Student Visa and Study Thai Language

Cano Manuel wrote:

1. What is the best Thai language school in Bangkok? How much is the fee? Do they help arrange to get a student visa? How much does a student visa usually cost?
2. If I get a student visa, am I allowed to work part time?
3. Can I get a driving license and own a condo unit with a student visa?
4. How long is the validity of a student visa?

That is a lot of questions, you need to do some search on internet, there was a crackdown about these schools and some have been closed as they were used like a manufacturing of student visa and now it is more difficult to get this type of visa and even if the school will support all documentations to get the visa, keep in mind that that when it will come to extension few months later it will be at the discretion of immigration officer, and the school will not refund your money.

1) you need to search on internet - Yes they must provide documentations to get student visa ( visa must be obtained outside Thailand, just go on Thailand embassy website of most of border countried to check the latest price and documentations needed )

2) No - you will need a B visa and a work permit

3) Yes, even on tourist visa, but you will need a bank account first, and to buy condominium all your money must come from abroad and get a FET ( Foreign Exchange Transaction ) from your bank

4) normally 3 months

You can get some more information on Thailand Embassy in Vietnam ( or lao, or cambodia, etc... ) : http://www.thaiembassy.org/hochiminh/en … ED%22.html

The ED visa is one of the most abused and getting stricter to get one. The school needs to supply evidence that you are going to school and Immigration is well aware of all the tricks people play to get an ED.

Work - forget it.

All Government officers now appear to be playing by the rules and if they dont they will loose their jobs

You can do a years course for 15000b. They will arrange the visas for you. You can own a place. Im not sure but i think if you buy a place that entitles you a visa to stay.

buying a place guarantees nothing, it does not have anything to do with getting a visa.

UTL school is good for learning Thai quickly. The fee is 7000 baht for each monthly course. You choose the time. Often it's 3 hrs in the morning. This will get you a ed visa. You can work part time legally but probably will be casual and under the table.
You can get a drivers liscense, buy a vehicle, rent a condo while In possession of a visa.
Visa is good for less than a year. And you have to extend it every 2 months.
A good school will teach you Thai and then you can accomplish you very important mission. (By the way a very important mission requires doing your homework. Otherwise it's not important.)

please show me where in Thai law you can work on an ED visa?

Well on the tourist visa is it explicit but on the Ed it's implicit.  You should know everything in Thai is flexible.
I have worked for a government school part time. I understand this was legally permitted. It was not full time.
Show me where it says otherwise.  And I have been to 5 Thai embassies and each behaves according to its own ideas of what they should be doing. There is not much uniformity there.

You cannot legally work on an ED Visa.

If you are caught you will pay a fine and possibly deported.

http://www.thaiembassy.com/thailand/wor … -rules.php

This link does clearly state that in order to work in Thailand you need a non-immigrant visa. (It's a business link for a visa service.)
I read that you can lose your ED visa if you are caught working. But, I think this hard to prove but maybe it's bad advice on my part. 

The rules seem to be changing all the time in Thailand and that makes it confusing. However, I was referring to part-time/consulting work and I think this may allow for some flexibility in the law.  That said, it is far from an ideal situation to be here without a work permit.

My argument is since the ED visa does not explicitly prohibit work its not clear; whereas the tourist visa explicitly does prohibit work. This is the grey area I speak of. There may be no legal restrictions from working accept maybe for the tourist and retirement visas? So yes, you are technically correct. But, I know Thailand passes many laws and hardly follows any of them. To understand why this is, requires understanding Thai culture.
My interests deal a lot with looking into the corruption and exploitation of migrant workers here in thailand. I am not very familiar with Farang issues per sae, but from my experience, Thai culture does not adhere to a manichaean philosophy of absolutes.
To be 100% safe it is necessary to follow your advice. For me, I see the world as grey and that is 100% true in Thailand.

without being banned from this site my work has a lot to do with Immigration, the Labour Department, Embassies and several other Government agencies and I can categorically state that the interim Government is very clear on cleaning up Thailand. People working, overstays, criminals - their slogan is good guys in bad guys out.

So if you want to risk being deported and fined and blacklisted then dont play by the rules.

Good luck

@blackjack2010

Please advertise your services in the business directory found under 'handy tools' at the top of this page.

If you were serious about going to a Thai language school you would have done your research before coming here. Do not expect others to do your work for you. We cannot post the names of schools here.

I see that you make a lot of posts on a lot of websites. Spend that time researching schools.

A foreigner cannot own land or housing in Thailand. A Thai corporation 51% Thai owned will allow you to buy a condo.

Hello everyone > i just want to inform you that we have some contacts for Language school in the language institutions in Thailand business directory.

Thank you.