Thailand
The industrial heart of ASEAN — vehicles, electronics and the region's best logistics
Thailand is the most developed industrial economy of mainland ASEAN: vehicles, electronics, food processing and healthcare. It has no free-trade agreement with the Union yet — talks were relaunched in 2023 — so imports carry the normal tariff. What it does have is its own investment-incentive system (BOI), which can save a foreign project both tax and duty on machinery.
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Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Foreign ownership
- ·Minimum capital
- ·How long registration takes
- ·Documents to incorporate
- ·Director and residence
- ·Bank account
- ·Licences and permits
- ·What to watch for
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
- ·VAT registration
- ·Withholding tax — dividends
- ·Withholding tax — royalties
- ·Payroll contributions
What it makes and needs
Cars, commercial vehicles and parts, electronics and computer components, rubber and plastics, rice, sugar, canned food and seafood.
Machine tools and automation, medical devices and pharmaceuticals, chemical feedstock, premium food and drink, cosmetics and renewable-energy technology.
Importing into their market
With no agreement with the Union, the Thai tariff applies under the harmonised system; rates vary a great deal by line and are material on finished goods. Machinery for a BOI-approved project can be exempt from duty — often a bigger saving than the tax holiday itself.
The Board of Investment is the main instrument: an approved project can obtain a 3-to-8-year income-tax exemption, duty-free import of machinery, the right to own land, and simplified visas and work permits for foreign staff.
The declaration is filed electronically through e-Customs. The consignment needs an invoice, a packing list, the transport document and, depending on the goods, an import licence from the relevant ministry — food from the FDA, agriculture from the ministry, telecoms from the NBTC.
Thai-language labelling is mandatory for consumer goods and food: name, composition, contents, importer and use-by date. Food and cosmetics additionally require Thai FDA registration before the first import, not after it.
Practical matters
Business is done in Thai; English is common in Bangkok and in export firms, less so in the provinces and hardly at all in government offices. Contracts are usually bilingual, and the Thai text governs before a Thai court.
Face matters more than directness. Open disagreement in a meeting is an offence; “we will look into it” often means no. Hierarchy decides — the decision is made by whoever says least in the room.
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A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.