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>EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but still worth

>EDIT: Of course, I'm not exactly familiar with the visa situation since I don't actually need it. Based on the OP, it seems pretty complicated, but still worth the hassle. I lived in Thailand for several years and 'bootstrapping' your business there as a foreigner without a work permit is breaking the law. You need a work permit to do ANY type of work in Thailand and although working out of sight is unlikely to get you deported, working in co-working spaces isn't exactly out of sight and a phone call to immigration would get you arrested, deported and blacklisted from the country. Getting a work permit in Thailand is very very difficult. Foreign owned businesses have to employ Thai citizens and require silly amounts of registered capital deposited in Thai banks. It's marginally easier if you are an American. Thailand is not worth the hassle and FFS research the law before you just up and go there!

peterjancelis 13y ago
1. You are allowed to do business meetings on a business/tourist visa. 2. You can do business meetings from a co-work office. Now please tell me how being in a co-work office, working for a company incorporated abroad and not accepting local payments, can get one arrested.
- jamornh 13y ago
  Are you sure you can do business meetings on a tourist visa? On a business visa is fine of course as you've declared that your intention is to be there for business, but having a business visa also require you to have a company that is sending you there on business before hand. Plus, I'm not sure how long of a stay you'd normally get with a business visa. With a tourist visa, I think you're strictly not supposed to perform any business activities. You might be able to pass off your meeting as a "casual chat" if you want to risk it.
  - peterjancelis 13y ago
    In the countries I've been to the business travel visas are the same as the tourist ones, you just have to declare you are there for business purposes also. So the length is the same, 3 months.
    - sasas 13y ago
      I know colleagues (engineers) who were detained and kept under "hotel arrest" in Indonesia for being on the customer site without the correct working Visa (our guess - a tip off) I worked in Thailand on assignment for a large company there and we got a wind that the authorities where going to come in on a certain day and check every single foreigners passports. We were told even that we had the correct Visa, work from home that day. In Japan you can get a 3 month tourist visa on entry. I know many who have worked on the customer site with this. Once again - illegal, all it takes is a tip off from a local employee and your in big, big trouble.. don't expect to ever visit that country again. I know someone who was working in Sweden without the correct Visa - a local employee (part of a work union) reported him. Not worth the risk IMHO.
      - saryant 13y ago
        Are you sure about that with Japan? The visa-free entry (at least for Americans) allows business. > A visa is NOT necessary for US passport holders visiting Japan for a short-term stay of less than 90 days with the purpose of tourism and business. http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/travel_and_visa/travel_and_visa_index.htm http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/travel_and_visa/t...
        sasas 13y ago
        There appears to be a fine line between "business" (meetings etc) and actually doing productive work for a company entity based in Japan. I don't have clarification on this, and this is only second hand information. On a different note, they do check the frequency of re-entries (on a tourist visa) as I know of one peer who was put into a room at the airport and questioned after re-entering a few times in one year. So if your "doing business" a couple of times a year with a few months in between, it may still look suspect. Additionally I know of a guy's wife who was deported on re-entry after the 3rd time. She wasn't working and was banned from re-entring for 11 months.
        saryant 13y ago
- hackerboos 13y ago
  You're wrong. You can't conduct any type business on a tourist visa you will be deported if you are caught. People have been warned that they will be deported for singing on a karaoke in clubs as it's classed as work. The business visa you are talking about (NON-B) is designed for employees of foreign companies who are conducting business with Thai companies. Not foreign businesses conducting business alone or with each other. In fact without evidence of this you won't even get your NON-B visa. http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/123/15388-Non-Immigrant-Visa-%22B%22-(for-Business-and.html http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/123/15388-Non-Immigran...
jamornh 13y ago
I highly agree that you should definitely research the law before packing your bags and heading for Bangkok to just start bootstrapping. As hackerboos mentioned, it is illegal to "work" here without a work permit. As I understand it, even with a work permit, you're only allowed to "work" at the place that is specified on your work permit and no where else. If you are caught working outside your permitted working location, you can be deported. It all sounds very harsh but I assume that this is often the way labor laws for foreigners are written by most countries; the main goal is to protect the local work force from unfair outside competition... that's just how it is.
crazygringo 13y ago
Honestly, who cares? Work permits are to make sure you don't steal jobs from the locals. Working on your own project has nothing to do with that. So while it may be breaking the letter of the law, it's certainly not breaking the spirit of it. My point being, you shouldn't have ethical issues with it -- it's like driving 57 in a 55 zone. I know people who have been deported for not having the right visa -- a phone call by an angry ex or housemate in every case. Nobody's going to report you to immigration unless you've seriously pissed someone off. So just don't piss people off. And worst-case scenario, you leave early.
- pieterhg 13y ago
  Exactly. The culture of the judicial system works in a wholly different way in developing nations than in the West. They don't practice laws like we do. When you cause trouble in Thailand, they'll find any law you might have broken, just to get you, but when you don't cause trouble, most of the times you're fine, even if you might be breaking the law in official terms. I heard it's the same in China. Sure, it's a risk, but please tell me why all these co-working spaces everywhere are filled with foreigners without work permits and growing rapidly. Remote working is a new reality, and it would be highly counter-productive for these countries to start striking down on people working there. Every single foreigner I met in Thailand was working on projects either focused on their own country or internationally, thus not threatening local jobs. In reality, many of the Thai learnt from the foreigners that'd teach them about their tech stacks. That's exactly how they're building their own startup scene in Bangkok now. Learning from foreigners. I'd argue it may increase a developing nation's level of innovation to have remote workers around and governments should embrace this new reality asap.
  - jeff_facebook 13y ago
    I spent 2 years living in Thailand on back-to-back tourist visas (and eventually ran out of passport pages) and a little over 2 more with a work permit. You are making the visa situation out to be MUCH simpler than it really is. You'll very quickly learn this, should you want to stay longer term. Every category of visa requires between 1-6 border runs per year, even with a work permit. If you get a permit and it expires or you lose the sponsored placement (which is tied to the permit) you have 15 days to leave the country. I've thought about this long and hard. There is no way to stay "under the radar", without major hassles. This is the purpose of the mandatory visa runs. You'll either run out of passport pages from the 6 tourist visa runs per year (12 stamps -- 6 in, 6 out, 2 pages each) or you will have to get a real visa, complete with a sponsored work placement and proof of income. End of story. Get caught at a border or an airport without a valid visa and you'll get fined 500 THB per overdue day, deported, and if the overdue period runs into months or years, blacklisted from future visas.
sirn 13y ago
>Getting a work permit in Thailand is very very difficult. Foreign owned businesses have to employ Thai citizens and require silly amounts of registered capital deposited in Thai banks. It's marginally easier if you are an American. It may sounds silly, but Thais are very scared of seeing foreigners taking over the country. This thinking is the most noticeable in lower-class Thais. I believe the result of this thinking is the ridiculous requirements for business visa. It's not only a bureaucrat problem, but also a social one.
- ilaksh 13y ago
  Why would that sound silly? One example is European/US colonization and related efforts in recent times. Foreigners taking over your country is something you _should_ be worried about if you are paying any attention to history. The wealth differential in countries like the US, would be a huge advantage for foreigners to take over business markets if it weren't for laws like that.
j1z0 13y ago
Look I'm American who has been living in SE Asia (mostly Malaysia) for the past 10 years. I've spent lots of time and worked in lots of countries here including Vietnam, Thailand, Philipines, Singapore, India and obviously Malaysia. In Asia a work visa is intended for foreigners working for locally incorporated companies. Regardless of what it says on the websites, if you have a tourist visa you are free to startup / bootstrap your new enterprise. If your coding up a new website, hosting it on Amazon and serving customers over the internet your not really doing business and the country your living and honestly no body cares. It's cool. If you want to start selling to locals, offering consultancy services to locals then yes you should probably get a visa. But of course you don't need the visa until you are actually doing that. People who quote websites stating "facts" about visa's in SE Asia obviously don't know how the law works in SE Asia. In SE Asia the law is a guideline and your clout / how you treat people is much more important than the words written on the page, when it comes to the courts and the interpretation of the law. So if you want to bootstrap in Asia, chillax and just do it. If your too worried about it, your probably won't adjust well anyways.
- pieterhg 13y ago
  This is exactly my experience worded better than I could have.
- 1gor 13y ago
  j1z0 So, out of the countries you mentioned, where one could engineer the best bootstrapping lifestyle? Why have you chosen Malaysia?
- hackerboos 13y ago
  Somebody who throws Singapore in with a list of other South-East Asian countries and goes on to state that laws are just a guideline clearly has no idea what they are talking about. I can only speak for Thailand and Singapore and both are stringent on enforcement when it comes to visas. I've never heard of anyone walking away with a slap on the wrist or being able to bribe their way out of a situation with regards to visas. In one of my first replies I said that if you are working alone and out of sight then yes you will probably get away with working in any of those countries. My whole point though is that it's irresponsible to promote breaking the law here on HN and especially foreign laws at that.
math 13y ago
I live in Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and over the last few years have seen many expats move from Thailand to here due to the relative visa situation (very difficult in Thiland, very easy in Cambodia). Cost of living here is about the same as Thailand. The number of decent places catering for westerners has increased dramatically over the last few years. Local people are very friendly. I reckon Phnom Penh an awesome place to live.
nikster 13y ago
Been in Thailand 10 years - honestly most Thais don't care one bit about the letter of the law. A banal example might be that unless there's a helmet check stop, you can drive by any policeman without a helmet on - nobody cares. The work permit situation is not that clear either - there are different interpretations depending on who you ask. If you are here, but your income is entirely in another country, it's legal according to officials - the law just was not made for that situation. The law is to prevent foreigners from working illegally in Thailand - if the foreigner basically "brings their own job" to Thailand it's a different story. Who can prove what you're doing on your computer? Will they ask the NSA and the IRS for assistance to uncover the company you're building? And if not, how could they tell whether you're not a trust fund kid playing Counter Strike all day long? Once you start hiring people here, you'll need legal assistance, but even that is relatively straightforward. I know many with BOI companies here, with 100% foreign ownership.

peterjancelis 13y ago

1. You are allowed to do business meetings on a business/tourist visa. 2. You can do business meetings from a co-work office. Now please tell me how being in a co-work office, working for a company incorporated abroad and not accepting local payments, can get one arrested.

jamornh 13y ago
Are you sure you can do business meetings on a tourist visa? On a business visa is fine of course as you've declared that your intention is to be there for business, but having a business visa also require you to have a company that is sending you there on business before hand. Plus, I'm not sure how long of a stay you'd normally get with a business visa. With a tourist visa, I think you're strictly not supposed to perform any business activities. You might be able to pass off your meeting as a "casual chat" if you want to risk it.
- peterjancelis 13y ago
  In the countries I've been to the business travel visas are the same as the tourist ones, you just have to declare you are there for business purposes also. So the length is the same, 3 months.
  - sasas 13y ago
    I know colleagues (engineers) who were detained and kept under "hotel arrest" in Indonesia for being on the customer site without the correct working Visa (our guess - a tip off) I worked in Thailand on assignment for a large company there and we got a wind that the authorities where going to come in on a certain day and check every single foreigners passports. We were told even that we had the correct Visa, work from home that day. In Japan you can get a 3 month tourist visa on entry. I know many who have worked on the customer site with this. Once again - illegal, all it takes is a tip off from a local employee and your in big, big trouble.. don't expect to ever visit that country again. I know someone who was working in Sweden without the correct Visa - a local employee (part of a work union) reported him. Not worth the risk IMHO.
    - saryant 13y ago
      Are you sure about that with Japan? The visa-free entry (at least for Americans) allows business. > A visa is NOT necessary for US passport holders visiting Japan for a short-term stay of less than 90 days with the purpose of tourism and business. http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/travel_and_visa/travel_and_visa_index.htm http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/travel_and_visa/t...
      - sasas 13y ago
        There appears to be a fine line between "business" (meetings etc) and actually doing productive work for a company entity based in Japan. I don't have clarification on this, and this is only second hand information. On a different note, they do check the frequency of re-entries (on a tourist visa) as I know of one peer who was put into a room at the airport and questioned after re-entering a few times in one year. So if your "doing business" a couple of times a year with a few months in between, it may still look suspect. Additionally I know of a guy's wife who was deported on re-entry after the 3rd time. She wasn't working and was banned from re-entring for 11 months.
        saryant 13y ago
hackerboos 13y ago
You're wrong. You can't conduct any type business on a tourist visa you will be deported if you are caught. People have been warned that they will be deported for singing on a karaoke in clubs as it's classed as work. The business visa you are talking about (NON-B) is designed for employees of foreign companies who are conducting business with Thai companies. Not foreign businesses conducting business alone or with each other. In fact without evidence of this you won't even get your NON-B visa. http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/123/15388-Non-Immigrant-Visa-%22B%22-(for-Business-and.html http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/123/15388-Non-Immigran...

jamornh 13y ago

I highly agree that you should definitely research the law before packing your bags and heading for Bangkok to just start bootstrapping. As hackerboos mentioned, it is illegal to "work" here without a work permit. As I understand it, even with a work permit, you're only allowed to "work" at the place that is specified on your work permit and no where else. If you are caught working outside your permitted working location, you can be deported. It all sounds very harsh but I assume that this is often the way labor laws for foreigners are written by most countries; the main goal is to protect the local work force from unfair outside competition... that's just how it is.

crazygringo 13y ago

Honestly, who cares? Work permits are to make sure you don't steal jobs from the locals. Working on your own project has nothing to do with that. So while it may be breaking the letter of the law, it's certainly not breaking the spirit of it. My point being, you shouldn't have ethical issues with it -- it's like driving 57 in a 55 zone. I know people who have been deported for not having the right visa -- a phone call by an angry ex or housemate in every case. Nobody's going to report you to immigration unless you've seriously pissed someone off. So just don't piss people off. And worst-case scenario, you leave early.

pieterhg 13y ago
Exactly. The culture of the judicial system works in a wholly different way in developing nations than in the West. They don't practice laws like we do. When you cause trouble in Thailand, they'll find any law you might have broken, just to get you, but when you don't cause trouble, most of the times you're fine, even if you might be breaking the law in official terms. I heard it's the same in China. Sure, it's a risk, but please tell me why all these co-working spaces everywhere are filled with foreigners without work permits and growing rapidly. Remote working is a new reality, and it would be highly counter-productive for these countries to start striking down on people working there. Every single foreigner I met in Thailand was working on projects either focused on their own country or internationally, thus not threatening local jobs. In reality, many of the Thai learnt from the foreigners that'd teach them about their tech stacks. That's exactly how they're building their own startup scene in Bangkok now. Learning from foreigners. I'd argue it may increase a developing nation's level of innovation to have remote workers around and governments should embrace this new reality asap.
- jeff_facebook 13y ago
  I spent 2 years living in Thailand on back-to-back tourist visas (and eventually ran out of passport pages) and a little over 2 more with a work permit. You are making the visa situation out to be MUCH simpler than it really is. You'll very quickly learn this, should you want to stay longer term. Every category of visa requires between 1-6 border runs per year, even with a work permit. If you get a permit and it expires or you lose the sponsored placement (which is tied to the permit) you have 15 days to leave the country. I've thought about this long and hard. There is no way to stay "under the radar", without major hassles. This is the purpose of the mandatory visa runs. You'll either run out of passport pages from the 6 tourist visa runs per year (12 stamps -- 6 in, 6 out, 2 pages each) or you will have to get a real visa, complete with a sponsored work placement and proof of income. End of story. Get caught at a border or an airport without a valid visa and you'll get fined 500 THB per overdue day, deported, and if the overdue period runs into months or years, blacklisted from future visas.

sirn 13y ago

>Getting a work permit in Thailand is very very difficult. Foreign owned businesses have to employ Thai citizens and require silly amounts of registered capital deposited in Thai banks. It's marginally easier if you are an American. It may sounds silly, but Thais are very scared of seeing foreigners taking over the country. This thinking is the most noticeable in lower-class Thais. I believe the result of this thinking is the ridiculous requirements for business visa. It's not only a bureaucrat problem, but also a social one.

ilaksh 13y ago
Why would that sound silly? One example is European/US colonization and related efforts in recent times. Foreigners taking over your country is something you _should_ be worried about if you are paying any attention to history. The wealth differential in countries like the US, would be a huge advantage for foreigners to take over business markets if it weren't for laws like that.

j1z0 13y ago

Look I'm American who has been living in SE Asia (mostly Malaysia) for the past 10 years. I've spent lots of time and worked in lots of countries here including Vietnam, Thailand, Philipines, Singapore, India and obviously Malaysia. In Asia a work visa is intended for foreigners working for locally incorporated companies. Regardless of what it says on the websites, if you have a tourist visa you are free to startup / bootstrap your new enterprise. If your coding up a new website, hosting it on Amazon and serving customers over the internet your not really doing business and the country your living and honestly no body cares. It's cool. If you want to start selling to locals, offering consultancy services to locals then yes you should probably get a visa. But of course you don't need the visa until you are actually doing that. People who quote websites stating "facts" about visa's in SE Asia obviously don't know how the law works in SE Asia. In SE Asia the law is a guideline and your clout / how you treat people is much more important than the words written on the page, when it comes to the courts and the interpretation of the law. So if you want to bootstrap in Asia, chillax and just do it. If your too worried about it, your probably won't adjust well anyways.

pieterhg 13y ago
This is exactly my experience worded better than I could have.
1gor 13y ago
j1z0 So, out of the countries you mentioned, where one could engineer the best bootstrapping lifestyle? Why have you chosen Malaysia?
hackerboos 13y ago
Somebody who throws Singapore in with a list of other South-East Asian countries and goes on to state that laws are just a guideline clearly has no idea what they are talking about. I can only speak for Thailand and Singapore and both are stringent on enforcement when it comes to visas. I've never heard of anyone walking away with a slap on the wrist or being able to bribe their way out of a situation with regards to visas. In one of my first replies I said that if you are working alone and out of sight then yes you will probably get away with working in any of those countries. My whole point though is that it's irresponsible to promote breaking the law here on HN and especially foreign laws at that.

math 13y ago

I live in Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and over the last few years have seen many expats move from Thailand to here due to the relative visa situation (very difficult in Thiland, very easy in Cambodia). Cost of living here is about the same as Thailand. The number of decent places catering for westerners has increased dramatically over the last few years. Local people are very friendly. I reckon Phnom Penh an awesome place to live.

nikster 13y ago

Been in Thailand 10 years - honestly most Thais don't care one bit about the letter of the law. A banal example might be that unless there's a helmet check stop, you can drive by any policeman without a helmet on - nobody cares. The work permit situation is not that clear either - there are different interpretations depending on who you ask. If you are here, but your income is entirely in another country, it's legal according to officials - the law just was not made for that situation. The law is to prevent foreigners from working illegally in Thailand - if the foreigner basically "brings their own job" to Thailand it's a different story. Who can prove what you're doing on your computer? Will they ask the NSA and the IRS for assistance to uncover the company you're building? And if not, how could they tell whether you're not a trust fund kid playing Counter Strike all day long? Once you start hiring people here, you'll need legal assistance, but even that is relatively straightforward. I know many with BOI companies here, with 100% foreign ownership.