Representative office Service in Bangkok, Thailand

Foreign business ventures can mark their presence in Thailand under special provision by Thailand law without being an entity majority owned by Thai natural person or an entity. A representative of foreign company can be established with reference to Foreign Business act 1999 of Thailand.

As prescribed by Foreign Business Operation committee, a representative office should have following salient features:

1. Should be a jurist person established under foreign country’s law and established an office in Thailand in order to render service to the parent company or affiliated company or group of company in foreign country only.
2. Renders service to head office or the affiliated company or group of company not receiving a single baht as an income except for the transfer of funds by head office to meet its operation cost or expenses.
3. The representative office has no authority to receive purchase orders or to offer sales or to negotiate on business dealing with any person or an entity.

What can you do as a representative office in Thailand

Scope of activity for the representative office is restricted to any or all of the following service activities depending up on the objective and characteristics of the representative office

1. To engage in finding the source of purchase or hiring of goods and services in Thailand for head office
2. To engage in monitoring and control of quality and quantity of goods and service purchased or hired for manufacturing in Thailand by its head office
3. To engage in counseling with regards to multiple aspects on the goods and services sold or rendered to agents or consumers in Thailand.
4. To engage in propagation of information concerning new goods or services of the head office
5. To engage in scope of business development in Thailand.

Capital 

There must be a minimum capital to be remitted to representative office from it head office abroad after granted permission to operated. The remittance of the capital amount has to be done as stipulated by law in order the meet operational cost such as rent and wages.

Representative office can facilitate the application of visa and work permit of the foreign director or staffs.
Since a Representative office do not indulge in income generating activity it does not has to register in VAT system. However, a Representative office should apply for corporate tax ID and should submit income tax returns and annual audit even if Nil.

Employees of Representative office regardless of the nationality should obtain person income tax ID and pay personal income tax.