> Entry is granted for a purpose, not as a default right Tourism is a permissible purpose, and it is legitimately the purpose of entry for “digital nomads”. >

> Entry is granted for a purpose, not as a default right Tourism is a permissible purpose, and it is legitimately the purpose of entry for “digital nomads”. > I know Thailand has become more active in refusing entry to Europeans doing remote work for 3-month periods one after another Many countries, and Thailand quite infamously, have always had strict approaches to the tourist “visa runs”, because it has always been associated with visa and tax fraud, in the form of people working under the table jobs in the country (very frequently as English teachers). This isn’t new. > Over the past three years many countries have introduced a so-called digital nomad visa for remote workers. Why would they need a new category if this were already allowed under existing tourist and business visa rules? It depends on the specifics of the visa. But the most basic form of digital nomad visa is simply a longer duration multiple entry tourist visa. These are created to encourage digital nomads to stay longer than they could on a normal tourist visa, and they are created to capitalise on what the newly emerging digital nomad segment is. Which is simply a highly valuable group of tourists who bring lots of money into the economy without consuming any public services. Other types of digital nomad visa are created to encourage people to shift their tax residence, and sometimes include tax incentives. These visas are created to capture free tax revenue that they would otherwise have no access to, and usually also don’t include any entitlements to public services. They’re not created to allow something that was previously prohibited. They’re created to maximise the benefit that this segment of tourists can provide.