Section 350: Defrauding creditors
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดเพื่อมิให้เจ้าหนี้ของตนหรือของผู้อื่นได้รับชำระหนี้ทั้งหมดหรือแต่บางส่วน ซึ่งได้ใช้หรือจะใช้สิทธิเรียกร้องทางศาลให้ชำระหนี้ ย้ายไปเสีย ซ่อนเร้น หรือโอนไปให้แก่ผู้อื่นซึ่งทรัพย์ใดก็ดี แกล้งให้ตนเองเป็นหนี้จำนวนใดอันไม่เป็นความจริงก็ดี ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินสองปี หรือปรับไม่เกินสี่หมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๔ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever, in order that his own creditor or the creditor of another person shall not receive payment of a debt in whole or in part, where a judicial claim to enforce payment has been or is about to be exercised, removes, conceals, or transfers to another person any property, or dishonestly causes himself to owe any untrue sum of debt, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding two years, or a fine not exceeding forty thousand baht, or both.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 350 is the core cheating-against-creditors offence. Its elements are: a creditor has exercised or is about to exercise a judicial claim for payment, the offender removes, conceals, or transfers property, or fabricates a debt owed by himself, and he acts with the specific intent that the creditor not be paid in whole or in part. A genuine creditor-debtor relationship is essential, so the offence protects a legally enforceable claim rather than a mere expectation. It can be committed by the debtor for his own benefit or by a third person acting for another's creditor, and the fabricated-debt limb targets sham obligations designed to dilute the assets available to real creditors.
Why this matters in practice
The single most important requirement is a real debt that a creditor can enforce in court. If a civil court later finds the underlying debt does not exist, the criminal charge collapses because there is no creditor to defraud. Transferring assets after a judgment, or once a lawsuit is clearly coming, is the classic fact pattern, and the timing of the transfer against the claim is what proves the intent. The offence is compoundable under Section 351, carries exposure of up to two years, and is frequently paired with a civil claim for the resulting loss. See our overview of fraud and dishonesty offences in Thailand.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 7430/2568 (2025)
Section 350 reaches a transfer made while the creditor may use enforcement measures, not only one made after the property has been attached. Transferring vehicles at a time when a judgment creditor was in a position to take administrative enforcement measures against the judgment debtor's property, with the special intent that the creditor should not be paid the compensation due, is defrauding creditors under Section 350 and is also a tort against that creditor.
The defendant was a judgment debtor under a Supreme Administrative Court judgment in favour of the co-plaintiff. On 4 February 2562 he sold the car and the motorcycle for 30,000 and 2,500 baht and transferred the registration on 12 February; the order to seize them, order 59/2562, was made on 18 February. The Supreme Court held the transfer was made while the co-plaintiff could still use administrative enforcement measures against his property, with the special intent that it should not be paid the compensation owed, and so was defrauding creditors under Section 350 and a tort against the co-plaintiff.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 4675/2565 (2022)
Where a civil court has found that the accused did not owe the debt claimed, the parties are not creditor and debtor to each other, so a criminal charge of defrauding creditors under Section 350 has no basis in itself.
The civil judgment held that the defendant did not owe the debt the co-plaintiff had sued on. Because no creditor-debtor relationship existed, the Supreme Court confirmed that the defrauding-creditors charge failed, and this was not an improper importation of the civil ruling into the criminal case.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 172 Supreme Court decisions (1960 to 2025)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 7430/2568 (2025)
- Decision 5328/2568 (2025)
- Decision 3154/2568 (2025)
- Decision 295/2567 (2024)
- Decision 4675/2565 (2022)
- Decision 421/2565 (2022)
- Decision 6104/2564 (2021)
- Decision 4135/2563 (2020)
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 83 91
- Section 91 38
- Section 29 19
- Section 30 18
- Section 90 17
- Section 56 16
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
Frequently asked questions
Does there have to be a court case for Section 350 to apply?
The creditor must have exercised or be about to exercise a judicial claim for payment. A real, legally enforceable debt is required, not just an informal expectation of being paid.
What happens if the debt turns out not to exist?
If a civil court finds the accused did not owe the debt, there is no creditor-debtor relationship and the Section 350 charge has no basis, as the Supreme Court has held.
Is transferring my own property to a relative before a lawsuit a crime?
It can be, if a creditor's claim has been or is about to be made and the transfer is intended to keep that creditor from being paid. The timing and purpose of the transfer are decisive.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 350 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 350. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-350/ (accessed 20 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 350 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-350/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-350/"><p>Whoever, in order that his own creditor or the creditor of another person shall not receive payment of a debt in whole or in part, where a judicial claim to enforce payment has been or is about to be exercised, removes, conceals, or transfers to…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 350 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-350/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.