How to get BOI promotion in Thailand: a 2026 application guide

BOI promotion offers one of Thailand's most substantial incentive packages for qualifying businesses. A company promoted by the Board of Investment (BOI) can be exempt from corporate income tax for three to thirteen years depending on its activity tier, import machinery free of duty, be 100% foreign-owned in many activities, own land for its promoted operation, and bring in foreign experts without the four-Thai-employees-per-foreigner ratio that constrains ordinary companies at the extension-of-stay stage.

None of it arrives automatically. Promotion is granted project by project, for a specific activity on the BOI's published list, against criteria the application has to prove — value added, capital, funding structure, process and staffing. The BOI's review period is 40, 60 or 90 working days depending on investment size, and starts only once a complete application is accepted. From the first officer meeting to issuance of the promotion certificate, our experience is that the whole process usually runs 3 to 6 months.

This guide covers the process from start to finish for any business: who qualifies, each step and deadline, what the business plan must show, why applications fail, and the obligations that follow the certificate. For software and technology companies, choosing the right activity category is a separate question, covered in our guide to BOI activities for tech businesses.

What does BOI promotion actually give you?

Incentives are tiered by activity group, and the base tier is fixed by the activity — not by negotiation. Additional measures, such as area-based incentives, can extend that base. A1+ activities (targeted advanced technology such as semiconductors) carry 10 to 13 years of corporate income tax exemption with no cap, while A1 activities receive 8 years uncapped. A2 gets 8 years, A3 five and A4 three, each capped — generally at 100% of the project's investment, as determined by the Board. Group B activities get no tax holiday, only the other privileges. Dividends paid out of the promoted activity's exempt profits are themselves exempt from income tax under Section 34, but only while the corporate income tax exemption is still running.

Beyond the tax holiday:

• Import-duty relief: exemption or reduction of duties on machinery, on raw and essential materials used to make goods for export, and on materials imported for R&D.
• 100% foreign ownership: under Lists Two and Three of the Foreign Business Act, promoted projects face no foreign-equity restriction unless another law imposes one. List One stays reserved — Thai nationals must hold at least 51% — and the Board may still set a limit on a particular project.
• Land: permission to own land for the promoted operation under Section 27 of the Investment Promotion Act, even when the company is foreign-controlled.
• People: permission to bring in skilled workers and experts, with visas and work permits handled through the Thailand Investment and Expat Services Center (TIESC) at One Bangkok — and no four-Thai-per-foreigner ratio to satisfy at the extension-of-stay stage.
• Money: permission to remit funds abroad in foreign currency, plus the statutory guarantees in Sections 43 to 49 of the Investment Promotion Act, which include a guarantee against nationalisation.

The full incentive menu, tier by tier, is set out on our BOI promotion service page.

Who qualifies for BOI promotion?

Two tests decide eligibility: the activity and the project.

The activity must appear on the BOI's published list of eligible activities, whose sections run from agriculture, medical and manufacturing through public utilities to digital, creative industries and high-value services. Every sub-activity carries its own conditions, minimum investment and incentive tier. The real question is not "Is my business promotable?" but "Which exact sub-category fits, and what does it require?"

The project must then meet the general criteria set by Announcement No. 8/2565, in force for applications filed since 3 January 2023:

• Value added: at least 20% of revenues — 10% for agriculture and food, electronics and parts, and metal cutting.
• Minimum investment: at least THB 1 million per project, excluding the cost of land and working capital, unless the activity list says otherwise. Knowledge-based activities are tested on minimum annual salary expense instead of capital.
• Funding structure: for a newly established project, a debt-to-equity ratio of no more than 3 to 1.
• Process and machinery: modern production or service processes, and new machinery as the rule. Imported used machinery always needs a performance certificate from an approved institute, including machinery under five years old, which also needs a price appraisal. Age then decides the benefit: under five years, the machinery counts towards the corporate income tax exemption cap but carries no import-duty exemption; five to ten years, neither. Relocation projects, and ships, aircraft and moulds, follow their own rules.
• Environment: adequate environmental-protection measures, and an environmental impact assessment where the law requires one.
• Scale: projects investing over THB 2,000 million (excluding land and working capital) must submit a full feasibility study.
• Quality standard: projects investing THB 10 million or more (excluding land and working capital) must obtain ISO 9000, ISO 14000 or an equivalent international certification within two years of the full-operation deadline. Missing it costs a year of the corporate income tax exemption.

What are the steps in a BOI application, start to finish?

• Step 1 — confirm the activity fit: map the project to the exact sub-category on the current list and read its conditions before anything else is written — this decides the tier, the conditions you will live with, and usually the outcome.
• Step 2 — pre-application consultation (optional, but recommended): discuss the project with the responsible BOI officers before filing, at the BOI or by video conference — objections surface while the plan can still be changed cheaply.
• Step 3 — prepare the project file: compile the application, business plan and financial projections, plus the supporting documents: latest financial statements (if any), business history, product photos or a catalogue, the production or service process, the main machinery, and evidence for any special measure relied on.
• Step 4 — submit online: applications go through the BOI's e-Investment Promotion system on the BOI website.
• Step 5 — project clarification: the applicant presents the project and answers questions from the officers, in person or by video conference — expect detailed questions about the process, market, staffing, funding and each activity-specific condition.
• Step 6 — evaluation and decision: depending on investment size, the decision sits with the BOI Office, a sub-committee, or the sub-committee and then the full Board.
• Step 7 — notification: the result is notified in writing within seven days of the meeting minutes being approved, setting out the privileges and conditions granted.

How long does BOI approval take in 2026?

The published review clocks run from the day the application is complete:

• Up to THB 200 million (excluding land and working capital): 40 working days, decided by the BOI Office.
• Over THB 200 million up to THB 2,000 million: 60 working days, decided by a sub-committee.
• Over THB 2,000 million: 90 working days, decided by the sub-committee and then the Board.

Working days are not calendar days — 40 working days is roughly eight working weeks. That clock is BOI's; the end-to-end figure is ours. Add preparation, the clarification meeting, acceptance and certificate issuance, and in our experience the whole process runs about 3 to 6 months — not a BOI service standard. The Thai company can be set up in parallel through the standard company registration process — promotion attaches to the project, and the company only has to exist by the certificate stage.

What must the business plan credibly show?

BOI officers read project documents all day; generic ones stand out immediately. We have seen strong projects fail because of a generic plan, and modest projects succeed because the plan addressed the criteria precisely. The file must show:

• The activity, exactly: what is produced or delivered, by what process, in wording that matches the sub-category and its conditions.
• Numbers that clear the thresholds: projections in which the value added, the minimum investment (or salary expense) and the 3-to-1 debt-to-equity limit actually hold — arithmetic an officer can re-run, not assertions.
• Real operations in Thailand: premises, machinery, technology and where the value is created. A shell reselling work done abroad will not survive the clarification meeting.
• A staffing plan: Thai hiring and skills progression, plus the foreign expert positions you intend to request, with salaries consistent with BOI criteria.
• Evidence for the per-activity conditions: certifications, technology, customer pipeline — whatever the chosen sub-category demands.

Consistency matters more than polish. The clarification meeting exists to test whether the people answering match the paper.

Why do BOI applications fail?

• The wrong activity code: in our experience, a stretched fit into a higher tier is the most frequent self-inflicted problem. Officers spot it, and the application stalls in clarifications.
• A generic business plan: copy-paste projections and vague process descriptions read as a project that does not yet exist.
• Arithmetic that fails the criteria: value added below the threshold once computed properly, or debt-to-equity above 3 to 1 once the real funding plan is drawn.
• Interview inconsistency: answers in the clarification meeting that contradict the file.
• Conditions accepted without a plan: sub-category requirements — certifications, salary levels, process standards — accepted with no plan to satisfy them later.

Where the activity has been mapped correctly, we usually find officer concerns can be addressed in revisions rather than ending the application — though approval is never guaranteed. Every failure above is avoidable before filing — which is why the activity-fit assessment comes first.

What happens after approval? The deadlines start here

Approval is a resolution, not yet a certificate. Three deadlines now run:

• Accept within one month: the acceptance form (F GA CT 07) goes through the BOI's online Promotion Certificate system within one month of notification — extendable three times, one month each.
• Incorporate and apply for the certificate within six months: within six months of acceptance, the promoted company must exist and the certificate application must be lodged with its documents — the application and utility-and-labour-requirements forms, the company's registration certificate and certified shareholder list (each issued within the last year) and, for foreign shareholding, the credit advice proving the inward transfer of funds. Extensions of four months are possible, up to three times.
• Certificate issuance: the BOI issues the promotion certificate within 10 working days of receiving the complete file.

Next comes the operating set-up. A majority-foreign company in a restricted activity applies to the Department of Business Development for its Foreign Business Certificate. The company then registers in the BOI's Single Window for Visa and Work Permit, the system that replaced e-Expert, so each foreign position can be approved and each visa and work permit processed through TIESC. Machinery and raw-material duty privileges are activated through the eMT and RMTS systems after registration with the Investor Club Association.

What are your obligations once promoted?

The certificate is, in effect, a contract with conditions. The recurring ones:

• Implementation deadlines: machinery must be imported within 30 months of certificate issuance (extendable up to three times, one year each), and full operation start-up must be requested within 36 months.
• Progress and performance reporting: two duties on different clocks. Quarterly progress reports go through the BOI's e-Monitoring system from certificate issuance until the operating licence is granted, each due within 30 days of the quarter-end under Office Notification Por. 8/2569. The annual performance report, the Tor Sor 310, is filed in the same system by the end of July of the following year, and continues every year the company stays promoted.
• Using the tax holiday is itself a filing: in any year the company has a net profit and wants to claim the exemption, it applies through the BOI's e-Tax system within 120 days of the accounting year end, attaching operating results certified by its auditor. The BOI then confirms the exemption to the company and to the Revenue Department.
• Staying inside the approved scope: shareholding changes must be reported, and need a formal amendment only where they affect a shareholding condition attached to the project. Material changes to approved products, capacity or location need BOI approval or an amendment. BOI permission is also needed to pause operations for more than two months, or to sell or transfer duty-exempt machinery.

Ordinary tax compliance continues in parallel: promotion changes what the company pays, not what it has to file. A VAT-registered company keeps filing VAT monthly. Withholding-tax returns are due whenever the company makes a payment subject to withholding. The half-year and annual corporate income tax returns and the annual audit continue as normal. The stakes are real — breached conditions can lead to withdrawal of the promotion, and previously exempted profits can then be reassessed for tax.

When is BOI promotion not worth pursuing?

A tax holiday on profits you will not make is worth nothing, and the compliance load is fixed whatever the company's size. Think twice if the business will not be meaningfully profitable inside the exemption window, if the sub-category's conditions — salaries, capital, certifications — would strain the budget, or if the model is still changing: promotion locks the company to the approved scope, and every pivot means an amendment.

There are alternatives: US citizens should look at the Treaty of Amity first — faster, certification-based, no tax incentives. A Foreign Business License can deliver 100% ownership without BOI conditions, at the price of a discretionary process. A genuine Thai-majority company avoids the foreign-business restrictions entirely. An honest activity-fit conversation at the start settles the choice — and it regularly ends with a recommendation not to apply.

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This article is general guidance — not legal or tax advice. If you'd like a scoped opinion on how it applies to your specific situation, contact our team.