{"id":9646,"date":"2026-10-09T18:29:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/thai-bankruptcy-claim\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:31:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:31:03","slug":"thai-bankruptcy-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/thai-bankruptcy-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai Bankruptcy Claim: The Two-Month Deadline Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u0e40\u0e2d <strong>Thai bankruptcy claim<\/strong> has one deadline that matters more than any other: two months. When a Thai court places a debtor&#8217;s assets under absolute receivership, every creditor who wants to be paid has two months from the publication of that order to file a proof of claim with the Official Receiver. Miss it and you are, in almost every case, finished, no matter how good the underlying debt was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Foreign creditors miss this window regularly. The order is published in Thai, in the Royal Gazette and in a newspaper, and nobody posts it to you. <a href=\"https:\/\/deka.in.th\/deka\/2568-5294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Supreme Court decision 5294\/2568<\/a>, handed down in 2025 and published this month, shows how little sympathy the Supreme Court has for a creditor who files late, even a government agency with a genuine reason for the delay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-rank-math-toc-block\" id=\"rank-math-toc\"><h2>\u0e2a\u0e32\u0e23\u0e1a\u0e31\u0e0d<\/h2><nav><ul><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#how-a-thai-bankruptcy-claim-actually-works\">How a Thai Bankruptcy Claim Actually Works<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#the-two-month-window-under-section-91\">The Two-Month Window Under Section 91<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#dika-5294-2568-three-years-late-and-the-claim-was-refused\">Dika 5294\/2568: Three Years Late and the Claim Was Refused<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#force-majeure-and-section-91-1-a-narrow-door-not-an-open-one\">Force Majeure and Section 91\/1: A Narrow Door, Not an Open One<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#a-live-example-the-jkn-receivership-order\">A Live Example: The JKN Receivership Order<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#what-foreign-creditors-should-do-now\">What Foreign Creditors Should Do Now<\/a><\/li><li class=\"\"><a href=\"#frequently-asked-questions\">\u0e04\u0e33\u0e16\u0e32\u0e21\u0e17\u0e35\u0e48\u0e1e\u0e1a\u0e1a\u0e48\u0e2d\u0e22<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"how-a-thai-bankruptcy-claim-actually-works\">How a Thai Bankruptcy Claim Actually Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thai insolvency runs under the Bankruptcy Act B.E. 2483. A creditor petitions the Central Bankruptcy Court, and if the court is satisfied the debtor is insolvent it issues an order for absolute receivership, the pithak sap det khat. From that moment the debtor loses control of its assets and the Official Receiver at the Legal Execution Department takes over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The receiver then collects claims, examines them, and distributes whatever the estate holds. Nothing is paid to a creditor who has not filed. Suing the debtor separately does not help, because once the receivership order is made the court process is the only route. Our glossary entry on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/glossary\/bankruptcy\/\">bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Act B.E. 2483<\/a> sets out the stages, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/glossary\/dissolution-liquidation\/\">\u0e01\u0e32\u0e23\u0e40\u0e25\u0e34\u0e01\u0e41\u0e25\u0e30\u0e0a\u0e33\u0e23\u0e30\u0e1a\u0e31\u0e0d\u0e0a\u0e35<\/a> explains the different situation where a solvent company is wound up voluntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><thead><tr><th>\u0e02\u0e31\u0e49\u0e19\u0e15\u0e2d\u0e19<\/th><th>\u0e43\u0e04\u0e23\u0e40\u0e1b\u0e47\u0e19\u0e1c\u0e39\u0e49\u0e41\u0e2a\u0e14\u0e07<\/th><th>\u0e01\u0e33\u0e2b\u0e19\u0e14\u0e40\u0e27\u0e25\u0e32<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Absolute receivership order<\/td><td>Central Bankruptcy Court<\/td><td>On the petition<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Order published in the Royal Gazette<\/td><td>Official Receiver<\/td><td>After the order<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Proof of claim filed<\/td><td>Each creditor<\/td><td><strong>2 months from publication<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Report of debts owed to the debtor<\/td><td>Anyone who owes the debtor<\/td><td>1 month from learning of the order<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Petition for leave to file late<\/td><td>Late creditor<\/td><td>No fixed period, but see below<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-two-month-window-under-section-91\">The Two-Month Window Under Section 91<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Section 91 paragraph 1 is short and unforgiving. A creditor must submit its claim to the Official Receiver within two months from the date the absolute receivership order is published. The claim can cover debts that arose before the order, including contingent and unliquidated ones, but it has to be filed in that window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The clock runs from publication, not from the day you heard about it. For a creditor based outside Thailand, that means the two months may be half gone before anyone in your office knows the debtor has collapsed. Monitoring matters more than reacting, especially where you have ongoing exposure to a single Thai counterparty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"dika-5294-2568-three-years-late-and-the-claim-was-refused\">Dika 5294\/2568: Three Years Late and the Claim Was Refused<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The debtor was a construction contractor. In July 2016 the Central Bankruptcy Court placed its estate under absolute receivership. A government agency that had hired the contractor in 2009 to build a courthouse in Nakhon Pathom had terminated the contract in February 2015, reserving its right to claim damages. It filed a proof of claim in February 2017 for roughly 78 million baht in penalties, damages and interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later the agency discovered something it had not claimed for. An independent inspection found structural defects in the ground-floor parking slab. The agency contracted repairs in December 2018, the work was accepted in August 2019, and the repair cost came to 8,638,840 baht. It told the receiver, and the receiver did not act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The agency then petitioned the court for leave to file this additional claim, under section 91\/1. It filed that petition on 2 September 2022, roughly three years after the repair figure was final. It argued that force majeure, including the COVID-19 restrictions, had prevented an earlier filing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Central Bankruptcy Court dismissed the petition. The Appeal Court for Specialised Cases affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed again, and its reasoning is the part worth keeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"force-majeure-and-section-91-1-a-narrow-door-not-an-open-one\">Force Majeure and Section 91\/1: A Narrow Door, Not an Open One<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Section 91\/1 lets a creditor who missed the two-month deadline ask the court for leave to file anyway. The creditor must show that force majeure prevented a timely claim. The section sets no deadline for making that request, and the agency read the silence as freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Supreme Court read it the other way. Where a statute fixes no period, the request must still be made within a reasonable time after the obstacle has ended. Force majeure excuses the original delay; it does not convert section 91\/1 into a claim you can bring whenever you like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the facts the delay was plainly unreasonable. The agency knew of the defects in 2017 and 2018 and had a final figure by August 2019, before the pandemic began. Its explanation that it needed to verify the numbers internally was rejected, because the inspection and repair contracts had already fixed the loss. Three years of silence was unfair to the creditors who had filed on time and would have had their dividends disturbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a wider principle in the judgment. Bankruptcy exists to deal with the estate in an orderly way for all creditors at once, and to let the debtor reach a conclusion. Late claims cut against both aims, so the courts police them tightly. Compare this with ordinary civil <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/glossary\/prescription\/\">\u0e2d\u0e32\u0e22\u0e38\u0e04\u0e27\u0e32\u0e21<\/a>, which are generous by comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-live-example-the-jkn-receivership-order\">A Live Example: The JKN Receivership Order<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is not a theoretical problem. The Central Bankruptcy Court made an absolute receivership order against JKN Global Group Public Company Limited, a listed Thai media business, on 25 August 2026. The Official Receiver&#8217;s notice was published in the Royal Gazette on 1 October 2026, and the two-month window for creditors to file runs from that publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyone holding a claim against that company, including foreign suppliers and licensors, has until approximately 1 December 2026 to file with the Official Receiver. Anyone who owes money to the company, or holds its property, has a separate one-month duty to report that to the receiver. The lesson of <a href=\"https:\/\/deka.in.th\/deka\/2568-5294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dika 5294\/2568<\/a> is that nobody will chase you, and arriving late with a good excuse is not a strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"what-foreign-creditors-should-do-now\">What Foreign Creditors Should Do Now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Identify your Thai counterparties with meaningful outstanding balances and check the Legal Execution Department and Royal Gazette notices periodically, or ask Thai counsel to run that watch for you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The moment you learn of a receivership order, fix the publication date in writing. Every deadline in the process counts from it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>File within two months even if your loss is not yet quantified. The Act allows contingent and unliquidated claims, so an estimated claim filed on time beats a precise claim filed late.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gather contracts, invoices, delivery records and correspondence early. The receiver examines claims on documents, and a claim you cannot prove is a claim you lose.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you are already outside the window, move immediately rather than perfecting your figures. The reasonable-time requirement starts running the day your obstacle ends.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Where the debt is still alive and no order has been made, ordinary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/debt-collection-lawyer-in-thailand\/\">\u0e01\u0e32\u0e23\u0e17\u0e27\u0e07\u0e2b\u0e19\u0e35\u0e49\u0e43\u0e19\u0e1b\u0e23\u0e30\u0e40\u0e17\u0e28\u0e44\u0e17\u0e22<\/a> or a negotiated settlement is usually faster and recovers more than a bankruptcy dividend.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Directors on the other side of this should note that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/closing-a-company-in-thailand\/\">\u0e01\u0e32\u0e23\u0e1b\u0e34\u0e14\u0e1a\u0e23\u0e34\u0e29\u0e31\u0e17\u0e43\u0e19\u0e1b\u0e23\u0e30\u0e40\u0e17\u0e28\u0e44\u0e17\u0e22<\/a> correctly, through dissolution and liquidation, avoids most of this machinery, and our guide covers that route together with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/glossary\/court-fees\/\">\u0e04\u0e48\u0e32\u0e18\u0e23\u0e23\u0e21\u0e40\u0e19\u0e35\u0e22\u0e21\u0e28\u0e32\u0e25<\/a> involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"frequently-asked-questions\">\u0e04\u0e33\u0e16\u0e32\u0e21\u0e17\u0e35\u0e48\u0e1e\u0e1a\u0e1a\u0e48\u0e2d\u0e22<\/h2>\n\n\n<div id=\"rank-math-faq\" class=\"rank-math-block\">\n<div class=\"rank-math-list\">\n<div id=\"faq-how-long-do-i-have-to-file-a-thai-bankruptcy-claim\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">How long do I have to file a Thai bankruptcy claim?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>Two months from the date the absolute receivership order is published, under section 91 paragraph 1 of the Bankruptcy Act B.E. 2483. The period runs from publication, not from the day you learned of it.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-what-happens-if-i-miss-the-two-month-deadline\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">What happens if I miss the two-month deadline?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>You can petition the court for leave to file late under section 91\/1, but only if force majeure prevented a timely claim. In Dika 5294\/2568 the Supreme Court held that the petition must also be brought within a reasonable time after that obstacle ends.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-does-covid-19-count-as-force-majeure-for-a-late-claim\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">Does COVID-19 count as force majeure for a late claim?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>Not where the creditor already knew of its loss before the restrictions began. The Supreme Court rejected that argument in Dika 5294\/2568 because the agency had its figures by August 2019.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-can-a-foreign-company-file-a-claim-in-a-thai-bankruptcy\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">Can a foreign company file a claim in a Thai bankruptcy?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>Yes. Foreign creditors may file with the Official Receiver on the same terms as Thai creditors, and documents in a foreign language will normally need a Thai translation.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-can-i-sue-the-debtor-separately-instead-of-filing-a-claim\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">Can I sue the debtor separately instead of filing a claim?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>No. Once the absolute receivership order is made, claims against the estate go through the Official Receiver and the Central Bankruptcy Court, not through a fresh civil action.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"faq-what-if-i-cannot-calculate-my-loss-within-two-months\" class=\"rank-math-list-item\">\n<h3 class=\"rank-math-question\">What if I cannot calculate my loss within two months?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"rank-math-answer\">\n\n<p>File anyway with your best estimate. The Act permits contingent and unliquidated claims, and an early claim can be supported with evidence later, whereas a late claim may never be admitted at all.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u0e40\u0e01\u0e35\u0e48\u0e22\u0e27\u0e01\u0e31\u0e1a\u0e1c\u0e39\u0e49\u0e40\u0e02\u0e35\u0e22\u0e19.<\/strong> This article was written and reviewed by Sebastien H. Brousseau, LL.B., B.Sc., who has been based in Thailand since 2004 and has run ThaiLawOnline since 2006. Our team acts for foreign creditors, suppliers and licensors dealing with insolvent Thai counterparties, from proof of claim through to distribution. If a Thai debtor has gone into receivership, or you think one is about to, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thailawonline.com\/th\/contact-us\/\">\u0e15\u0e34\u0e14\u0e15\u0e48\u0e2d ThaiLawOnline<\/a> before the two-month window closes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Disclaimer: this article is general information about Thai law and is not legal advice. Deadlines in insolvency are strict and fact-specific, and the case summary above is based on the published report of the decision. Take advice on your own position before acting.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thai bankruptcy claim deadlines: creditors get two months to file, and Dika 5294\/2568 shows late claims fail even on force majeure grounds.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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