yeah, everything associated with Thai Immigration is confusing if you don't know what you are looking at. Look at the end of the day Immigration Law generally - and I mean this in a US context as well as a Thai context - is narrow and deep. It pertains to a limited subset of people and it is a limited body of law insofar that it doesn't apply across the board, but it's deep. It has sort of little vicissitudes in it, it has little exceptions and exemptions that if you don't know how to walk through the minefield of Immigration Law, you could get into some real problems. Quoting further: "Updated information about them comes variously from the Cabinet or the Tourist Association of Thailand" (I think they mean the Tourism Association of Thailand) or the Board of Investment or the Immigration Bureau. There is no single source for updates or corrections."

Look, Board of Investment as we have discussed in other videos has a specific line item in the Immigration Act of '79 that says that there are certain Visas that can be issued pertaining to BOI. That is clear. That said, regarding labour authorization, again I can't find anything where BOI directly can confer labour authorization. Meanwhile as we discussed in other videos, there is what's called the One-Stop service under BOI which basically brings together components in the Immigration apparatus and the Labour Department but they are not under BOI, they are coordinating with BOI so I don't know where this conflation came from that BOI in and of itself, can confer labour authorization. I don't bring this up to be a party pooper against foreigners or something. I bring this up because these are the kind of little issues that are seemingly semantic but that a foreigner can watch themselves get sucked into the undertow of the Thai Bureaucracy if they get on the wrong side of one of these issues. And I can see a scenario where somebody is working and they think that they are work authorized and then they are arrested by a Labour Department Officer or even Immigration who says "No, no, no, yeah you have got a Visa but you are not work authorized. They are two separate things in Thailand and you have to really understand that when you're understanding how labour authorization works here and even at the same time, yes BOI has its own line item for visas but it's my understanding it's visas in a Business Visa context. Again maybe it's more in line with the law but it looks to me to be a little bit of a stretch of the whole notion that BOI can create visas of their own volition. Again authorizing Visa status being one thing, and then having that issued by Immigration is one thing, but stating that you can issue visas in your own right, it's kind of an odd notion when you kind of understand how the Immigration apparatus and the Labour Department apparatus operates here in the Kingdom of Thailand.