New Order Requires Bank Statements to Prove Real Investment
Thailand's Department of Business Development (DBD) has issued a new order tightening the documents required to register a company, aiming to close loopholes that let foreigners use Thai nominees to skirt the country's foreign-ownership limits. Poonpong Naiyanapakorn, the DBD's director-general, said on July 31 that the department had issued Order No. 2/2026 of the Office of the Central Company and Partnership Registration, effective August 1. Where a foreign national is a co-investor or holds signing authority, applicants must now submit an investment explanation letter along with three months of bank statements for both the Thai investors who put up the capital and the representative or company receiving the funds, so officials can check that declared investment matches real financial transfers.
Poonpong said the DBD had already been screening high-risk companies at the point of incorporation, but found that people trying to evade the rules had adapted, registering companies under structures that passed initial screening before later filing amendments to bring in foreign shareholders, directors or signing authority. The new order extends scrutiny across a company's full life cycle, from incorporation through later amendments, to close that gap. Of Thailand's 1,004,558 active juristic persons, the DBD counts 119,116 companies with foreign ownership between 0.01% and 49.99% as nominee-risk entities, with the department focusing inspections on Chon Buri, Rayong, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Surat Thani, Phuket and Krabi.
Widening Crackdown Puts Lawyers and Foreign Investors on Edge
The new checks are the latest step in a broader campaign that has escalated for months. Police have raided nominee networks tied to billions of baht in property holdings, including a Chon Buri operation where four Russian nationals were arrested over holdings worth more than 5 billion baht, and the number of companies the DBD considers at risk of nominee arrangements has grown from 523 in 1998 to more than 11,700 last year. Authorities have also warned law firms, accountants and company-registration agents against helping clients structure illegal arrangements, with those found to have assisted facing legal action themselves.
The pressure is being felt by foreign residents and their advisers. "All of them fear losing their investment and being charged with a criminal case," Brian Ramsden, general manager of foreign affairs at Lawyers for Expats Thailand, told Al Jazeera, describing a wave of anxious enquiries from clients. Lawyers say foreign buyers are delaying villa purchases and that legitimately structured businesses are seeking compliance reviews and alternative ownership models as a precaution. A nominee offence under the Foreign Business Act 1999 carries up to three years in prison and fines of THB100,000 to THB1 million, while the DBD maintains the new rules are aimed at illegal proxy arrangements, not law-abiding operators, and says it will keep working with police and the Department of Special Investigation to pursue firm action against violations.
