To set up a business in Thailand, what are the fees you can expect to pay if you hire a full service professional firm?

Professional Fees:

1. Setting up a new company in Thailand, including getting a tax ID and VAT registration

– Professional fee: Baht 40,000 – 100,000

2. Getting a foreign business license (or certificate to operate business) for your newly set up company. (You can skip this part if you have a Thai partner who will hold more than 50% of the shares in the new company since it will be considered a Thai owned company.)

– Professional fee: Baht 50,000 – 100,000

Government fees:

Government fees are related to the amount of registered capital of the company. And to know how much registered capital the company should have, we need to consider a few things:

  1. If a company has Thai majority shareholders and it will not hire any foreigner, then the registered capital can be as little as Baht 5 per share and because a company needs at least 3 shareholders, the registered capital can be as low as Baht 15. However, the government fee to register a company in Thailand is the same for Baht 15 capital or Baht 1M capital. Thus the government fee to set up a Thai company is about 7,000 for Baht 1 M registered capital.
  2. If a company has Thai majority shareholders and will hire a foreigner to work for it, then the registered capital has to be at least Baht 2M (or Baht 1M if the foreign employee is married to a Thai national). Basically for each work permit the company sponsors, it needs Baht 2M in registered capital. Thus the government fee to set up a Thai company is about 12,000 for Baht 2M registered capital plus about Baht 6,000 for each additional million.
  3. If your new company has foreign majority shareholders, you need to have at least Baht 3M registered capital for each kind of business you want to operate in Thailand. And with each Baht 3M capital, you can sponsor one work permit. So if you want to operate just one business, your new company needs to have Baht 3M registered capital and it can sponsor one work permit. In this case the government fee to set up the company is about Baht 18,000. And the government fee for getting a license to operate a foreign business in Thailand is about Baht 35,000.

For more information on doing business in Thailand, visit www.msnagroup.com.