Work & business
Work permits, what counts as 'work', prohibited occupations, company basics.
What counts as "work" for a foreigner — and when a work permit is required
Since the 2018 amendment, section 5 of the Foreigners' Working Management Emergency Decree B.E. 2560 (2017) defines work as engaging in any profession, with or without an employer — the only carve-out is running a business you are separately licensed to operate under the Foreign Business Act. Payment is irrelevant: the definition does not require wages, so unpaid helping in a partner's shop or guesthouse is still work in the legal sense. Section 8 contains a double prohibition — a foreigner may not work without a work permit, and may not work outside the scope of work he or she has the right to do. The permit itself comes from the registrar at the Department of Employment under section 59; an employer in Thailand can file on behalf of a foreigner who is still abroad (section 60; this was section 61 in the original 2017 text). Two 2018 changes correct persistent forum folklore. First, a work permit no longer chains you to one named workplace: the old change-of-workplace approval sections (70–74) were repealed, replaced by a duty to notify the registrar of your employer and workplace within 15 days of starting or changing jobs (section 64/2). Second, short-term "necessary and urgent" or ad-hoc work to be completed within 15 days needs only a written notification to the registrar, not a permit (section 61 as amended), extendable once by up to a further 15 days — a mechanism that predates 2018 but which the amendment relocated to section 61 and made extendable. Section 4 exempts diplomats, and attendees of meetings, seminars, training and similar activities as prescribed by the Cabinet. A visa — including a Non-B — never itself confers the right to work; visa and work permit are separate authorisations.
The reserved-occupations list: 40 jobs foreigners cannot (freely) do
The current list is the Notification of the Ministry of Labour re: Prescribing Work Prohibited to Foreigners, dated 1 April B.E. 2563 (2020), published in the Government Gazette (Vol. 137, Special Part 92 Ngo, 21 April 2020) under section 7 of the Foreigners' Working Management Emergency Decree B.E. 2560 (2017). It superseded the 39-occupation list under the Royal Decree of B.E. 2522 (1979) that many websites still quote. It has 40 items in four annexes. Annex 1 lists 27 jobs absolutely prohibited everywhere in the Kingdom, including wood carving, driving vehicles (except international aircraft and forklifts), auctioneering, hairdressing and beauty work, Thai massage, hawking goods, tour guiding and tour organising, secretarial and clerical work, making Buddha images, and legal services (with narrow arbitration exceptions). Annex 2 (accounting services, civil engineering, architecture) is conditionally open — foreigners may do this work under international agreements binding Thailand, notably the ASEAN mutual recognition arrangements, with certification from the relevant professional council. Annex 3 lists eight skilled and semi-skilled jobs (agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, fishery; bricklaying, carpentry and building construction; mattress, knife, shoe, hat and garment making; pottery) allowed only when working for an employer. Annex 4 (labouring work; shop-front sales) is allowed only with an employer and lawful entry under a government-to-government MOU — this is the channel for manual workers admitted under Thailand's government-to-government MOUs (in practice Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam). Clause 6 adds that where a Thai law requires a professional licence, the work permit comes only after that licence.
Work-permit process basics: employer sponsorship, capital and headcount ratios
Getting legal to work as a company employee involves two separate authorities that forum posts routinely blur together. The Department of Employment issues the work permit under sections 59–61 of the Foreigners' Working Management Emergency Decree B.E. 2560 (2017): you (or your employer, who may file while you are still abroad) apply to the registrar, you must have entered on something other than a tourist or transit stamp (section 59 paragraph one, as replaced in 2018 — pre-2018 texts put this in section 60), and the permit can be issued for up to two years and extended for up to two years at a time (section 67 as amended in 2018). Staying in the country is Immigration's separate track. For the standard one-year extension of stay based on business/work, Immigration Division 1's published criteria require: a Non-Immigrant visa; salary meeting the nationality-based income table (Annex A of the criteria); an employer with paid-up registered capital of at least 2 million baht; audited financial statements showing a real, continuing business; and a ratio of four permanent Thai employees per foreign employee. Representative offices, regional offices and branch offices of overseas companies are exempt from the capital and financial-statement tests and get a reduced 1:1 ratio. Each extension is granted for at most one year. In practice the 2-million-baht capital figure is applied per foreign employee sponsored — plan capital and Thai headcount before hiring the second foreigner. LTR and SMART visa holders and BOI-promoted companies escape parts of this machinery (see the BOI/LTR entry).
Working remotely for a foreign employer: the legal position and the DTV
The written law contains no remote-work carve-out: "work" under the Foreigners' Working Management Emergency Decree B.E. 2560 (2017), as amended in 2018, is engaging in any profession, with or without an employer. A laptop worker paid by an overseas company is not obviously outside that text, and for years remote work on tourist entries lived in a tolerated grey zone. In July 2024 Thailand resolved most of the practical question by creating the Destination Thailand Visa (DTV), whose "workcation" category is expressly for digital nomads, remote workers, foreign talent and freelancers working for employers or clients outside Thailand. The DTV, applied for through the official Thai e-Visa system, is a five-year multiple-entry visa giving 180 days per entry. Core requirements per MFA checklists: bank statements for the past three months showing at least 500,000 baht, proof of the remote-work relationship (employment contract, employer's company registration, or a professional portfolio), with the fee set in local currency by each post (52,000 yen in Tokyo, the base fee is 10,000 baht per the Royal Thai Government announcement; posts charge a local-currency equivalent). Soft-power activities (Muay Thai, Thai cooking, medical treatment) and dependants have parallel categories. What the DTV does not do is authorise work for Thai employers or Thai clients — that remains work-permit territory, and a work permit requires a non-tourist immigration status (section 60). Also remember tax: 180 days or more in Thailand in a calendar year makes you a Thai tax resident.
Penalties for illegal work — for the worker and for the employer
The penalties were rewritten by the Emergency Decree (No. 2) B.E. 2561 (2018), and much of what circulates online is the harsher pre-2018 law. Under the current section 101, a foreigner who works without a permit or outside the work he or she has the right to do faces a fine of 5,000 to 50,000 baht — no imprisonment — and after paying is to be repatriated expeditiously. A foreigner accused of the offence who agrees to leave the Kingdom can settle by fine, closing the case. The lasting sting is section 64/1: a person punished under section 101 cannot get a new work permit until two years after the punishment ends. Victims and witnesses in human-trafficking cases are exempt. Employers are hit harder. Under section 102, taking a foreigner into work without a permit — or into work outside what they are allowed to do — costs 10,000 to 100,000 baht per foreigner employed. A repeat offence brings imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of 50,000 to 200,000 baht per foreigner, or both, plus a three-year ban on employing any foreigner from the date of final judgment. Note the per-head multiplier: three undocumented workers means three fines. Separate duties carry their own fines, such as the employer's obligation to notify the registrar of a foreign hire or resignation within 15 days (section 13; up to 20,000 baht under section 103).
Owning a business: the Foreign Business Act, 49/51 reality and the nominee trap
Under section 4 of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999), a Thai-registered company counts as "foreign" if half or more of its capital shares are foreign-held — which is why the classic structure is 49% foreign, 51% Thai. A foreign company needs permission for anything in the Act's three annexed lists. List 1 (media, rice farming, land trading, Buddha-image making and others) is closed outright. List 2 (national security, arts and culture, natural resources) needs Cabinet-level permission and at least 40% Thai shareholding (section 15). List 3 — the one that catches expats — covers businesses where Thais are "not yet ready to compete": accounting, legal, architectural and engineering services, construction, brokerage, retail under 100 million baht capital, wholesale, advertising, hotels (except hotel management), guided touring, sale of food and beverages, and a catch-all of "other service businesses". A majority-foreign restaurant or consultancy therefore needs a Foreign Business Licence from the Director-General of Business Development. Minimum capital for a foreigner starting a business is 2 million baht, or 3 million for listed businesses (section 14). The shortcut everyone whispers about is the crime: section 36 makes a Thai who holds shares as a foreigner's nominee — and the foreigner who lets them — liable to up to three years' imprisonment or a 100,000-to-1,000,000-baht fine or both, plus court-ordered unwinding and daily fines of 10,000–50,000 baht for non-compliance. This is enforced: the DBD's Foreign Business Commission runs annual nominee-inspection sweeps (397 entities screened in the 2022 plan, targeting tourism, land/real-estate holding and agricultural sectors). Genuine Thai co-investment is legal; Thais fronting capital so a foreigner controls a restricted business is not. Exemptions exist by treaty (section 10, e.g. the US Treaty of Amity) and for BOI-promoted businesses, which get a certificate instead of a licence (section 12).
BOI, LTR and SMART: the visa routes that come with work rights
Three BOI-linked routes bypass the standard Non-B grind. The Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa is a 10-year visa (issued 5+5) with a digital work permit, annual reporting instead of 90-day reports, fast-track airport service, exemption from the 4-Thai-employees-per-foreigner ratio, and — for the Highly-Skilled Professional category — a 17% flat personal income tax rate. Its four categories, per BOI's LTR portal: Wealthy Global Citizens (USD 1 million in assets plus USD 500,000 invested in Thai bonds, companies or property); Wealthy Pensioners (50+, USD 80,000 passive income, or USD 40,000 plus USD 250,000 invested in Thailand); Work-from-Thailand Professionals (remote employees of a listed company or a private company at least 3 years old with USD 50 million-plus revenue, earning USD 80,000, or USD 40,000 with a relevant master's degree); and Highly-Skilled Professionals in targeted industries. All need health insurance of USD 50,000 or a USD 100,000 deposit. The 10-year visa costs 50,000 baht; the digital work permit 3,000 baht per year; qualification endorsement takes about 20 working days. The SMART visa programme now effectively serves startups only: BOI's SMART portal presents SMART S (founders holding at least 25% or a director role in a certified targeted-industry startup, with a 600,000-baht deposit; issued in tranches of up to 2 years and renewable, and SMART visa holders are granted a maximum 4-year permission to stay, with no separate work permit needed) and SMART O for dependants. Finally, companies holding BOI investment promotion bring in foreign experts through the One Stop Service Center with expedited visas and permits, and a promoted foreign company takes an FBA section 12 certificate instead of a Foreign Business Licence.
General information, not legal advice. Laws and practice change; for a decision that matters, confirm with the authority named in the sources or a licensed professional.