Settling on a retirement visa answers how to stay in Thailand once you’re 50 or over and not working. This article is the branch for a buyer who wants to work or run a business instead — a different stay basis, a different set of rules, and a much sharper line around what a Thai company may and may not do. Owning property changes none of it.
Does owning property in Thailand let you work here?
No. Property ownership and visa eligibility are separate legal tests, and none of the routes that let a foreigner buy a condo, lease a villa, or hold shares in a landholding company also grant the right to work. That right comes from a distinct combination of visa and work permit, chosen for what you’ll actually do in Thailand, not from anything on your title deed.
What visa and work permit do you need to work in Thailand?
It depends on whether your income is foreign-source or Thai-source. A Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) holder can work for a foreign employer or freelance for foreign clients without a Thai work permit, because the DTV’s work allowance is built entirely around foreign-source income; it does not extend to a Thai employer or a Thai-registered business. An LTR Work-from-Thailand Professional needs no work permit either, for the same foreign-employer reason, while other LTR categories can draw an optional digital work permit — see Thailand LTR visa and property — qualifying with a USD 500k investment for the category breakdown and fees. Anyone working for a Thai company, or operating one, needs the standard route: a Non-Immigrant B visa plus a work permit from the Department of Employment.
How do you get a work permit for a Thai company?
You apply through the Department of Employment’s e-WorkPermit system, launched nationwide in October 2025, which handles application, status tracking, and issuance online before you collect the physical permit at a service center. Two thresholds gate a standard, non-promoted company’s ability to sponsor one: registered capital of THB 2 million per foreign work-permit holder, and four Thai employees per foreigner (halved to THB 1 million and two Thai staff if the foreign worker is married to a Thai national). A BOI-promoted company can be exempt from both — see Board of Investment (BOI) promotion and Thai property — what foreign owners actually get for what BOI promotion does and does not cover. These are administrative benchmarks the Department of Employment applies when assessing an application, not a fixed statutory number frozen in the underlying Act, so confirm the current figures directly with the Department before committing capital to a structure built around them.
What can’t a foreign-run company do under the Foreign Business Act?
The Foreign Business Act sorts business activities into three restriction lists and requires a Foreign Business License before a foreign-majority company may operate in most of them. Foreign Business Act of Thailand and how it affects property buyers carries the full List 1–3 breakdown and the licensing mechanics; the short version relevant here is that a foreign-majority company faces real limits on ordinary retail, services, and professional activities that a Thai-majority company with genuine Thai shareholders does not. Structuring the company as Thai-majority to stay outside those restrictions is legitimate — using Thai shareholders who hold shares only in name to disguise foreign control is not, and that’s a different, criminal problem, covered next.
Can you use a Thai company to buy your home instead of buying it personally?
No — not as a way to put yourself in control of a personal residence while Thai names sit only in the company register. Can a foreign holding company own property in Thailand? and Foreign Business Act of Thailand and how it affects property buyers both describe this as an illegal nominee arrangement under Land Code Sections 113–114, and neither treats a 51/49 shareholding split as a safe harbor: what matters is who actually supplied the capital, who receives the economic benefit, and who controls the decisions. Thai authorities tightened registration evidence and ran new investigations in Phuket and the Andaman provinces through 2026, and criminal liability — not just a registration rejection — is the exposure for a company built this way. A company you set up to run a genuine business, with real Thai investors who share in its risk and return, is a different, lawful situation; a company whose only function is to hold your villa is not, no matter how the paperwork reads.
Who does a Thai company structure actually fit?
It fits a buyer building or operating a genuine business — a hotel, a rental-management operation, a promoted manufacturing or service venture — with real Thai partners who contribute capital and share in the outcome. For a buyer whose actual goal is a personal residence or a purely foreign-income work arrangement, a Thai company might not be the right fit at all: it adds formation cost, annual audit and filing obligations, and — if built to disguise foreign control of land — the nominee risk above, without delivering any benefit a simpler route (DTV, LTR, or a registered lease and superficies) doesn’t already provide more directly. Can a foreign holding company own property in Thailand? walks through the commercial situations where a company does make sense.
What comes next in the relocation sequence?
The last piece of this series covers moving with a family — schools, dependants on your visa, and healthcare — in Moving to Thailand with family — schools, dependants, and healthcare.
