Question 1

Can my project apply for BOI?

Accepted Answer

Most manufacturing projects,and projects in the industries Thailand is targeting for support,have a chance at it — full foreign ownership is usually not the obstacle. What matters is picking the right activity category and arguing for the right tier,and that has to be assessed case by case.

Question 2

Which taxes does BOI actually exempt?

Accepted Answer

The common ones are corporate income tax exemption (with rules on the number of years and on the cap) and duty-free import of machinery. Which of them your project gets,and how much,depends on the activity category and the tier;the current official rules decide it.

Question 3

When is the right time to apply?

Accepted Answer

As early as possible. The tier assessment is an input to the investment projections and to the shareholding structure,and it has to be settled before equipment is ordered and imported. Do it in the wrong order and the work usually has to be redone.

Question 4

Head office is sending Chinese engineers over — what happens with visas and work permits?

Accepted Answer

A promoted project has its own channel for foreign staff,and it usually runs more smoothly than the ordinary work permit route. Plan the staffing alongside the promoted status rather than patching it up once everyone has landed.

Question 5

Once the certificate is issued, is that the end of it?

Accepted Answer

No. The certificate brings continuing reporting and performance obligations,and a missed filing can affect your exemptions or get them suspended. Our advisers can carry that part for you.

Question 6

We are moving our factory to Thailand — is BOI worth applying for?

Accepted Answer

It comes down to three things:whether the line of business falls inside what BOI promotes,whether there is a real investment plan of a serious size,and whether the timing fits the length of the process. If all three line up,the exemptions on an A-tier project are often substantial and the application is worth pushing properly. If they do not line up,do not force it — the safest route is to check your own case with our advisers.

Question 7

Which companies are a poor fit for BOI?

Accepted Answer

Three kinds are unlikely to fit:pure trading,pure retail and other lines that sit outside the promoted scope;pure agency arrangements with no real investment plan;and small projects well below the thresholds. Forcing an application through is hard to get approved and eats a great deal of time. If you are not sure which group you fall into,do a first pass before committing rather than starting an application you cannot finish.

Question 8

What do you give up by building the plant without BOI?

Accepted Answer

Three things. Tax — without promotion,corporate income tax is paid at the ordinary rate,and import duty is paid on equipment and on raw materials used for export production. Shareholding and land — promoted status can,under defined conditions,lift some of the restrictions that ordinarily apply to foreign investors. Work permits — the route for bringing in foreign staff,and the treatment they get,are different. The larger the investment,the wider the gap.

Question 9

What does applying for BOI cost?

Accepted Answer

The main item is the advisory fee,commonly on the order of several hundred thousand baht;large or complicated projects are quoted separately. On the government side,BOI also runs free consultation,in person and online,and official fees follow the current official announcements. Budget as well for document preparation:Chinese technical documents and agreements have to be translated into English and filed with the application. For a figure on your own project,check with our advisers.

Question 10

The company is already operating — can we still apply for BOI now?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The application form itself has a branch for an existing operating company and a treatment for expansion projects,so applying from an entity that is already trading is routine. But note what the benefits attach to:the new investment in the approved project. Existing business does not become exempt because a certificate has been added,and the way the form is completed differs from a newly set up company. Check your own case with our advisers.

Question 11

Apply through the existing company, or set up a new entity?

Accepted Answer

It depends what the existing company already does. Promotion privileges are granted per project,not to the company as a whole — once a company with other business obtains promotion,promoted and taxable activities must be accounted for separately,and if the books cannot be kept clean the exempt allowance itself becomes impossible to compute. A new entity starts with clean books by definition. Which suits better depends on the size of the existing business,where the assets sit and how you plan to exit,and is worth working through before filing.

Question 12

Can one company hold several promoted activities at once?

Accepted Answer

You can hold multiple promoted projects,but each is a self-contained set:its own conditions,its own periods,its own allowance and reporting obligations. The benefit is covering different product lines;the cost is that compliance work multiplies by the number of projects,and promoted and taxable revenue must be tracked separately for each. It is not a case of "apply for more to be safe" — it should follow the actual business lines.

Question 13

What happens if the wrong activity item is chosen?

Accepted Answer

The effects cascade. The item determines which tier applies,which additional conditions attach,whether land-holding and foreign-personnel treatment are available,and it carries through to position durations and staffing later. Getting it wrong is usually not "slightly less benefit" — it means the whole set of projections and the schedule has to be redone. The same business often maps to several candidate codes,and a different landing point produces a different outcome,which is why the tier assessment comes first.

Question 14

How is the investment amount computed? Does a leased factory count?

Accepted Answer

There are defined exclusions (land and working capital are not counted,for instance),and rules on how capital expenditure such as equipment and construction is aggregated. A leased building and one you build yourself are not treated the same way. The mistake to avoid is the domestic habit of "adding up everything spent" — getting this wrong directly affects whether the threshold is met and the ceiling on the exemption that follows. The treatment is as currently published officially,and is best checked line by line against your budget.

Question 15

We are shipping used equipment from China. Does that affect the tier?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Promoted projects carry a general requirement to use new machinery,and used equipment is subject to separate conditions and limits. Moving an old line across is usually a cost decision,but it simultaneously affects whether it counts toward the investment amount,whether it qualifies for duty-free import,and the technology case for the project as a whole. The equipment list has to be aligned with the tier strategy before it is filed for approval — not discovered at the point of shipment.

Question 16

How should capacity be stated so as not to lose out?

Accepted Answer

Capacity is written into the conditions on the certificate;it is not a figure you enter and forget. State it too low and later output above it may raise a conditions issue;state it too high and you face pressure on achieving it and on how it is reported. The sound approach is to derive it from demonstrable equipment capability and shift patterns,leaving a sensible range,rather than picking a number that looks good.

Question 17

Can the application be in Chinese? Do technical agreements need translating?

Accepted Answer

Supporting material submitted to the authority has to be readable by the people assessing it:Chinese originals generally have to be translated into English (Thai at certain stages) and certified in the prescribed manner. Chinese-invested companies typically have their technical proposals,process documents and equipment contracts in Chinese,and the translation effort is badly underestimated — it is not word-for-word work but making the technical substance and process route stand up in the translated text,which bears directly on the tier argument.

Question 18

What if figures in different parts of the form do not agree?

Accepted Answer

You will be asked to put it right,and a query restarts the wait for a complete file. The sections of the application reconcile against one another — investment amount,capacity,headcount and financial projections are all linked — and internal inconsistency is one of the commonest reasons for a file coming back. A cross-section reconciliation before submitting costs far less than correcting it afterwards.

Question 19

How long until we hear back? Can we track it ourselves?

Accepted Answer

Assessment has an official time limit,but the clock only starts once the file is complete,so a single query pushes the start back. Progress can be checked in the filing system. What most often wastes time in practice is the interview slot — the date you enter when submitting is a preference,not a confirmation;once accepted you have to arrange it yourself,and waiting for a notice simply burns the schedule.

Question 20

What is asked at the interview? Who should attend, and in what language?

Accepted Answer

What is tested is whether the project stands up:the substance of the business,the process route,the basis for the investment and capacity figures,the evidence of technical content. Whoever answers has to genuinely understand the project — sending administrative staff or an interpreter alone falls apart at the first follow-up question. Language follows the arrangement,usually English;where technical detail is involved,an interpreter who does not understand the process is the single biggest risk,and agreeing terminology beforehand matters more than interpreting on the spot.

Question 21

We have received a query. How should we respond?

Accepted Answer

Three things:answer point by point (do not simply send a new document);explain where differences come from (if a figure changed,say why);and complete it in one go (drip-feeding documents restarts the wait repeatedly). Leaving a query unanswered leaves the project where it is — assessment does not proceed because you have gone quiet.

Question 22

Our application was refused. Can we apply again?

Accepted Answer

Generally yes,but it is worth establishing the actual reason — whether the activity item did not fit,a condition was not met,or the case was not made well enough. The three call for completely different responses. Refiling the same thing unchanged will most likely produce the same result.

Question 23

Approval has not come through and the equipment is about to ship. What now?

Accepted Answer

This is one of the most expensive lessons. Duty-free import requires the equipment list to be filed and approved before shipment is arranged;if the goods arrive and the list is not approved,duty-free release cannot be done — you either sit at the port incurring charges or switch to a duty-paid import,turning the duty you saved into cash actually paid. If it has already got this far,the first step is to assess whether that particular shipment can be routed another way to limit the damage — but that is damage control,not standard practice.

Question 24

Once approved, do the privileges apply straight away?

Accepted Answer

No. After approval there are still several steps — accepting the promotion,applying for the certificate and collecting it — each with its own deadline;and the income tax exemption has a starting point of its own,which is not the date the certificate is issued. Overrun any one of those steps and the work already done is discounted. What to do on receiving the approval letter is build the schedule,not celebrate.

Question 25

What is the difference between the quarterly and the annual report? Once we open, does the reporting stop?

Accepted Answer

They are two parallel lines that run on their own clocks and do not substitute for each other. The quarterly project progress report covers the construction phase only — land,factory building,machinery and first revenue from the promoted activity — and it starts on the date the certificate is issued and ends when you obtain the opening licence. The annual operating performance report covers every certificate holder,including companies that have been in operation for years,and falls due on a fixed date each year. So opening the business ends the quarterly line only;the annual one is filed every year for as long as the certificate is alive. And if nothing was imported or built in a given quarter,you still file — truthfully,as zero progress.

Question 26

Has the quarterly deadline changed? Can we follow the cadence printed on our certificate?

Accepted Answer

No,and this is the one that catches long-standing holders. The current notification expressly cancels the reporting condition printed on older certificates and replaces it with the cadence in the notification:the filing window used to be 60 days after quarter end and is now 30 days after quarter end (quarter-end months being March,June,September and December). That halves the internal preparation time,so a calendar built on the old rule will usually be late;confirm the exact deadline against the current official notification. One more thing that gets missed:the machinery investment figure in the quarterly report and the duty-free machinery list are the same underlying number. If the list side has not been updated,the report makes the project look behind schedule and invites questions about progress — reconcile the two before filing.

Question 27

What happens if we miss one report? Is it a fine?

Accepted Answer

It is heavier than a fine. The current notification sets out two levels of consequence:breaching the reporting condition suspends the rights and privileges under that certificate,and failing to report twice in a row may be considered grounds for revocation. Suspension stops everything at once — duty-free release of machinery and raw materials,the corporate income tax exemption,and the visa and work permit channel for foreign personnel. For a project still installing equipment or carrying expatriates,that draws blood immediately. A technical detail worth noting:notices usually go to the contact mailbox registered in the system,and even if nobody reads that old mailbox any more,service may still be treated as effective — so “someone is named to watch system notices” belongs in your internal rules.

Question 28

Which date does the tax exemption actually start from?

Accepted Answer

The certificate issue date and the first-revenue date lock two different sets of deadlines,and mixing them up is one of the most expensive errors on this chain. The issue date starts the execution-side clocks — the duty-free machinery import window and the deadline to open the business. The number of years and the cap on the corporate income tax exemption run from the day the promoted activity first earns revenue,evidenced by the genuine first sale:not a trial run,not samples,not revenue from non-promoted activity. Where a company holds several certificates,each has its own first-revenue date and they cannot be shared. That date also has to match on the privilege-registration side and on the annual income tax return;a mismatch means explanations and amendments at best,and impaired use of the privilege in later years at worst.

Question 29

How do you work backwards from the 36-month deadline to open the business?

Accepted Answer

A promoted project must complete construction and apply to open within 36 months of the certificate issue date. The hard part is not the number — opening depends on two chains finishing first:the machinery list being approved,then delivery,installation and commissioning,and after that the genuine first sale of the promoted activity. The right method is to lock the milestones backwards from month 36:file the opening application,land the first sale with verifiable evidence,get the line running stably,take delivery of the building and have utilities connected — leaving a buffer at every milestone that depends on a third-party approval. The three deadlines share a start date but not an approval route:extending the import window,explaining first-revenue progress and extending the opening deadline go through different channels. Each has to be filed separately,and all of them before expiry.

Question 30

Which taxes does the duty-free machinery import actually cover?

Accepted Answer

It covers import duty and import VAT. Excise tax is not covered — if the equipment or the materials shipped with it include items subject to excise (batteries,for instance),that is paid as normal,together with the local tax levied on top of it. Budget on the basis of “everything is exempt” and the cash position on arrival day will look bad. There is also a rule of sequence:the machinery list must be filed and showing as approved in the system before you ship. If the goods reach port and the list is not approved,duty-free release cannot be done — the cargo sits at the port accruing charges,or it is switched to a duty-paid entry,and the duty you were saving becomes cash paid that day. The list also has to agree with the purchase documents;a mismatch in model,quantity or value will hold up release just the same.

Question 31

Are raw material and machinery exemptions the same thing?

Accepted Answer

No — two systems,two lists,two rhythms. Machinery is a one-off master list filed for approval. Raw materials require an account to be set up first — a consumption formula per product plus a maximum stock level — and then every import is written off entry by entry. The consumption formula is process data,not finance data:net usage,wastage and gross usage have to reconcile,wastage is stated as an absolute quantity rather than a percentage,and for materials counted in discrete units it must be zero. The one thing to remember:if the write-off is not completed within the prescribed cycle,the duty-free import right is suspended,and later arrivals can only come in duty-paid or sit at the port. This is where volume producers typically trip in year two,usually because purchasing owns receipts,production owns issues to the line and finance owns the reports — and nobody owns the stretch in between.

Question 32

With BOI in hand, how should the books be kept?

Accepted Answer

What is exempt is the activity described on the certificate,not the company. So the books have to separate promoted from non-promoted activity:revenue grouped by certificate and agreeing with invoicing and the VAT returns,directly attributable costs charged straight to the right side,and common costs allocated on a basis that is fixed in advance,applied consistently year on year,and capable of being explained. Whatever cannot be separated is likely to be treated as taxable in full. Revenue that commonly falls outside the certificate includes product lines it does not cover,trading resales,services to related parties and gains on disposal of assets. Build this structure before the first unit of promoted revenue is earned;unpicking it at the year-end close,once the vouchers are already mixed together,gives a result that is neither reliable nor easy to support.

Question 33

We need to change the product, the capacity, the shareholding or the site. What now?

Accepted Answer

You must obtain BOI approval before acting,and different changes do not take the same route. Ordinary project amendments are decided by the investment promotion divisions,and the official turnaround is 5 days once the file is complete — the clock only starts at completeness,so an incomplete file never starts it at all. Shareholding ratio,relocating or adding or closing a place of business,registered capital,and raising capacity by extending working hours each require their own dedicated form;the wrong form means the file was incomplete from the outset. And one red line:on the route that raises capacity through additional investment,the new machinery must not already have been imported or acquired before the amendment application is filed — letting the equipment land first and filing afterwards is a common trap.

Question 34

We just want to produce a bit more. Does that need an amendment too?

Accepted Answer

Yes,and that one sentence maps onto three quite different routes whose documentation costs are far apart. Raising capacity through additional investment means buying new equipment,and requires a financial plan and a schedule of machinery investment;it is the heaviest of the three. Raising capacity on engineering fact leaves the equipment alone and uses the last three years of actual output and sales data,an explanation of the capacity calculation,and machine specifications or production reports to show the existing line could always produce more. Raising capacity by extending working hours touches neither equipment nor process — it only adjusts daily hours and annual operating days,is filed on its own dedicated form,and is the lightest of the three. So before starting,settle one question:is there new equipment investment this time?That alone decides the route.

Question 35

If the company is acquired or transferred, does the existing BOI certificate still stand?

Accepted Answer

It goes to the Board for consideration,and section 56 of the Investment Promotion Act applies:where a promoted company is dissolved,merged or transferred to another person,the original certificate stays valid for no more than 3 months,and the new entity must file to take it over within that window. Where the Board considers it appropriate it issues a new certificate — but only for the privileges the original company has not yet used up,not a fresh full round;where it considers it inappropriate,the privileges are withdrawn entirely. There is a loose end as well:machinery and raw materials the transferor has imported but whose duty-free entitlement is not yet exhausted must be used up before the application is filed,or the transferor's release rights are suspended the moment it goes in. So deal work needs BOI brought in months ahead;come after completion and the window is already running.

Question 36

Can duty-free imported machinery be sold or mortgaged?

Accepted Answer

Yes,but only on application,and writing the item off and removing it from the project are two separate approvals. The write-off only clears the item from the duty-free register;the machine must stay in the project and in use until a separate application to remove it from the project is granted,and only then can it genuinely be disposed of. Two independent periods also apply:one governs use and location (the lock-in period set on the certificate),the other governs whether import duty has to be paid back on disposal (a liability period running from the import date). Neither can be read across to the other. Where the item is a principal machine on the line,have the replacement-equipment documents ready before applying;do it the other way round and the application stalls on the capacity threshold. Mortgages carry one more layer:what is approved is pledging the machine,and if a mortgagee without promoted status enforces during the lock-in period,the duty can still come back — in financing talks those are two separate points.

Question 37

Our exemption period has run out. Can we get another round of privileges?

Accepted Answer

There is a route:industrial upgrading measure 15/2565,aimed at existing companies whose CIT exemption has ended or whose project never had one. Companies in categories closed to new projects can use it too. Pick one of five sub-measures — equipment and robotics upgrading,digital technology adoption,moving towards Industry 4.0,energy saving and environmental impact,and international sustainability standards. Three common conditions must all be met:upgrading investment of at least one million baht (excluding land and working capital),the application must be filed before the equipment or technology is bought,and the existing promoted project must already have opened. Remembering to apply after the line has already been replaced does not work — that investment cannot be counted and there is no remedy,so the upgrading plan has to enter at the procurement decision stage.

Question 38

An approved foreign expert is leaving. What happens to the position — and what if we cannot fill the Thai quota?

Accepted Answer

The position is not cleared automatically and does not pass to the next person by itself. Under section 25 of the Investment Promotion Act,the company first files a departure notification with BOI;BOI then holds the position open for a successor,and the company files the replacement application to put the new person in — that order cannot be reversed. Where the business cannot wait out the gap,an urgent temporary work permit bridges it,valid for 30 days from the date granted;that is a bridge,not a substitute. On the Thai ratio:where a high-technology project genuinely cannot recruit experienced Thai technical staff in its early days,a temporary relaxation can be applied for,but it tightens in stages and is capped at 3 years — Thai employees at not less than 30% of total headcount in year one,rising to not less than 60% in years two and three,after which the ordinary criteria resume. It also requires evidence that Thai candidates were genuinely sought and not found,a one-Thai-trained-per-relaxed-foreign-position development plan,and monthly submission of social security evidence. Fail any year and the following year is not renewed — and recruitment evidence cannot be manufactured after the fact,so keep it on file from day one of the project.

Question 39

Our site is in Chonburi, Rayong or Chachoengsao — does that mean we have the EEC incentives?

Accepted Answer

No. Those three provinces are the statutory area of the EEC,not an entitlement. Inside that area there is a further layer,the promotion zone,which is not an administrative division — only three categories of land may apply to be designated (industrial estates,government or public-private land,and private industrial clusters),designation has to be approved to count,and the list is added to by announcement. More importantly,the two routes ask different things of where you land:the EECO route requires operating inside one of the designated promotion zones and investing in one of the target industry clusters;the BOI route is a separate regime under which all three provinces have been announced as an investment promotion zone,the baseline turns on the activity entry and its tier,and which category of land the site falls in determines which locational add-on you get,not whether you qualify at all. So the same plot can give opposite answers on the two routes — when you hear contradictory statements,it is usually because nobody said which route was being asked about. The status of a plot and the classification of an entry go by the announcements in force at the time of filing.

Question 40

Is Prachinburi part of the EEC?

Accepted Answer

No. Prachinburi does appear in the official master development plan,but in two capacities:its rivers and catchment feature as a neighbouring water source for EEC supply allocation,and it is listed as a surrounding province in cross-provincial statistical groupings such as health-district divisions. Neither amounts to inclusion in the statutory area — that area is only Chachoengsao,Chonburi and Rayong. Chinese-language material counting it as part of the EEC is common enough to be worth checking before a site decision.

Question 41

Can BOI and EEC exemption periods be added together?

Accepted Answer

No — that addition does not work. The two routes rest on two different statutes. The EECO route runs under the Eastern Special Development Zone Act:you file an investment proposal,and the incentive review and negotiation committee and the EEC Policy Committee decide it against four dimensions — strategic,economic,environmental and social. The official wording is that it is negotiated case by case,not granted because you filed. The BOI route runs under the Investment Promotion Act,with tiering by activity entry,published conditions and a relatively controllable timetable. Each regime has its own basis and ceiling for the exemption period;they are not in the same coordinate system,so they cannot simply be added. The boundary is drawn by BOI's amending announcement:where the EEC Policy Committee has announced benefits for a particular industrial promotion zone,operators in that zone may still apply for BOI promotion under the Investment Promotion Act,but may not claim duplicate incentives for the same project. Running in parallel is not the same as stacking — when you hear that both are available,the questions to press are whether it is the same incentive and whether it is the same project.

Question 42

Can our project actually use the EEC-facing BOI add-ons?

Accepted Answer

Check the tier first. These measures are open only to the A tiers;tier B is outside their scope,and entries such as deep-sea fishing,air transport,maritime transport and rail transport are expressly excluded,with the complete list being whatever the BOI office currently has in force. For projects that do qualify,the add-ons come in two groups — a capability group and a locational group,one choice within a group,and the two groups can be combined. The capability group wants real commitments such as vocational training cooperation or research spending,not a form filled in;the locational group turns on which category of land the site falls in. So the question is not how many years the EEC gives,but which tier my entry reaches,which group of add-ons is open to me,and whether I can commit to it — the first question has no general answer,the second is the one you can actually put numbers to. The periods and ceilings themselves have to be settled against the announcements in force and modelled on the facts of the project.

Question 43

In what order should an EEC site decision be checked?

Accepted Answer

Settle the route,then tier the entry and set a target tier,then check the status of the plot,and only then compare estates. What you can obtain is decided by three things:which route you take,which tier your entry reaches,and which category of land your site falls in — and the three pull on each other. The route decides whether the plot has to be on a list;the entry and tier decide which add-ons are open to you;and the category of land in turn decides which locational add-on you get. Land price is of course something to compare,but it should not be the first step:picking the land first and fitting the incentives around it puts the last link first,and once the earlier links are set wrongly,no amount of detail in the land-price comparison or the model survives. All of this goes by the announcements in force at the time of filing.

Question 44

Can the EEC's infrastructure target years be used as the dates for a capacity ramp-up?

Accepted Answer

Better not. The three-airport high-speed rail link,U-Tapao airport,the third phase of Laem Chabang port and the third phase of Map Ta Phut industrial port all have official target operating years. They are worth writing into a model as upside options,but they are planning targets,not firm date commitments — tie a capacity ramp-up directly to those years and the risk sits with you. More generally,a site appraisal should bring land,wages and construction time onto the same sheet as the tax position before estates are compared. The land account deserves the earliest attention:where the land-ownership privilege is restricted,holding land inside an estate under the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand Act is a separate and independent legal basis,and a great many plots inside EEC promotion zones are industrial estate land in the first place,so both should be checked together. The test for the land privilege itself is read entry by entry from the condition column currently in force for each entry you apply for.

Question 45

For a data centre, is it still a case of preparing the BOI documents and handling power separately?

Accepted Answer

The order has changed — and this prerequisite changed once during 2026,which much Chinese-language material has not caught up with. The position now in force is that for both high-efficiency data centres (8.2.1.1) and other data centres (8.2.1.2),before a promotion application is submitted the project must first obtain the review and consent of a subcommittee designated by the BOI Board,looking at the carrying capacity of energy,water and the environment,and at project screening. The announcement Sor 2/2569 of March 30,2026 had made obtaining a letter of confirmation from the Office of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) the prerequisite;the announcement Sor 3/2569 of July 15,2026 expressly revoked Sor 2/2569 in its entirety and replaced it with the review and consent described above — so applying for an ERC confirmation letter today means applying for a document required by a revoked announcement,while the gate that actually matters gets missed. The June 2026 edition of the Investment Promotion Guide still states the ERC letter under the old rule,but it was published before Sor 3/2569:the guide is a compilation,and does not displace a formal announcement. Nor does having filed early escape the review — the announcement provides that projects filed under the former policy and still under consideration before it took effect,together with applications where a project change raises the IT load by more than 30%,are covered as well. The subcommittee's review procedure,required documents and timeframes are not stated in the announcement and have to be confirmed with BOI before filing.

Question 46

Is the tier always better for a data centre located inside the EEC?

Accepted Answer

Not necessarily — the direction can be the other way round. The guide splits data centres into two classes with different conditions and different tiers:for a high-efficiency data centre the tier inside the EEC is better than elsewhere,whereas for an other data centre it is exactly the reverse,the tier inside the EEC being lower than elsewhere. Within one and the same guide,the two classes run in opposite directions on EEC versus non-EEC,so before a site decision you must establish which class you fall into first,and only then ask whether the EEC is genuinely the better choice. The tier determines the corporate income tax exemption period and its cap,and conditions of this kind are adjusted by announcement;once the activity sub-category is fixed,go back to the announcements in force and check every condition currently applying to it line by line,rather than concluding from one edition of the guide.

Question 47

We make bags, furniture or printed matter — can we still apply for BOI as a wholly foreign-owned company?

Accepted Answer

Pause on these three. Under the relevant BOI announcement,for applications submitted from September 1,2025,three promoted activities carry a new condition that Thai natural persons hold more than half the shares:bags of leather and artificial leather (footwear excluded),furniture and parts,and printed matter;projects inside a border special economic zone are exempt. The line is drawn by the date the application is submitted,not by the date the project starts operating — applications filed before that date are unaffected,which puts projects still preparing documents and not yet filed in the position most in need of checking. For a project in one of these three,the assumption that manufacturing can be wholly foreign-owned no longer holds on the promotion route:either accept a Thai majority,or re-examine whether to take the promotion route at all,or whether the activity could sit under a different entry code. The order of work is to fix the activity entry first (one and the same business can often map to several promoted activity codes,and different codes carry different conditions),then confirm whether the site qualifies for the exemption,and then do the arithmetic on which costs more:the promotion benefits or a Thai majority holding.

Question 48

Does this new rule mean foreigners can no longer run these businesses?

Accepted Answer

No,and the distinction matters. It is a BOI promotion condition,not an amendment to the Foreign Business Act — without applying for promotion,these businesses remain subject to the same rules as before on foreign shareholding,and whether the business falls within the restricted lists has to be checked separately. So the question is not whether foreigners can still run the business,but whether the shareholding price of taking the promotion route is worth paying. Two further points. The rule reaches only three activities,but its effect is structural:a Thai majority means the control arrangements,the profit distribution and the exit route all have to be redesigned — it is not one more condition,it is a different plan. And it is easily buried by older material:the statement that manufacturing in Thailand can be wholly foreign-owned still broadly holds,but it now has exceptions,so whenever you see it,ask the further question which activity entry is mine. BOI promotion conditions and the incentive catalogue are adjusted by announcement;once the activity entry is fixed,go back to the announcements in force and check every condition currently applying to that entry line by line — not only the incentives,but the shareholding,investment value,value-added and technology requirements attached to it.

BOI tax exemption decides how much this project saves