Working in Thailand: The Non-B Visa and Work Permit, Step by Step

Checked as of October 2026. Exchange rate: ฿33.5 = $1. Thresholds are from Bangkok Immigration's extension page and the salary annex to Immigration Bureau Order 242/2566. Anything that comes only from law firms or agencies is labelled.

On a Thai job, your job is your visa.

The Non-B visa, the work permit and the one-year extension are three separate documents. All three hang on one employer. That employer files the first approval, sponsors the permit and gets checked again every year when you renew.

Lose the job and the permit is cancelled. The extension goes with it. There's no transfer to a new company, and no official 30-day window to find one. The clock starts.

That's the trade. In return you get a legal right to work here, Thai Social Security and a hospital card. You pay Thai tax from your first payslip.

This guide is for people hired by a Thai company, or moving to Bangkok on a local contract. If you're paid from abroad by a foreign employer or your own clients, you're probably looking at a different visa: the DTV or the LTR. Not sure which? Start with which Thai visa fits you.

The short version

Step	Who files	What you get	Cost
1. WP3 approval	Your employer, at the Department of Employment	Permission to hire you	—
2. Non-B visa	You, at a Thai embassy or thaievisa.go.th	Up to 90 days in Thailand	฿2,000 single / ฿5,000 multiple on the Foreign Ministry's page. Embassies charge local currency
3. Work permit	Your employer, online through e-WorkPermit	The legal right to do this job, for this company	฿750–3,000 plus ฿100 (agency-cited)
4. 1-year extension	You, at Immigration, with company documents	Up to a year, renewed yearly	฿1,900 (about $57)

Before you sign, ask one question: does this company have ฿2 million paid up and four Thai staff for every foreigner? If not, ask how it plans to sponsor you.

The path, step by step

1. The employer gets approval (WP3)

It starts on the employer's side. After the offer, the company applies to the Department of Employment, part of the Ministry of Labour, for a letter of approval on Form WP3. You don't file this. You wait for it.

2. You get the Non-B visa

With the WP3 approval in hand, you apply for a Non-Immigrant B visa at a Thai embassy or online at thaievisa.go.th. From the Foreign Ministry's page:

Passport with 6+ months left, and a photo
The WP3 approval
The company's documents: registration, shareholder list, tax statements
Funds of ฿20,000 per person, ฿40,000 per family

The Non-B gives you a stay of up to 90 days. That's your window to get the work permit and the extension.

Already in Thailand on another visa? Staff of BOI-promoted companies can change visa class at the BOI's One Stop Service. For everyone else, we couldn't confirm that an in-country conversion works. The standard route is a Thai embassy abroad. Ask your employer whether a conversion is possible in your case.

3. The work permit, now online

Since 13 October 2025, work permits go through the Ministry of Labour's e-WorkPermit system (eworkpermit.doe.go.th). It runs 24 hours, with biometric ID checks at service centres. Your employer drives the application. You show up for the biometrics.

Law firms report that paper filing was allowed alongside it until 28 July 2026, then closed. We didn't find that date on an official page. Either way, plan on online.

No official processing time is published. Don't let anyone promise you a date.

4. The one-year extension

Inside the 90 days, you apply at Immigration for an extension "based on business necessity." In Bangkok that's Chaeng Wattana, Building B. Working categories can also use e-Extension. Each grant is for no more than one year. The fee is ฿1,900.

Most of the documents are the company's, not yours:

TM.7 form, your passport and your work permit
An employment certificate
Company registration and shareholder list
Audited financial statements
3 months of withholding-tax returns (PND 1) showing your tax being paid
Your personal tax return
Photos of the workplace and a map

Then the routine: 90-day reports, TM30, and a re-entry permit before any trip abroad. The visa admin cheat sheet covers all three.

What your employer needs

This is the part to check before you resign from anything. Immigration tests the company as well as you, and tests it again every year.

A standard Thai company, per foreign employee:

฿2,000,000 paid-up capital (about $59,700)
Audited accounts for the past year
4 Thai employees

Exceptions, from the same official page:

Representative, regional and branch offices are exempt from the capital and accounts test. The ratio is 1 Thai to 1 foreigner.
Targeted industries and startups need ฿1M capital (25% paid up in year 1, fully by year 4), a salary of at least ฿50,000 and a confirmation letter from the relevant agency. The ratio is 1:1 for targeted industries and waived until year 5 for startups.
BOI-promoted companies extend their foreign staff under the Investment Promotion Act, a separate route without the ฿2M / 4:1 test. Spouses and dependants are covered.
LTR Highly-Skilled Professionals get a digital work permit, and the employer is exempt from the 4:1 rule. The LTR guide.
Teachers have their own extension category, tied to a Teachers' Council licence or waiver.

The company has to be real. The criteria want a business "in actual and continuous operation": an unqualified audit, real assets, nothing in the notes that says dormant, and monthly PND 1 filings. A shell company fails.

Married to a Thai? Law firms report lower thresholds: ฿1M capital (about $29,850) and 2 Thai staff per foreigner. Several firms agree. No official page we read confirms it. Spouses also usually work on a marriage extension plus a work permit, which keeps the right to stay separate from the job. The marriage visa guide.

The salary floor

Immigration also sets a minimum monthly salary, by nationality. This is Annex A to Immigration Bureau Order 242/2566 (27 September 2023), still live in October 2026:

Nationality	Per month	≈ USD
Europe (except Russia), Australia, Canada, Japan, USA	฿50,000	$1,490
South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong	฿45,000	$1,340
Rest of Asia, South and Central America, Mexico, Eastern Europe, Russia, South Africa	฿35,000	$1,045
Africa (except South Africa), Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam	฿25,000	$745

The UK isn't named separately. It falls under Europe.

That ฿50,000 is a legal floor, not a salary benchmark. If an offer is sitting right on it, that tells you something about the role.

Jobs foreigners can't do

A Ministry of Labour notification of 1 April 2020 sets out 40 occupations in 4 lists. That's per law firms. We found no amendment since.

List 1, banned outright (27 jobs): driving (pilots and forklift operators excepted), hairdressing and beauty, Thai massage, tour guiding, street vending, brokerage (international trade and investment excepted), clerical and secretarial work, legal services, Thai handicrafts and more
List 2, only under international agreements: accounting (with exceptions), civil engineering and architecture under ASEAN agreements
List 3, skilled or semi-skilled, Thai employer only: agriculture, construction, dressmaking and others
List 4, MOU workers only: labour and shop-front sales

The law's definition of "work" is broad: "any occupation, whether or not there is an employer."

Penalties, per law firms, under the 2017 Foreign Workers decree:

You: ฿5,000–50,000 (about $150–1,490), deportation, and a 2-year bar on new permits. Working outside your permitted job counts the same as having no permit.
Your employer: ฿10,000–100,000 per worker (about $300–2,985). Repeat offences: up to ฿200,000 per worker, up to a year in prison and a 3-year hiring ban.
Late notice of a hire or termination: up to ฿20,000.
Not carrying your permit, or not producing it on request: ฿5,000.

Fees

Item	THB	≈ USD	Source
Work permit, up to 3 months	750	$22	Agencies citing the fee regulation
Work permit, 3–6 months	1,500	$45	Same
Work permit, 6–12 months	3,000	$90	Same
Work permit application	100	$3	Same
Non-B visa	2,000 single / 5,000 multiple	$60 / $149	Foreign Ministry page (2022). Embassies charge local currency
1-year extension	1,900	$57	Bangkok Immigration
Re-entry permit	1,000 single / 3,800 multiple	$30 / $113	Immigration handbook

We didn't read the work-permit fee regulation itself, or check whether e-WorkPermit charges differently. Treat those four rows as a guide.

Social Security

With a work permit, you're in Thai Social Security (Section 33) like any Thai employee. There's no nationality exemption. Per law firms, your employer registers you within 30 days of your start date.

Contributions: 5% from you, 5% from your employer, on wages up to ฿17,500 a month (about $522) from 1 January 2026. So the most you pay is ฿875 a month (about $26). That's from a Thairath report of the Royal Gazette of 12 December 2025. The cap is scheduled to rise to ฿20,000 in 2029 and ฿23,000 in 2032.
Hospital care: free treatment at your registered hospital once you've paid in for 3 months out of the last 15. You can switch hospitals once a year, roughly mid-December to the end of March, through HR.
Seven benefit types: illness and injury, maternity, disability, death, child allowance, old age and unemployment.

Two honest caveats. Unemployment benefit needs you to still be here, and a foreigner whose permit is cancelled may not be able to stay to collect it. And SSO hospitals are often crowded. Most expats keep private insurance on top. Health insurance and hospitals in Thailand covers both, and what happens to your cover when the job ends.

Tax

Pay for work done in Thailand is Thai-source income. Your employer withholds tax every month, and Immigration checks three months of those filings at extension time. Rates, allowances and what happens to foreign income: do I owe Thai tax?

Changing jobs, or losing one

A permit doesn't transfer. New job, new permit, new paperwork. The new employer applies from scratch and has to pass the capital and Thai-staff tests itself. Per law firms.

Your old employer has 15 days to notify the Department of Employment that you've left. Fine up to ฿20,000 if it doesn't.

Your extension ends with the permit. Law firms describe a practice of 7 days to leave or change your status. We didn't find an official 2026 text for it.

Don't count on a 30-day grace period. We didn't find one in any source we read. Plan the next job, or the next visa, before you hand in your notice.

Local job vs remote work

	Non-B + work permit	DTV	LTR
Who pays you	A Thai employer	Foreign employers or clients only. No Thai clients	A big foreign employer (Work-from-Thailand), or a Thai employer in a targeted industry (Highly-Skilled Professional)
How long	Tied to the job, up to 1 year at a time	5 years of 180-day stays, plus one 180-day extension per entry	10 years (5 + 5)
Cost	฿1,900 a year, plus permit fees	฿10,000 ($400 at US missions), plus ฿500,000 in funds	฿50,000 (about $1,490) in Thailand. Embassies can charge more
Thai work	That employer, that job	None	Highly-Skilled Professional only, with a digital work permit
Tax	Thai rates, withheld monthly	No tax perk	Foreign income brought in is exempt (Work-from-Thailand). 17% flat on qualifying pay (Highly-Skilled Professional)
The catch	Lose the job, lose the visa	Hard to open a bank account	High bar, and every condition holds for the life of the visa

Earning in dollars and spending in baht is its own decision. Earning in dollars, living in baht walks through it.

Common mistakes

Working outside your permit. A different job title, a different location, a different company. It's treated like having no permit.
Side gigs. A freelance project for a Thai client isn't covered by your employer's permit.
Finding out late that the employer cancelled. Or didn't renew. Your right to stay depends on HR's paperwork. Ask to see it.
A shrinking employer. Capital, Thai headcount and audited accounts are checked at every extension. If the company fails, so does your renewal.
Leaving without a re-entry permit. The extension is cancelled the moment you go.
Treating the salary floor as a market rate. ฿50,000 is about $1,490 a month. It's the minimum Immigration will accept.
Counting on a grace period. We found no 30-day one in any source.

Before you go

This is information, not legal advice. Rules change, and these were checked as of October 2026.