Frequently asked questions

The visa fee is 2,000 Baht for a single entry valid three months, and 5,000 Baht for multiple entries valid one year. A holder may stay up to 90 days per entry and can apply to the Immigration Bureau to extend that to one year from the date of first entry. Visa fees are set administratively and are revised from time to time, so confirm the current figures before applying.

No. The visa alone does not permit employment. A work permit must be granted before you begin work. Working without a permit is an offence under the Emergency Decree on Managing the Work of Foreign Nationals B.E. 2560 (2017) as amended, and also affects your position under the Immigration Act B.E. 2522 (1979). Ask us before you start work.

The Non-Immigrant "O" category covers several purposes, retirement among them, and also the spouse and dependants of a Thai national. For retirement the applicant must be 50 or over, must not intend to work, and must show the required funds — a deposit in a Thai bank account, a monthly income, or the two combined. The alternative is the "O-A" category, applied for from outside Thailand, which adds a health insurance requirement. Work of any kind is prohibited on both. The financial thresholds are set administratively and change, so check the current figures before applying.

The prospective employer submits Form WP3 at the Office of Foreign Workers Administration, Department of Employment, or the Provincial Employment Office, and supplies the company documents — registration, shareholder list, financial statements and VAT registration.

The core filings are the Memorandum of Association (Form Bor.Or.Chor 2) setting out the objectives and the share capital, the particulars of incorporation (Form Bor.Or.Chor 3), and the list of shareholders (Form Bor.Or.Chor 5), which then has to be filed afresh every year.

The banded rates apply only to a small or medium company: paid-up capital of not more than 5 million Baht at the end of the accounting period, and revenue of not more than 30 million Baht in that period. For those, the first 300,000 Baht of net profit is exempt, the band up to 3,000,000 Baht is taxed at 15 per cent and the excess at 20 per cent. A company outside those limits pays 20 per cent on the whole of its net profit. The annual return is due within 150 days of the fiscal year end.

VAT registration is mandatory once annual revenue exceeds 1.8 million Baht. The rate is currently 7 per cent — a temporary reduction from the standard 10 per cent — and returns are filed monthly on Form VAT 30.

At least five years.

Ten years from the registration date, renewable indefinitely for further ten-year periods as long as the renewal fees are paid. After examination the application is published in the Trademark Journal, and third parties have sixty days from the date of publication to oppose it.

An invention patent runs 20 years from the filing date. A petty patent gives six years from filing, renewable for two further terms of two years each — a maximum of ten years.

Documents in a foreign language must be translated into Thai and notarised by a notary organ or by your diplomatic or consular mission. Copies of company documents must be signed by the board or an authorised managing director and bear the company seal.

Contract disputes, property and real estate matters, tort and personal injury, debt collection, family and succession, and consumer claims are all civil matters, distinct from criminal proceedings. They are not all heard in the same court: family and succession go to the Juvenile and Family Court, and consumer claims follow their own procedure, weighted in the consumer's favour.

A divorce by consent needs no ground at all, only agreement. A contested divorce needs one of the grounds the law sets out, and the court cannot add to that list. The ones relied on most often are keeping another person as a spouse or an affair, physical or mental harm, wilful desertion for more than a year, voluntary separation for more than three years, and failure to provide proper support. The full list is on the divorce and marital property page.

Property held before the marriage is personal property and is not divided. Property acquired during the marriage is marital property and is divided when the marriage ends. The usual difficulty is property that has become mixed together.

No. Banks and the Land Department act only once the court has appointed an administrator, even where every heir agrees on the division.

Two things are added: documents from the other country, which must be legalised and translated as the Thai authorities require, and the right to stay in the Kingdom, which is separate from the right to work and needs its own permission.

The type of title document, the encumbrances registered against it, whether the access road actually exists, the zoning limits on use, and whether the seller has the power to sell. The checks take a few days; a reservation deposit already paid is rarely recoverable.

At the Land Office on the day of registration, not on the day the contract is signed or the money is paid. Until then the buyer is not the owner, however much has been paid.

A condominium unit, within the foreign quota of each building. Land, as a general rule, cannot be owned. The workable alternatives are a long lease and a superficies right.

Not unless it is registered with the competent official. Without registration it is enforceable for three years only, whatever the document says. This is the most common cause of dispute in long leases.

Not always. The law sets out the cases in which an employer may dismiss without severance, but the facts must genuinely fall within them and the ground must be stated in the letter of termination. A ground not stated at the time cannot be raised later.

A voluntary resignation does not create a right to severance. Where the facts show the employee was pressed into resigning, it may amount to a dismissal, which turns on the evidence in each case.

No. The Labour Protection Act sets a floor. An agreement giving less has no effect, even where the employee has signed it.

Not immediately. A judgment records the right the court has recognised; being paid takes enforcement, which begins with tracing the assets of the debtor and then seizing or attaching them. That is a separate stage from the trial.

At every level: first instance, appeal and the Supreme Court, and on into enforcement once judgment is given. We do not stop at one stage.

It depends on the type of claim. The law sets different periods, and some are only one year from the day you learned of the matter and of the person liable. The deadline should be checked first, before anything else.

It is an initial consultation to assess the matter. We will tell you whether we can act, what the matter requires and what it will cost before any work begins.

Whatever documents you have: contracts, correspondence, receipts, messages between the parties, and a sequence of events with dates. The dates matter most, because they determine whether the matter is still in time.

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