Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Thailand's Board of Investment issued Announcement No. Por. 8/2568, dated 20 May 2025, setting new criteria for approving foreign-worker positions, placing foreign staff into approved positions, and extending position/ personnel terms under Sections 25-26 of the Investment Promotion Act. The announcement requires BOI-promoted manufacturing projects with more than 100 employees to keep Thai nationals at 70% or more of the workforce (verified via Social Security filings), and sets minimum monthly salary floors for foreign hires (THB 150,000 for executives, THB 75,000 for managers/specialists, reduced to THB 50,000 with a relevant degree). It replaces the prior Por. 3/2567 announcement (9 August 2024).

Thailand's Cabinet approved in principle on 22 April 2025 the urgent revision of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999), directing the Ministry of Commerce to overhaul the foundational 25-year-old statute governing foreign participation in Thai economic activities, explicitly shifting the guiding principle from "protection" of domestic entrepreneurs to "enhancing competitiveness." In January 2026, the Department of Business Development operationalised the reform by announcing a 10-sector List-3 delisting package — including telecommunications services not owning network infrastructure, software development, financial-services categories (treasury centres, derivatives agency, collateralised lending, credit guarantee), petroleum drilling services, management services for affiliated companies, and domestic agricultural commodity trading — that would allow wholly-foreign-owned subsidiaries without a Foreign Business Licence (FBL). Simultaneously, the revision introduces a shift from a legal-shareholding test to an actual-control / beneficial-ownership test in nominee-shareholder enforcement, tightening the anti-front-company architecture while liberalising legitimate foreign-investment routes. Full statutory enactment via parliamentary process is expected mid-to-late 2026.

On 8 December 2022 the Thai Board of Investment issued Announcement No. 8/2565 "Policies and Criteria for Investment Promotion", setting Thailand's five-year (2023-2027) horizontal investment-promotion strategy. The Announcement entered into force from 8:30 a.m. on 3 January 2023 and applies to all investment-promotion applications filed with the BOI from that date. The strategy reorients Thailand's investment regime around three core concepts — (i) innovation, technology and creativity, (ii) competitiveness and rapid adaptability, and (iii) inclusiveness, including environmental and social sustainability — and is operationalised through seven pillars: industrial transition to BCG (Bio-Circular-Green) / smart industries, regional-hub positioning (EV, electronics, food, medical, aviation, automation), supply-chain strengthening, technology upgrading, SME competitiveness, sustainable development, and BCG-economy alignment. Incentives are structured into Group A (corporate-income-tax exemption for 3-13 years, with Group A1+ activities — frontier-technology semiconductors, advanced biotech, certain EV components — receiving up to 10-13 years CIT exemption with no cap) and Group B (non-tax incentives only). Fundamental eligibility criteria carried over from prior regimes: minimum THB 1 million investment, new-machinery requirement, 20% annual revenue-growth projection, and a 3:1 debt-to-equity threshold. The 8 December 2022 release was accompanied by 16 additional implementing announcements (Announcements 9/2565 to 24/2565) covering specific activity lists and merit-based incentives. This is the umbrella framework under which Thailand's subsequent sector-specific BOI instruments operate — the EV 3.5 package (2023-12-19, effective 2024-01-01), the EV Board HEV manufacturing excise incentives (2024-07-26), and the National Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Industry Strategy (2026-01-07) all sit inside this 2023-2027 investment-promotion regime.