Long story short. I imported a pallet by air from Europe. Shipping part went smoothly. I contacted a customs agent prior to shipping the goods, consulted on the paperwork front, checked the products to see if needed any type of license (TISI FDA), all clear. Shipment arrived, flawless paperwork, everything just perfect.
On the day customs broker went to clear the cargo customs officer started to delay delay and delay signing off on the cargo. My customs clearing agent arrived there at 10am and was there negociating the release until 10:30PM. By delaying customs officers were trying already to get paid to speed up the process. My customs clearing agent declined to pay any bribe. At 9pm customs officer told him the shipping costs of my cargo were too cheap. Demands about 10,000 baht because he says the shipping cost was too low. Only problem was he demanded the 10,000 baht for himself, not for Thai goverment.
Thai customs is just a front for racketeering enterprise. the customs officers do whatever the fuck they want.

The Thai import duties were not that bad, about the same as importing into Europe. The process was very easy but the main issue is the thugs from the customs department.

They will hold your cargo hostage and demand money to release it, even if the cargo is 100% legal and all paperwork in order.
At the end we paid 2k baht. Not sure I would do this again as it was too stressful.

Hi everyone, I’ve been a lurker here for a while. I co-own a few small ice cream shops in Bangkok and currently operate 3 locations: Central World, One Bangkok, and Siam Paragon.

We started back in 2021 doing home delivery during COVID, and since then we’ve created over 60 different flavors. Happy to answer any questions about running the business — AMA!

Also, feel free to share any flavors you’d love to see 👀🍦

There are two news articles that talk about this.  It's rather complicated so I'll summarize the articles into one timeline...

Sources:

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/british-expats-1-5-million-thai-dream-ends-in-jail-nightmare

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14842415/life-savings-dream-retirement-abroad-homeless-corrupt-police.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-savage-7b6b2625/?originalSubdomain=th

Timeline:

• British expat named Martin Savage married a local Thai woman named Sudarat after meeting her in Phuket in 1999.  
• The couple returned to Northern Ireland to live where the couple ran successful restaurants.  Martin also had a lucrative career as an engineer.
• In mid 2000s, the couple decided to retire in Thailand.
• The couple bought a luxury home in Ubon Ratchathani worth £250k and a 40-room apartment complex in Pattaya worth £1.2 million for rental income.  For American Redditors, this is $2 million US dollars worth of properties.  
• They're living LARGE, making shitload of money.  At peak, the couple was pulling in £38k per year from rental income.
• In 2010, the couple got into a legal dispute with a neighbor over a driveway near his home.
• Because the couple had all money locked up in equity, they didn't have money for legal fees. 
• To pay for those legal fees, the wife stupidly and WITHOUT her husband's knowledge borrowed £34k from a moneylender under shady (though legal) terms.  
• Because Thai laws forbid foreign ownership of property, the wife can legally put up the couple's property as loan collateral without her husband's consent or knowledge.  As far as Thai laws are concerned, she's the property's sole owner.
• Sometime after 2010, the moneylender secretly sold the couple's apartment complex under terms of the loan contract.
• The couple didn't know about the sale until 2017 when five cops plus the moneylender's associate confronted Martin at the apartment complex.  The cops arrested Martin for squatting.  
• Martin wondered "how can I squat on my own property?" not knowing the apartment complex already belonged to someone else.
• Brought that day to the police station, Martin claimed the cops pressured him to sign documents.  Since the documents were all in Thai, he refused to sign.  That's when the couple was detained.  
• Since it was Friday afternoon, the couple was stuck in detention until Monday as the British embassy was already closed for the weekend.
• Three days later, a court sentenced the couple to three months in Nong Plalai Prison where they shared a small cell with 74 other men.  Martin said (then at age 57) the living condition exacerbated his asthma condition.
• After a week of imprisonment, the British embassy intervened and got him released.
• Returning to their home in Ubon Ratchathani, the couple discovered another nasty surprise: their luxury home also belonged to someone else.  The couple was effectively homeless.
• It took five years of legal research before Martin found out the home was sold back in 2014 by an associate of the shady moneylender.
• In 2023, the couple sued the moneylender.  Despite the moneylender not showing up in court, the court ruled in favor of the moneylender.  The court said there wasn't any dishonesty.  Apparently, it was all permitted under the terms of the loan.
• Today, the couple is almost broke.  Martin (now aged 65) only gets £100 per month from a pension and his wife (now aged 66) does some real estate brokering on the side.  They're renting a modest apartment at £250 per month.
• He asked the UK government to help him but was turned down saying this is a civil matter.
• Martin Savage's public LinkedIn page currently says he's looking for job opportunities in Northern Ireland. Apparently, he's looking to leave Thailand.

The bottom line is this.  Nobody should be stupid enough to buy a crapload of properties in a country where he doesn't have legal rights.  The wife isn't a scammer but was incredibly naive not to consult her husband or an attorney before signing a loan document.  It’s shocking this guy trusted his large life savings to his wife, effectively transferring his entire estate to her, while knowing she’s naive and too trusting.  

Just as dumb is her going to a shady moneylender.  With £1.5 million of equity, they could've gone to a traditional bank to get a measly £34k loan.

This makes me wonder if Martin’s lying and had indeed known about the wife’s loan all along.  Because how can the wife suddenly get £38k?  

I think Martin wanted a quick loan and didn’t want to go to a traditional bank with their long and complicated paperwork which might require yet more legal fees.  Perhaps he feared the bank, while doing their due diligence, would discover the couple had done something shady.

The terms of the loan was likely very favorable to the moneylender, offered the lender ability to foreclose whether or not the loan was being repaid.

With a nest egg of £1.5 million, he needn't get greedy.  He could've lived BIG for the rest of his life in Thailand.  They have no children, nobody to inherent his money. How much do you really freaking need??  This is really an example of being blinded by greed.

** Edit: Per the Daily Mail article, he made £38k annual rental income, not £38k monthly. I corrected my original post.

** Edit 2: I found Martin Savage's LinkedIn page, added this in the Sources section.

The baht is expected to weaken to 34-35 to the US dollar if the Middle East conflict drags on for two months, pushing oil prices above UScopy00 per barrel, according to Kasikorn Research Center (K-Research).

K-Research views a prolonged two-month conflict as the most likely scenario. Under this outlook, global crude oil prices would rise beyond copy00 per barrel, putting downward pressure on the baht and increasing currency volatility, said Burin Adulwattana, the centre's chief economist.

read more

Before the covid, I liked it so much Amphawa floating market, there it was so difficult to walk on the market because so many people and a huge dynamic vibe :-). Yesterday evening, friday (opening day of the market), only a maximum of 20 % of the shop were opened and nobody (fews 50 peoples and sad vibe) it's look like a really dying system with no end (ghosty market). Is it one demonstration of the representation of Thailand that was one of 5 tiger at 1990 and a sick man of Asia at 2026 ? Or an other problem ?

How do they make a profit collecting only a baht measuring someone's weight? Is this subsidized by the government?

Hey everyone,

We’re planning to move to a small village in Isaan (very rural, typical setup: already has 7-Eleven, a few grocery shops, two small markets for food, some little resorts renting houses/bungalows). I work remotely (dev job), so money isn’t a big issue, but my girlfriend doesn’t want to just sit at home and get bored. She wants to do something small and fun.

Goal: something stable that brings in maybe 15–20k THB/month net (that’s plenty for us), low stress, can be run mostly by her (or us together sometimes).

Her idea: a small cozy coffee shop / cafe (like those trendy ones with good coffee, smoothies, maybe some simple Isaan snacks or desserts).

My idea: a tiny gym / fitness spot – but I doubt it makes sense in a village where most people do farm work and aren’t into weights/cardio.

What are realistic / popular small business ideas that actually work in these kinds of small Isaan villages in 2025/2026? Things like:

• Laundry service (self-service or with pickup)?

• Something food-related but not competing with existing shops (e.g. homemade desserts, grilled stuff to go)?

• Repair shop (phones, motorbikes)?

• Selling something niche (organic veggies, handicrafts online, etc.)?

• Other low-investment ideas locals or farang partners do successfully?

Any real stories or examples from rural Isaan? What succeeds and what flops? (Especially if there’s already basic convenience stores around.)

Thanks for any honest input – much appreciated! 🙏

Planning to open a new restaurant and the team wants to go without English in our menu to make it more "authentic".

Would having no English at all in the menu be a deal breaker for you?

IDK what do you think because the average salary in my country vietnam is around 5000 to 12000 baht a month in hanoi its a bit higher then that I don't know about you guys

The inspiration for this article comes from the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) World Economic Outlook (WEO) report for the month of October.

My GF works at a cafe and she is a Thai national. If she is late by 1 minute they deduct 300 baht even though her monthly salary (6 days a week) is around 14,000 baht. Nothing is in her contract about this and she says they (the cafe) deduct this through the 1-2000 baht commission per month they receive.

Right now, there must be thousands of farang run businesses who are looking for genuine Thai investors to take a 51% stake in their bar, restaurant, guest house, resort.

How could a business structure itself to be a lifeline to those businesses, and also profitable?

is this already happening?

Say you set up an investment business (or one per investment) that is financed legitimately 49% Farang money and 51% Thai Money, that then takes a 51% stake in the Farang guesthouse, and the guest house then pays a dividend equal to a decent return (bank interest plus some profit), which is distributed to the shareholders of the investment company.

Would that arrangement be legal? A decent investment for Thai investors to take on?

For now the country seems it is highly depending on tourism, agriculture and oem manufacturing. What's from BKK white colars perspective the vision of Thailand like. Would it overcome mid income trap in any near future?

https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2025/02/13/thailand-waits-on-new-trump-retaliatory-trade-tariffs-to-be-launched-within-hours-from-the-white-house/

Looks like reciprical tariffs will be placed on Thailand within 30 days. This means that Thailand will now pay the same effective tariffs that they charge the U.S. Here are some major Thai exports to the United States that will be effected:

Cars & Car Parts - Currently 2.5%. New Rate up to 400%

Food items - Currently 2.5%. New Rate up to 50%

Electronics - Currently 0%. New Rate up to 30%

Either Thailand is going to have to drop all or most of their tariffs, or their economy is going to get nuked next month.

Thailand has some of the highest tariffs on US products in the world. Good for Thai people and expats who pay inflated prices for many goods. Bad for Thai oligarchs. Thoughts?

I also think this is doubly bad since China has just been hit with more tariffs, which means they will be looking to dump product all over SEA. This is very bad for Thai industry.

Apparantly India and Thailand will be the two countries that get hit the worst.

Thailand marketing is on another level. Is there a Reddit or Discord sub that discusses this?

I worked in marketing in particular direct marketing (infomercials) in North America and I can’t get over the claims and packaging I see everywhere.

Antibacterial soap that’s 99.9%. Of what?

Vitamin drink that’s 3x. Based on what?

100% of something that’s not 100% something.

I see claims like this on all Thai packaging. I had to back up any claim in North America.

Where can I chat about this? Sub or in person.

Hi everyone! I’m an attorney based in Thailand.

If you’re curious about what it’s like to practice law in Thailand or how foreign investors can navigate Thai regulations — ask me anything!

This is mostly just me shaking my head in wonder... How does Siam Legal stay in business? I needed to reference something from the immigration website this morning and discovered thaiembassy.com is just a spoof website for these guys to lure in customers. Who would trust a business that operates like that? They aren't just camping on the url- they are intentionally leading you to believe you are on the government website- is there fine print? Sure. Should we need to verify and question this sort of thing? No.

My family and a lot of small restaurants I know still track money in a paper notebook (a "บัญชี"). Most owners genuinely don't know if they made money this month until it's too late, and nobody opens Excel at 11pm after closing.

So I built a small app to test an idea: you photograph a receipt, AI reads and categorizes the line items, and it keeps price history per ingredient — if pork jumps 15%, you see it before it eats your margin. You can also just ask it "what did I spend on ingredients this month" in Thai or English.

It's free (I'm not trying to sell anything here) — I mostly want to know if this is a real problem worth solving or if owners are fine with the notebook.

If you run or help at a small restaurant/shop:

- How do you track income vs expenses today — notebook, Excel, POS, nothing?

- Would scan-a-receipt-and-it's-logged actually save you time, or is trust the bigger issue?

Honest answers welcome, including "I'd never use this." I'll drop a link in the comments if people ask, so this stays a question and not an ad.