Last updated on August 8, 2026
The short answer. Ten changes to Thai law were widely reported as affecting foreigners in the first half of 2026. We checked each against its instrument. Four became law. Three did not become law at all, and two of those three were being reported as though they had. The gap between a cabinet resolution and a Royal Gazette publication was the most expensive thing an expat could misunderstand this year.
What this report is
A scorekeeper’s record of what changed in Thai law for foreigners, and what did not, between 1 January and 30 June 2026. Every claim is tied to a named instrument with a Royal Gazette date, or it is labelled as something weaker. Where our own earlier writing was wrong, this report says so.
The summary, the statistics and the full scorecard below are free and always will be. The per-change analysis and the practical guidance are a member benefit.
Executive summary
Four instruments changed Thai law for foreigners in the first half of 2026, and they were not the four that dominated the conversation.
The most consequential was the nominee crackdown, which stopped being a warning and became an administrative machine. DBD Order 2/2568, in force on 1 January, requires Thai shareholders in foreign-linked structures to produce three months of bank statements ending at the share subscription payment, showing a transfer that matches the amount subscribed. Order 1/2569, in force on 1 April, extended that scrutiny from new registrations to amendments: share transfers, capital increases, changes of director. Together they close the route of registering a Thai company and adding the foreigner later. And the January change was not one order but four. Alongside 2/2568 came Order 3/2568, requiring anyone listed by the Anti-Money Laundering Office who appears as a shareholder or director to attend the Registrar in person with matching bank statements and proof of rights to the registered address; Order 4/2568, published on 15 December 2025, tightening verification of a company’s registered head office address; and Order 5/2568, requiring welfare card holders named as shareholders or directors to attend in person with matching statements. The distinction that matters: 2/2568 applies only to foreign-linked structures, but 3, 4 and 5 run on every filing regardless of structure. The Department of Business Development reports 782,542 active companies, 118,016 of them with foreign investment between 0.01 and 49.99 percent, and estimates that more than 80 percent of those, roughly 94,000 companies, may involve nominee shareholding. High-risk registrations fell by about 60 percent in the first quarter against the same period in 2025. On 21 June, more than 500 officers executed 55 warrants across Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi, arrested 48 people and seized 46 rai of land worth more than 1.053 billion baht. Nationally, more than 24 billion baht in assets had been seized or frozen by June.
The second was quieter and older than anyone expected. The Ministerial Regulation on the Preparation of Wills and Declarations of Intention Concerning Inheritance B.E. 2569 was published on 22 January and came into force sixty days later, on 24 March, replacing procedural rules from 1960. District offices must now use uniform national templates for public wills, for secret wills deposited with them, and for declarations of disinheritance, revocation and renunciation. It changes procedure, not entitlement. A privately drafted will properly witnessed under section 1656 of the Civil and Commercial Code is untouched.
The third was almost entirely unreported in English. A ministerial regulation in force on 1 January raised the social security contribution ceiling from 15,000 to 17,500 baht a month, the first substantive change in about thirty years, with rises to 20,000 and 23,000 already scheduled. It applies to foreign employees exactly as it does to Thai ones.
The fourth was cannabis. A regulation published on 30 April tightened licensing for cannabis flower specifically. Existing licences survive to expiry, but renewal is reassessed against every new criterion and is barred outright for anyone previously suspended, so the operative deadline is each licensee’s own renewal date.
Against those four, three of the changes that filled forums and inboxes did not happen.
The visa-exempt stay was not cut. The Cabinet approved reducing it from 60 days to 30 for roughly 93 countries on 19 May, and the change was reported as though it had taken effect. It takes effect fifteen days after publication in the Royal Gazette, and the required Ministry of Interior announcements had not been published by the end of the period, or by the time this report was written. Sixty days applied throughout.
The foreign income remittance relief was not enacted. A decree exempting income remitted in the year earned or the following year remains a draft requiring Cabinet approval, Council of State review and Gazette publication. Throughout the period the rules that applied were the ones introduced for remittances from 1 January 2024: a tax resident, meaning 180 days or more in a calendar year, is taxable on foreign income remitted into Thailand. Anyone who moved money on the strength of the draft moved it under the law as it stands.
The 99-year lease and the 75 percent condominium quota were not legislated, and no bill was even submitted. The Cabinet approved a study in April 2024. The 49 percent quota has not moved since 1999.
One pattern connects the four real changes: every one of them works by requiring a document that proves something you previously only had to assert. Bank statements that prove the shareholder’s money was the shareholder’s. A national template that proves the will was recorded properly. A renewal file that proves the clinic condition is met. This is what enforcement looks like when a state digitises faster than it legislates, and it is why the enforcement chapter matters more than any of the proposals.
The practical consequence is narrower than the headlines and harder to ignore. If your position in Thailand rests on a structure, a stay pattern or a tax assumption that has never been evidenced on paper, the first half of 2026 is when that stopped being safe. Nothing in the three non-events changes that, and waiting for them is not a plan.
What thirty years of Supreme Court decisions show
We hold 84,575 Supreme Court decisions. Reading across them, the clearest long-run signal is not about volume, it is about where the fight over foreign-held property is happening.
Condominium disputes rose roughly two and a half times in the Supreme Court’s published reasoning while land disputes fell by about a fifth. Both series are indexed so they can share one axis, and both are normalised by volume of judicial text, because decisions have grown about 22 percent longer over the period and a raw count would mistake that for litigation.
| Buddhist year | Land | Condominium |
|---|---|---|
| 2541 | 114 | 86 |
| 2544 | 76 | 132 |
| 2547 | 76 | 49 |
| 2550 | 84 | 119 |
| 2553 | 84 | 251 |
| 2556 | 56 | 139 |
| 2559 | 70 | 213 |
| 2562 | 80 | 362 |
| 2565 | 70 | 453 |
| 2568 | 77 | 263 |
Two more series move on both measures we use: divorce rose 81 percent as a share of decisions and 106 percent per million characters of judicial text, and marriage rose 48 and 54 percent. Two do not, and we are publishing that too. Wills show no measurable change in thirty years: one measure says plus 11 percent, the other says minus 11 percent, so the honest answer is that judicial attention to wills has not moved. Usufruct appears in 25 decisions across 29 years, which is either evidence that the instrument works or evidence that disputes end long before the Supreme Court, and we do not think the data can tell you which.
The Impact Scorecard
Each change scored 1 to 5 against five reader profiles. The score is severity, breadth and permanence together: what happens if you do nothing, how many of that group are caught, and how settled it is. Anything not yet published in the Royal Gazette scores 1, whatever the headlines said. That rule costs this report three of its own chapters, which is the point of having it.
| Change | Retiree | Property owner | Business owner | Family | Worker or nomad | Bottom line |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominee crackdownLaw | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | The structure holding your villa is now the thing being investigated |
| Wills at district officesLaw | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | Sixty years of local improvisation replaced by one national procedure |
| Cannabis licensingLaw | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Your licence does not expire, it fails at renewal |
| Immigration enforcementPolicy | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 29,490 refused entry in five months. The pattern is what gets caught |
| Social security ceilingLaw | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | First rise in thirty years, and it applies to you as it does to Thai staff |
| Marriage equality, year oneLaw 2025 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 26,000 couples in year one, and the spouse visa is now real |
| DTV assessmentPractice | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | The rule did not change. Getting approved did |
| Visa-exempt 60 to 30 daysNot law | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Approved in May, still unpublished. The 60 days is still there |
| Foreign income remittance reliefNot law | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Remitting on the strength of a draft leaves the remittance taxable |
| 99-year leases, 75% condo quotaNot law | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | No bill has been submitted. Buy on the rules that exist |
Business owners had the hardest half-year, and it is not close. The other four profiles are separated by two points across ten rows, which is noise, so read the top of that ranking and ignore the order of the rest.
A scorecard measures how much a change matters, not whether it hurts. The remittance relief is the one entry where becoming law would be good news for the reader.
The ten changes
Two sentences each. The full analysis, and what to do about each one, is in the members section below.
Four orders commenced on 1 January, not the single bank statement rule almost everyone reported, and three of the four apply to every filing regardless of structure. Order 1/2569 then extended the scrutiny to amendments on 1 April, and on 21 June more than 500 officers executed 55 warrants across Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi and seized 46 rai of land worth over 1.053 billion baht.
The Ministerial Regulation on the Preparation of Wills and Declarations of Intention Concerning Inheritance B.E. 2569 was published in the Royal Gazette on 22 January and came into force sixty days later, on 24 March, replacing rules dating from 1960. It does not change who inherits, it changes whether the document you already made will be accepted without argument.
The contribution ceiling rose from 15,000 to 17,500 baht a month on 1 January, the first substantive move in about thirty years, with further rises to 20,000 and 23,000 already scheduled. It applies to foreign employees on exactly the same terms as Thai employees, and almost nobody writing about 2026 changes mentioned it.
A ministerial regulation published on 30 April tightened licensing for cannabis flower specifically, separating it from other controlled herbs. The trap is the transition: existing licences run to expiry, but renewal is reassessed against every new criterion, so the real deadline is each operator’s own renewal date, not April.
Between January and May the Immigration Bureau refused entry to 29,490 foreigners, revoked 668 student visas and arrested 14,161 overstayers and illegal workers, across 190 target zones. The enforcement is aimed at a pattern of repeated visa-exempt entry with no substantive status, not at any nationality.
On 19 May the Cabinet approved cutting the visa-exempt stay from 60 days to 30 for roughly 93 countries, and it was reported almost everywhere as done. The required Ministry of Interior announcements were still unpublished in the Royal Gazette in August, so the 60 days applied throughout the period and still applies.
A decree exempting foreign income remitted in the year it was earned or the year after has been drafted, but it needs Cabinet approval, Council of State review and Gazette publication, and it had none of them by 30 June. Anyone who remitted 2025 income during 2026 on the strength of it remitted under the rules that actually exist.
The 49% foreign quota has not moved since 1999. In April 2024 the Cabinet approved a study, not a change, and by mid-2026 no amendment bill had been formally submitted to parliament at all.
The Act took effect on 22 January 2025, so its first full year of data closed inside this period: more than 26,000 same-sex couples registered, about 10% of all marriage registrations, with 1,832 on the first day. For binational couples the practical change is a spouse visa route that did not exist before.
No instrument amended the DTV in this period. What changed is assessment: the 500,000 baht requirement is now commonly evidenced by three months of maintained balance rather than a single day’s screenshot, and lump sums deposited shortly before filing are reported as routinely refused.
How we checked
Every chapter carries a source tier. Tier A means the instrument is named with a Royal Gazette date and an in-force date, and can be stated as law. Tier B means official statistics attributed to a named agency and reported consistently, quoted with the agency named. Tier C means practice reported by intermediaries with no instrument behind it, which is real and decides outcomes but is not a rule. The DTV chapter is Tier C and stays labelled Tier C.
We cite instruments, not other firms’ summaries. That is partly house policy and partly practical: those summaries disagree with each other on order numbers, which is how we found that four DBD orders, not one, commenced together on 1 January.
Two things in our own earlier writing were wrong and are corrected here. Our March newsletter gave the wills regulation’s Gazette date as its effective date. Our June newsletter told readers the visa cut was “happening now, not next year”, and it was not.
Everything above stays free and always will: the summary, the statistics and the full scorecard. The members section adds the per-change analysis, what each change means for your own situation, and the data annex.
Become a Silver member (THB 1,490 a year)Already a member? Log in
When the next edition lands
This report is published twice a year, every January and July. The next edition covers 1 July to 31 December 2026 and lands in January 2027, with a full-year scorecard and the results of our reader survey. A scorekeeper is only worth reading if it shows up on schedule, so the date is on the page.
Get it when it publishes, plus the weekly legal updates in between:
Thai Law Updates, free by email
Plain-English updates on Thai law changes that affect foreigners: property, visas, marriage, business and wills. One short email a month from a firm practicing since 2006. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
About this report
Checked against 84,000+ Supreme Court decisions, Vortex database
This report is general information about Thai law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Law described here was correct as at 8 August 2026. If something in it applies to you, the sensible next step is a conversation about your own facts.