Thinking of coming to work in Thailand? Do a criminal background check first!

I'll start this out by saying that I think it is a bad idea to even consider working long-term in Thailand especially if you have the opportunity to have a career of some sort back in your home country. The working conditions here are generally quite bad, the wages are not good, and the constant changes in visa regulations are borderline insane.

That being said I am glad that I did it but I do have an exit strategy so that I don't waste too much of my youth and potential earning in the pursuit of a never-ending vacation.

But I've spoken about that a great deal in the past. Now instead I am going to talk to you about a new regulation that I only recently became aware of that is potentially a huge problem for people who do what I did and just rock up to Thailand thinking that they might look for some work if they like it.

In order to get legal jobs here, the kind that you get a work-permit and visas with are at least on paper, going to require a police background check that you have to procure yourself from your own country

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The real problem for people that are already here is that this isn't something that you would just think to be traveling with. A police background check isn't something I have ever heard of being required for visas in the past and when Thailand started making this requirement it seemed like an arbitrary decision just like a lot of their decisions.

I feel as though Thailand's Immigration department feels some sort of obligation to require more and more paperwork from people every year that passes simply for the sake of feeling as though they are doing their jobs.

There is no standard form or report that Immigration is going to accept and they are extremely vague about what this document actually is. I arrived before this regulation went into place so thankfully I, and everyone else, are grandfathered in to the old rules and do not have to get one - which makes about as much sense as requiring people to get one.

To make matters even more stupid, they want you to get it from your local police station, which if you are like me, you likely have never even been to and have no relationship with.

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The advice I am going to give you now is not the official word because there is no official word and nobody who is requesting this information really has any idea what they are looking for when you bring it to them. Like I said, it is an arbitrary decision that I guess is meant to weed out people that actually do have a criminal record.

From multiple people I have spoken to from both Europe and USA they simply went into their local police department and asked for a criminal background check on themselves. Both of the people I have in mind said that this simply consisted of getting their fingerprints scanned and coming back the next day. They provided all of these people with a background check and they didn't even have to pay for it.

Here is the really important bit. The people I spoke to said that it is important, for some stupid-ass reason that the record be sealed in an envelope with a seal on it or some sort of stamp. This is meant to prevent any sort of tampering but it is just, once again, a completely arbitrary decision by some hapless politician. To me it all seems really silly since there are likely tens of thousands of police stations in the world and I would imagine all of them have different printing systems. I've been told that as long as the record is sealed that it will be accepted.

I'm just trying to save people some trouble because due to privacy laws in the United States, they will no mail it to you - you must prove your identity in person.

I don't believe that this document will actually be truthfully looked at by anyone but it is just a document that for reputable jobs that there is a very good chance you are going to need to get the job. It would probably be helpful if you don't actually have a criminal record as well.