The Foreign Business Act in Thailand: What Foreigners May and May Not Do

Révisé par ThaiLawOnline, un cabinet d'avocats thaïlandais agréé exerçant en Thaïlande depuis 2006. Avocate thaïlandaise en charge du dossier : Wichuda Atthamethakon, LL.M., licence du barreau thaïlandais 3149/2556.

Dernière mise à jour : 17 septembre 2026

Dispenses de licence : vérifier d’abord l’activité

Le texte officiel du règlement ministériel n° 5, B.E. 2569, publié le 28 août 2026, ajoute deux services sur titres et six autres catégories de services aux dispenses, et modifie la disposition sur les produits dérivés. Les huit ajouts concernent les prêts pour l’achat de titres ; les prises en pension de titres ; certaines télécommunications de type 1 ; les centres de trésorerie ; certains services intragroupe d’administration, de ressources humaines et d’informatique ; certaines garanties intragroupe de dettes nationales ; la location d’espaces pour des distributeurs destinés aux salariés ; et le forage pétrolier sous contrat direct répondant aux conditions prévues. La modification relative aux produits dérivés porte sur une disposition existante. La dispense de licence au titre de la loi sur les activités des étrangers ne supprime ni les autorisations sectorielles ni les restrictions applicables à une autre activité.

Pour les services intragroupe d’administration, de ressources humaines et d’informatique, ainsi que les garanties de dettes nationales, vérifier les liens exigés aux points 3(15) et 3(16). Les critères couvrent une majorité commune d’actionnaires ou d’associés en nombre ; un actionnaire ou associé détenant au moins 25 % dans chaque entité ; une entité détenant au moins 25 % dans l’autre ; ou une majorité commune d’administrateurs habilités à engager la société ou d’associés gérants. Une marque commune ou un lien informel ne suffit pas. Les hôtels, restaurants et entreprises de tourisme ne figurent pas parmi ces huit ajouts. La définition des entreprises étrangères et l’interdiction des prête-noms restent applicables.

Le Loi sur les entreprises étrangères decides which businesses a foreigner may run in Thailand, and the 2026 registration rules decide whether the company you set up will survive scrutiny. Both changed this year.

Dernière révision : 15 septembre 2026. Every section number below was read from the official English translation of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 prepared for the Department of Business Development. The registration orders were read from the Department of Business Development and Ministry of Commerce.

Ce que fait réellement la loi

The Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999) does two things. It defines who counts as a foreigner, and it lists the businesses that a foreigner may not operate without permission. Everything else in the statute follows from those two points.

Most of the trouble foreigners get into in Thailand comes from misreading the first one. The Act does not ask about your passport. It asks about the company.

Who is a “foreigner” under section 4

Section 4 defines a foreigner as any of the following:

• a natural person who is not of nationalité thaïlandaise;
• a personne morale not registered in Thailand;
• a juristic person registered in Thailand where at least one half of the capital shares are held by the two categories above, or where investment by them is at least equivalent to one half of the total capital;
• a limited partnership or registered ordinary partnership whose managing partner or manager is a non-Thai natural person;
• a juristic person registered in Thailand at least one half of whose shares are held by any of the above.

Two consequences are worth stating plainly. A Thai-registered company is a foreigner under this Act if half or more of its capital is foreign held, so the familiar 49 percent figure is not a tax rule or a convention, it is the point at which section 4 stops applying to you. And a partnership can be a foreigner purely because of who manages it, regardless of the capital split.

Section 4 also provides that shares represented by bearer share certificates are deemed held by foreigners unless a Ministerial Regulation says otherwise. If your structure relies on bearer instruments, assume they count against you.

The three Lists, under section 8

Section 8 is the operative prohibition, and it distinguishes three categories:

• List One. Businesses not permissible to foreigners at all, by special reason. There is no licence route. Newspaper and broadcasting businesses, farming of several kinds, land trading and similar activities sit here.
• List Two. Businesses affecting national safety or security, arts, culture, traditions, folk handicrafts, natural resources or the environment. A foreigner may operate these only with permission from the Minister with the approval of the Cabinet.
• List Three. Businesses in which Thai nationals are “not yet ready to compete with foreigners”. This is where most service businesses sit, including a great deal of ordinary consulting, brokerage and retail activity. Permission comes from the Directeur-General with the approval of the Commission.

Section 8 opens with the words “Subject to section 6, section 7, section 10 and section 12”, and those cross references are the whole game. They are the lawful ways around the prohibition.

Les trois voies qui rendent une entreprise réglementée légale

1. A Foreign Business Licence, under section 17

The application goes to the Minister or to the Director-General depending on the List. Section 17 sets the timetable, and it is more generous to the applicant than the practice sometimes feels:

• the Cabinet (List Two) or the Director-General (List Three) must complete consideration within sixty days of filing;
• for Cabinet consideration, that period may be extended where there is an inevitable cause, but by no more than a further sixty days;
• once approval or permission is given, the licence must be issued dans un délai de quinze jours.

Section 5 sets out what the decision is supposed to weigh: effects on national safety and security, economic and social development, public order and bonnes mœurs, national values in arts and culture, conservation, energy, the environment, consumer protection, the size of the undertaking, employment, technology transfer, and research and development. If you are preparing an application, those are the headings to answer.

2. A Foreign Business Certificate under a treaty, sections 10 and 11

Section 10 disapplies sections 5, 8, 15, 17 and 18 for foreigners operating under a treaty to which Thailand is a party. Section 11 is the mechanism: you notify the Director-General, and the certificate must be issued without delay and no later than thirty days from receipt of the written notification. If the notification does not comply, the Director-General must tell you inside the same thirty days.

The best known example is the Traité d'amitié between Thailand and the United States. It is not the only one. Section 10 is drafted for any qualifying treaty, which is why Australians reach the same certificate route under TAFTA. What the Traité d'amitié gives that others do not is the breadth of its national treatment, not exclusive access to section 10.

3. BOI promotion

A promoted company has its own provision, section 12, and not the section 11 route above: section 11 is drafted for a foreigner under section 10, which is the government-permission and treaty case. Section 12 applies where the business of a foreigner who has received investment promotion, or permission under the Industrial Patrimoine Authority law, is in List Two or List Three. The company notifies the Director-General, who issues the certificate within thirty days, and it is then exempt from this Act altogether, except sections 21, 22, 39, 40 and 42, for as long as the promotion lasts. That exemption is the substantive difference, and section 11 contains nothing like it. Note what section 12 does not cover: List One is outside it, so promotion is no route to a List One business. Within the Lists it does reach, this is what permits full foreign ownership in eligible activities. See our guide to the Conseil des investissements en Thaïlande.

Minimum capital, section 14

Section 14 sets the floor. The minimum capital a foreigner uses to start a business in Thailand must not be less than the amount prescribed by Ministerial Regulation, and in any case not less than two million baht. Where the business is one requiring permission under the Lists, the prescribed minimum must be not less than three million baht. The Ministerial Regulation may also fix the time within which that capital must be brought into Thailand.

There is a carve-out that is regularly missed: section 14 does not apply where the foreigner uses money or property derived as revenue from a business already operating in Thailand to start another business, subscribe for shares, or invest in another undertaking.

La répression des immatriculations de 2026, dans l'ordre chronologique

The Act itself did not change in 2026. What changed is how hard it is to register a company that has a foreigner anywhere near it. The Department of Business Development issued four orders and two notifications, and most published summaries carry only one or two of them.

The Department’s own Legal Office summary, dated 16 December 2568, sets out the first package:

• Order 2/2568, in force 1 January 2026. Applies to formation of a partnership or société à responsabilité limitée where a foreigner co-invests below 50 percent of capital social, and also where no foreigner is a actionnaire at all but a foreigner is a director with authority to bind the company. Each Thai partner or shareholder must file three months of bank statements showing a withdrawal or transfer matching their capital contribution.
• Order 3/2568. Applies to people connected with predicate offences or mule accounts on the Anti-Money Laundering Office list. Those partners, shareholders or directors must appear en personne before the registrar before registration is accepted, with unexpired identification.
• Order 4/2568. Applies to the registered head office address where it is shared with entities already registered there. The registrar must check the address against civil registration records every time, and the applicant must produce a consent letter and proof of the right to use the premises.
• Order 5/2568. Applies where a partner, shareholder or director holds a State Welfare Card. That person must appear in person before the registrar, with the same document set.
• Two notifications fix who may witness a signature on a registration application, namely licensed auditors, accountants registered with the Federation of Accounting Professions, the head, managing partner or director of a quality accounting office, and licensed security enforcers. Those witnesses must register and verify their identity through the DBD Biz Regist digital system.

Two further orders followed in 2026:

• Order 1/2569, issued 16 March 2026, in force 1 April 2026, and repealed on 1 August 2026 by Order 2/2569. It reached amendments that admit a foreigner as a partner, or as a director with signing power. The requirement survives: clause 4 of Order 2/2569 now requires an Lettre de confirmation d'investissement on the annexed form in those situations. A false statement to the registrar is an offence under sections 137 and 267 of the Penal Code.
• Ordonnance n° 2/2569, en vigueur depuis le 1er août 2026. À la constitution, les articles 2 et 3 de l’ordonnance DBD n° 2/2569 s’appliquent lorsque les associés ou actionnaires étrangers détiennent moins de 50 % du capital, ou lorsqu’une société n’a aucun actionnaire étranger mais possède un signataire habilité étranger. Le dossier exige la lettre explicative d’investissement, trois mois de relevés des comptes de paiement des investisseurs thaïlandais concernés et les justificatifs du compte recevant les fonds. Les modifications ultérieures visées utilisent un autre formulaire selon l’article 4 ; l’article 5 ajoute des justificatifs pour certaines modifications durant la première année. L’article 4 exige une attestation d’investissement pour les modifications visées introduisant une participation étrangère ou un signataire étranger parmi des signataires auparavant tous thaïlandais. L’article 5 ajoute une lettre explicative d’investissement et des justificatifs bancaires du capital libéré uniquement si l’entité a été constituée à compter du 1er août 2026 et si la modification concernée est déposée dans l’année suivant sa constitution. Lire l’ordonnance et les formulaires.

Read together, the practical position since 1 August 2026 is that a foreigner cannot be quietly added to an existing Thai company later. That was the ordinary workaround, and it is now the transaction the Department is looking hardest at. Our page on the Répression des candidats de 2026 covers the enforcement side, and regulatory reform for companies covers the wider reform programme.

Règlement ministériel n° 5 (2026) : huit activités de services n’ont plus besoin de licence

Le Règlement ministériel fixant les activités de services pour lesquelles les étrangers n’ont pas besoin d’autorisation (n° 5) B.E. 2569 est en vigueur. It was published in the Royal Gazette on 28 August 2026, following the Cabinet’s approval in principle on 12 May 2026. It takes eight service businesses out of the licence requirement for "other service businesses" in List Three, so a foreigner carrying on one of them no longer needs a Foreign Business Licence or a Foreign Business Certificate for that activity. The eight fall into three groups.

Groupe 1 : services réglementés par secteur (la licence sectorielle reste requise)

• Services de télécommunications de type 1, c’est-à-dire fournis sans réseau propre à l’opérateur. La licence de la NBTC reste obligatoire.
• Services de centre de trésorerie exercés selon la réglementation des changes de la Banque de Thaïlande.
• Securities-purchase lending, subject to the applicable securities-law conditions.
• Buying securities under a reverse repurchase agreement, subject to the applicable securities-law conditions. The regulation separately revises the existing derivatives exemption.

Groupe 2 : services intra-groupe uniquement

• Services de gestion administrative, des ressources humaines et informatique.
• Garanties de dettes internes.

Ces deux activités ne sont exemptées qu’entre personnes morales qui remplissent le critère de lien prévu par le règlement, fondé sur un actionnariat commun ou des administrateurs communs. Appartenir au même groupe au sens commercial large ne suffit pas : vérifiez ce critère au regard de votre propre organigramme d’actionnariat avant de vous en prévaloir.

Groupe 3 : services accessoires

• Services de forage pétrolier under a contract made directly with a petroleum concessionaire, production-sharing contractor or service contractor under petroleum law.
• Location d’espaces pour des distributeurs automatiques de billets, des bornes de services financiers ou des distributeurs automatiques au profit du personnel de l’entreprise.

Ce qui ne change pas

• La définition de l’étranger à l’article 4 et le seuil de 49 pour cent restent inchangés. Une société dont la moitié ou plus du capital est détenue par des étrangers reste un étranger.
• Les Listes un, deux et trois sont inchangées. Toute autre activité restreinte exige toujours une Foreign Business Licence, un certificat conventionnel ou une promotion BOI.
• Les licences sectorielles s’appliquent toujours intégralement (NBTC, Banque de Thaïlande, SEC, Department of Mineral Fuels).
• Le Décret royal retirant de la Liste trois le négoce de contrats à terme agricoles avec livraison physique est toujours en attente. Il requiert la sanction royale et n’était pas encore publié lors de la dernière révision de cette page.

Non couverts : hôtels, restaurants, voyagistes et écoles de langues

Après la publication du règlement, des publications en ligne ont affirmé qu’il dispensait de licence les hôtels, restaurants, voyagistes, boutiques de souvenirs, services sportifs et écoles de langues. Le 14 septembre 2026, le directeur général du Département du développement des entreprises, Poonpong Naiyanapakorn, l’a démenti publiquement : ces activités ne figurent pas du tout dans le règlement. Elles restent restreintes exactement comme avant, et les exploiter par l’intermédiaire d’un prête-nom thaïlandais demeure une infraction au titre de l’article 36.

Si votre activité fait partie des huit, vérifiez d’abord le critère de lien et la licence sectorielle, puis décidez si une demande de licence en cours reste nécessaire. Si elle n’en fait pas partie, rien ne change pour vous.

Sources : note client de Baker McKenzie (2 septembre 2026) ; The Nation (3 septembre 2026) ; The Thaiger, compte rendu du démenti du Département du développement des entreprises (14 septembre 2026).

Infractions et sanctions, et qui est réellement inculpé

The penalty sections are widely misquoted, including on Thai law websites. These are the four that matter, read from the official translation.

Section	Who commits it	Peine
Article 34	A licensed or certified foreigner who keeps operating after the licence is suspended or revoked, or after the business has been ordered to cease	Up to 3 years imprisonment, or a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht, or both, plus a further fine of 10,000 baht per day throughout the violation
Article 35	A licensed foreigner who fronts for another foreigner who has no permission, or runs a business co-owned with them while holding it out as their own	Up to 3 years imprisonment, or a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht, or both, and the court orders the participation or operation to cease. Breach of that order: 10,000 to 50,000 baht per day
Article 36	The nominee provision, and it catches both sides: the Thai national or Thai juristic person who assists, aids and abets, operates jointly while holding it out as their own, or holds shares as a foreigner’s nominee; ET the foreigner who allows that to be done	Up to 3 years imprisonment, or a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht, or both, and the court orders the assistance, joint operation or shareholding to cease. Breach of that order: 10,000 to 50,000 baht per day throughout the violation
Article 37	A foreigner who operates a business in violation of section 6, section 7 or section 8, that is, without the licence or certificate required	Up to 3 years imprisonment, or a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht, or both, and the court orders the operation, undertaking or shareholding to cease. Breach of that order: 10,000 to 50,000 baht per day

Note what section 37 is pas. It is not the nominee provision. Section 36 is. We have seen section 37 described as the provision that targets foreign principals in nominee arrangements, including in material published by law firms, and it is wrong: section 37 is the general offence of operating in violation of sections 6, 7 or 8. If you are reading advice that gets this backwards, be careful with the rest of it.

Note also what the court may order. Sections 35, 36 and 37 give the court power to order cessation, with a daily fine for defying that order. They do not give the court power to dissolve the company.

Section 41: the directors are personally liable

This is the provision that changes how a director should behave, and almost nobody puts it on the page.

Where a juristic person commits an offence under section 34, 35, 36 or 37, section 41 makes directors, partners and persons with authority to represent the juristic person personally liable if they connived at the offence or failed to take reasonable action to prevent it. The penalty is the same as the company’s: up to three years imprisonment, or a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht, or both.

“Failed to take reasonable action to prevent it” is not a high bar for a prosecutor. Put it next to Order 2/2569, which now requires a named director to sign an Investment Explanation Letter about the very shareholding that would be at issue, and the exposure is obvious. A director who signs that letter without checking where the Thai shareholders’ money actually came from is signing the evidence.

Que faire à ce sujet

1. Check what List your activity is actually in before you assume you need a licence, and before you assume you do not.
2. Decide the route deliberately: licence, treaty certificate, or BOI. They have different timetables, different decision makers and different ongoing conditions.
3. Fund the Thai shareholders properly and document it. Since 1 January 2026 the bank statements are part of the file, and since 1 August 2026 so is an explanation letter.
4. Look at existing structures too. Order 2/2569 reaches later changes of shareholders and directors, so a structure that was registered without scrutiny can still meet it on the next amendment.
5. If you are a director, read section 41 and satisfy yourself before you sign anything.

Foire aux questions

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Serving foreigners in Thailand since 2006, ThaiLawOnline.com advises on Foreign Business Licences, treaty certificates, BOI structures and company formation, and reviews existing structures against the 2026 registration rules. We will tell you plainly whether a structure will hold.

Planifiez une consultation, or read our guides to enregistrer une société en Thaïlande, setting up a company as a foreigner ET frais d'immatriculation d'entreprise.

This article is general information, not legal advice for your situation. It states the law as read on 22 August 2026 from the official translation of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 and from the Department of Business Development and Ministry of Commerce. Proposals described as approved in principle are not law and may change or lapse.