The question that decides everything
It's not "can I work from there?" — of course you can — it's "where am I a tax resident?". And that's governed by the 180-day rule: if you spend that many days or more in Thailand within the calendar year, you become taxable there. As long as you remain a tax resident of your home country, you're still on its usual income tax and social contributions, wherever you happen to be physically.
For anyone moving for real, the goal is to make that change cleanly: exit your previous tax residency properly and prove the Thai one. Skip that step and you're working remotely from Thailand but paying as if you'd never left. If you're leaving Spain, here's how to exit its tax system.
The right visa: the DTV
For this profile, the natural route is the Destination Thailand Visa: built exactly for someone working remotely for clients or companies based outside Thailand. Five years, 180-day stays, and it only requires proving around €13,000 in savings. One important nuance: the DTV is not a Thai work permit — it doesn't let you take a job with a local company — and it doesn't exempt you from tax. It's the visa; the tax side is separate.
Self-employed back home: what happens
This is where each case branches off. Three typical situations (the details below use Spain as the example, but the pattern is the same across most of Europe):
| Your case | Usual path |
|---|---|
| You move your residency and activity, clients outside your country | Deregister as self-employed (Spain's RETA), close out your old tax situation, taxed in Thailand |
| You keep a client or business presence back home | Mixed situation: part may keep being taxed there |
| You have a limited company back home (a Spanish SL, say) | The company keeps its own regime; your personal residency is a separate question |
Your home country's self-employed contributions stop making sense once you deregister and move your activity abroad; Thailand has no equivalent scheme, but it does require you to declare your income as a resident. Don't count on a social security agreement either — Spain, for example, has none with Thailand — so the saving on contributions comes with the trade-off that you have to arrange your own coverage (private health insurance included: covered in the healthcare guide).
What you'd pay there
As a Thai tax resident, the income you remit into the country falls under local income tax, in brackets from 0% to 35% with the first 150,000 ฿ exempt. For a freelancer who used to stack progressive income tax on top of social contributions — the norm across Western Europe — the difference is usually significant. The details of the brackets and the 2024 remittance rule are in the tax guide.
Where Bexpat fits in
We don't handle your bookkeeping or tell you what to invoice: we set up the move — DTV visa, flight, arrival and apartment. Not sure whether your case qualifies for the DTV? The visa quiz gives you an answer in a minute, and the calculator gives you a budget for life there.
Frequently asked questions
Can I work remotely as a freelancer?
Yes: you keep invoicing your clients from Thailand. What changes is your tax residency if you spend 180+ days there. The natural visa is the DTV, for remote work with clients outside the country.
Do I deregister as self-employed?
If you genuinely move your residency and activity, the usual step is to deregister as self-employed and close out your old tax situation (in Spain, that means leaving the RETA). If you keep clients or a business presence back home, it's a mixed case with more than one possible route.
Do I pay less?
In many cases yes: brackets from 0% to 35% versus income tax plus self-employed contributions. But it depends on how much you earn and remit, and on your country's treaty. It needs planning — it's not automatic.