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).