How we research
Thailand is unusually badly served by the English-language internet: outdated visa figures, affiliate pages dressed as advice, and forum folklore repeated until it reads as fact. This page explains exactly how we work, so you can judge whether to trust what we publish.
Where the numbers come from
Every fee, income threshold, deadline and document requirement on this site is taken from a primary source: a Thai government website, a Royal Thai Embassy or consulate notice, a Royal Gazette publication, or an official fee schedule. Each guide lists the specific sources it relies on at the foot of the page, with the date we last checked them.
Where a primary source does not exist — for market rents, restaurant prices, typical utility bills — we use current listings and published market data, and we say which. We do not use crowd-sourced averages as though they were facts.
How often we re-check
Thai immigration and tax rules change, sometimes at short notice and sometimes without an English-language announcement. Visa and tax guides are re-verified against their primary sources on a rolling 90-day cycle, and immediately whenever we become aware of a change. Cost data is reviewed twice a year.
Every page shows the date it was last updated, and how long ago that was in plain words. A guide that hides its age is hiding something. If a page looks stale to you, it probably is — tell us and we will prioritise it.
What we do when we are not sure
Thai bureaucracy is not uniform. The same application can be accepted in one provincial immigration office and refused in another, and consular requirements differ between embassies. Most sites paper over this because a clean answer converts better. We do not.
Where practice varies, we say so and describe the variation. Where we cannot verify a figure, we omit it or give a range and flag it, rather than publishing a confident number that falls apart at the counter. This will occasionally make our guides less satisfying to read. It also makes them correct.
How we use AI
The Ask ThailandHQ answer box is retrieval-grounded: it can only draw on guides we have published and researched, it cites the pages it used, and it is instructed to refuse rather than reach beyond them. It is a faster way to navigate our own research, not a replacement for it.
We do not publish machine-generated articles. Every guide on this site is researched against primary sources and edited before publication. Where AI helps with drafting or structure, a human verifies every factual claim against its source before it goes live.
How the news section works
We aggregate headlines and short extracts from Thai and English-language outlets, and link straight through to the publisher. We do not republish other people's articles, and we do not present their reporting as ours. Where a story relates to something we cover in depth, we link our guide alongside it.
How we make money
Some links on this site earn us a commission — insurance, visa services, coworking, booking. Where that is the case, it is labelled on the page. Commission never determines what we recommend, what we cover, or the order things appear in. Nothing on this site can be bought.
Sponsored content, when it exists, is clearly marked as such and is never presented as editorial. If you ever find a page where that is not obvious, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to fix it quickly. Send the page URL and what is incorrect — ideally with a source — and we will correct it and update the page's revision date. Substantive corrections are noted on the page itself rather than quietly edited away.
What this site is not
Nothing here is legal, tax, immigration or medical advice, and reading it does not create any professional relationship. Thai law is applied by Thai officials, and the consequences of getting a visa or tax position wrong fall on you, not on us. For anything binding, confirm with the relevant Thai authority or a qualified professional. We will tell you on the page when we think that is warranted.