Answers
Straight answers, in the first two sentences
The questions business owners in Thailand actually arrive with, answered without a preamble about the dynamic investment landscape, and without a call.
Monthly bookkeeping & tax filing
Half-year tax
PND 51: what happens if you get the half-year estimate wrong?
If your estimated annual profit comes in more than 25% below the actual figure without reasonable cause, the Revenue Department adds a 20% surcharge on the tax you underpaid. There is a safe harbour, and it is a test on tax rather than on profit: paying at least half of last year’s corporate income tax is treated as reasonable cause.
Read the answerScope of work
What is actually included in a Thai bookkeeping fee, and what almost never is?
A standard monthly fee covers the bookkeeping entries and the monthly filings: the VAT return (PP 30) if you are registered, the withholding tax returns (PND 1, 3 and 53), and the social security return. The annual work is almost always quoted separately, and it is the annual work that surprises people: the statutory audit, the annual corporate return PND 50, the half-year estimate PND 51, and the financial statements filed with the DBD.
Read the answerLate VAT return
What happens if you file PP 30 late?
Three separate charges can land: a surcharge of 1.5% per month or part month on the tax you owe, a penalty of twice that tax, and a criminal fine capped at 2,000 baht for the return itself. The penalty is the one worth moving on today, because filing and paying before the Revenue Department writes to you cuts it to 2% of itself within 15 days, 5% within 30, 10% within 60 and 20% after that.
Read the answerAccounting software
Do I still need a Thai accountant if I use Xero or QuickBooks?
Yes. No Thai rule names any accounting package, and nothing stops you running Xero or QuickBooks, but the law still requires the company to appoint a qualified ผู้ทำบัญชี, to keep the entries in Thai, to file on the Revenue Department’s own forms, and to submit the financial statements to the DBD as XBRL in a prescribed format. None of that comes out of a foreign cloud package.
Read the answerLiability
Who is legally responsible if my accountant files something wrong?
You are. The Accounting Act puts the duty to keep accounts on the company, not on the bookkeeper you hired, and section 40 imposes the same penalty on the managing director, managing partner or any person responsible for operations where the offence came from their act, or from their failure to act when they had a duty to. Outsourcing moves the labour; it does not move the liability.
Read the answerSwitching firms
How do I change accountant in Thailand without losing my books?
The records are legally yours, must be kept at your place of business, and must be retained for at least five years, so what you need from the outgoing firm is the Thai ledger and the supporting documents, not a PDF of last month’s report. Time the switch to a month end, get the incoming firm’s ผู้ทำบัญชี registered against your company at the DBD, and do not cancel the old engagement until the current month’s filings are acknowledged.
Read the answerVisa & work permit
90 day report
Can you file the Thai 90 day report (TM47) online?
Online filing at tm47.immigration.go.th is one of four official channels and the Immigration Bureau attaches no precondition to it, but it takes about three days for an officer to approve, so it is a pending request rather than an instant filing. The rule almost everyone gets wrong is a different one: leaving Thailand resets the 90 day count in every case, so a foreigner who travels regularly may never owe a report at all.
Read the answerEmployment ratio
The four Thai employees rule: when does it actually apply?
It is a condition of the one year extension of stay granted by the Immigration Bureau, not a condition of the work permit, and it currently sits at clause 2.1 A (5) of Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 of 23 January 2025: one foreigner to four permanent Thai employees. Several routes escape it, including representative, regional and branch offices at one to one, BOI and other ministry approved investment, which has no ratio at all, and LTR visa holders, who are exempted by name.
Read the answerMinimum salary
What is the minimum salary for a Thai work permit, by nationality?
There are four bands, not five: 50,000 baht a month for Europe (except Russia), Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States; 45,000 for South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong; 35,000 for the rest of Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, Central America, Mexico, Russia and South Africa; and 25,000 for Africa other than South Africa, and for Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. It is an Immigration requirement for the extension of stay, set out in Annex A to Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 of 23 January 2025, and the work permit itself states no minimum salary at all.
Read the answerHow it fits together
Visa and work permit: why are they two documents from two agencies?
The visa comes from a Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate-General under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the extension of stay comes from the Immigration Bureau under the Royal Thai Police, and the work permit comes from the Department of Employment under the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states the relationship in one sentence: a holder of a Non-Immigrant B visa wishing to work in Thailand must be granted a work permit before starting work.
Read the answerWhat counts as work
What counts as "working" on a tourist visa or a DTV?
Since the 2018 amendment, "work" means engaging in an occupation, with or without an employer, and the definition carries no test of physical effort and no carve-out based on where your employer sits. On remote work for a foreign company the honest answer is that no Thai government source we could find states a position either way, so anyone telling you it is definitely fine, or definitely illegal, is going beyond the record.
Read the answerChanging employer
Changing employer: what happens to your work permit?
Since the 2018 amendment a change of employer is a notification rather than a new permit, and no government fee is charged for it: you must notify the Registrar within fifteen days of the change, and the incoming employer within fifteen days of hiring you. The part that actually bites is the immigration side, because your extension of stay was granted on the old employer’s capital, headcount and tax filings, and it does not follow you across.
Read the answerCompany registration
Foreign ownership
The 51/49 rule: what does it actually restrict, and what does it not?
The Foreign Business Act restricts what a company that is half or more foreign owned may do, not what foreigners may own: at 49% foreign shareholding the company is Thai in the eyes of the Act, and the restricted lists do not apply to it. The rule says nothing about control, nothing about land and nothing about visas; those live in other laws, which is why the number 49 answers less than people expect it to.
Read the answerRegistered capital
How much registered capital does a Thai company actually need?
Company law itself sets almost no floor: shares must have a par value of at least 5 baht, at least 25% of each share must be paid up, and two shareholders are enough, so a purely Thai company can register with a trivial amount. The real minimums come from what the company needs to do: 2 million baht paid up for a foreigner’s one year extension of stay, 2 or 3 million under the Foreign Business Act for a foreign operated business, and whatever a bank or licence asks to see.
Read the answerNominees
Nominee shareholders: why firms still offer them, and what the risk actually is
A nominee is a Thai shareholder who holds shares for a foreigner’s benefit with money that was never really theirs, and it is a criminal offence for both sides: up to three years imprisonment, a fine of 100,000 to 1,000,000 baht or both, plus 10,000 to 50,000 baht per day while the breach continues. Firms still offer it because a Thai majority company escapes the Foreign Business Act, and because for twenty years enforcement was rare. Since 2024 it is not rare.
Read the answerDirectors
Can a foreigner be the sole director of a Thai company?
Yes. The Civil and Commercial Code requires a private limited company to have at least one director and says nothing about nationality or residence, so a foreigner can be the only director and the only authorised signatory. The friction is everywhere else: working as a director needs a work permit, a foreign signing director now triggers the registrar’s bank statement checks even in a wholly Thai owned company, and the bank will want the signatory in front of them.
Read the answerEntity choice
Thai Co., Ltd., branch, or representative office: which one does what?
A Thai company limited is a separate legal person and the default way to do business; a branch is the foreign head office itself operating in Thailand, with the parent liable for everything the branch does and a foreign business licence usually needed; a representative office may not earn revenue at all and exists to source, inspect, support and report. They are not interchangeable, and moving from one to another later is a new establishment, not an amendment.
Read the answerTimeline
How long does registering a Thai company really take, start to finish?
The registration itself is fast: a name is usually approved the same day, and the DBD can register the memorandum and the company in one visit once the file is complete. What sets the real timetable for any company with a foreign shareholder or a foreign signing director is the evidence rule in force since 1 August 2026: each Thai shareholder needs a bank statement covering the three months before their share payment, so the money has to be in place months before anything is filed.
Read the answerBanking
What do you need before a Thai bank will open your corporate account?
The banks decide this, not the DBD, and every bank publishes its own list, but they all start the same way: the company affidavit and registration papers, the memorandum, the current shareholder list (บอจ.5), passports or ID cards for the directors and major shareholders, a board resolution to open the account, and the authorised director there in person. The hard part for foreign owned companies is the extras several banks add, a work permit or Non-B visa for the foreign signatory chief among them.
Read the answerRegistered address
Do I need a physical office, or will a registered address do?
For the DBD, a registered address needs the house registration document (ทะเบียนบ้าน) of the premises and, where the company is not the owner, the owner’s written consent; a residential address can serve, and companies are registered at homes and serviced offices every day. The test that actually bites comes later, at VAT registration, where the Revenue Department expects a real place of business and may inspect it, which is where a bare virtual office usually fails.
Read the answerVAT
Registering for VAT in Thailand: when is it mandatory, and when is it a choice?
Registration becomes mandatory within 30 days of your VATable turnover passing 1.8 million baht in a year; below that it is voluntary. The choice is less free than it looks: customers who need tax invoices and, in practice, visa and work permit files push young companies to register early, while every registration commits you to filing PP 30 every month, sales or no sales, for as long as you stay in the system.
Read the answer