Section 269/9: Using, possessing or selling a forged passport
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดใช้หรือมีไว้เพื่อใช้ซึ่งหนังสือเดินทางปลอมตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๘ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่หนึ่งปีถึงสิบปี และปรับตั้งแต่สองหมื่นบาทถึงสองแสนบาท ผู้ใดจำหน่ายหรือมีไว้เพื่อจำหน่ายซึ่งหนังสือเดินทางปลอมตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๘ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่สามปีถึงยี่สิบปี และปรับตั้งแต่หกหมื่นบาทถึงสี่แสนบาท การมีหนังสือเดินทางปลอมตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๘ จำนวนตั้งแต่สองฉบับขึ้นไป ให้สันนิษฐานไว้ก่อนว่ามีไว้เพื่อจำหน่าย ถ้าผู้กระทำความผิดตามวรรคหนึ่งหรือวรรคสองเป็นผู้ปลอมซึ่งหนังสือเดินทาง ตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๘ ให้ลงโทษตามมาตรานี้แต่กระทงเดียว
English translation
Whoever uses, or possesses for use, a forged passport under Section 269/8 shall be liable to imprisonment from one year to ten years and a fine from twenty thousand baht to two hundred thousand baht.
Whoever sells, or possesses for sale, a forged passport under Section 269/8 shall be liable to imprisonment from three years to twenty years and a fine from sixty thousand baht to four hundred thousand baht.
Possession of two or more forged passports under Section 269/8 shall be presumed to be possession for sale.
If the offender under paragraph one or paragraph two is the person who forged the passport under Section 269/8, that offender shall be punished under this Section as a single offence only.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 269/9 has four paragraphs and is the most severe provision in the passport group. Paragraph one covers using or possessing for use, at the same one to ten year range as forging under Section 269/8. Paragraph two covers selling or possessing for sale, and raises the range sharply to three to twenty years with a fine of 60,000 to 400,000 baht, which is among the heaviest penalties in the whole forgery chapter and reflects the treatment of passport trading as an organised crime. Paragraph three is the provision that most often decides a case: possession of two or more forged passports is presumed to be possession for sale, which shifts the practical burden onto the accused to displace the presumption and moves the charge from paragraph one to paragraph two. It is a rebuttable presumption of fact, not a conclusive one. Paragraph four is a merger rule identical in effect to Section 268 paragraph two and Section 269/4 paragraph three: the forger who also uses or sells is punished under this Section as a single offence.
Why this matters in practice
The presumption in paragraph three is the single most important practical point in the passport group. The difference between one forged passport and two is the difference between a one to ten year charge and a three to twenty year charge, and the accused carries the practical burden of explaining why more than one was held. Anyone holding a second travel document, including an expired or replacement booklet that turns out to be irregular, is exposed to a presumption they must actively rebut. On the merger rule in paragraph four, prosecutors routinely lay separate counts for forging under Section 269/8 and using under this Section; the statute directs a single punishment and the point should be taken. Convictions here carry deportation and permanent blacklisting for foreign nationals.
Cited in 3 Supreme Court decisions (2017 to 2021)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1040/2562 (2019)
- Decision 3540/2560 (2017)
- Decision 1105/2564 (2021)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 91 3
- Section 90 3
- Section 78 3
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 269/9 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 269/9. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-9/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 269/9 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-9/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-9/"><p>Whoever uses, or possesses for use, a forged passport under Section 269/8 shall be liable to imprisonment from one year to ten years and a fine from twenty thousand baht to two hundred thousand baht. Whoever sells, or possesses for sale, a forged passport under…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 269/9 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-9/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.