Applying for BOI promotion is the single most valuable thing many foreign-owned businesses can do in Thailand, and also the application most people get wrong on the first try. This guide walks through the BOI application in Thailand as it works in 2026: who qualifies, what the e-filing process looks like, how long each stage takes, and where applications fail.
The timing matters. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the Board of Investment received applications worth more than 1 trillion baht across 624 projects, about 2.4 times the value from the same period a year earlier. The BOI is busy, which means well-prepared applications move through the queue and sloppy ones sit in correction cycles.
What BOI Promotion Gets You
The Thailand Board of Investment is a government agency under the Office of the Prime Minister. Its job is to attract investment into industries Thailand wants to grow. If your project is approved, you receive a promotion certificate that carries tax and non-tax incentives most companies in Thailand never get:
- Corporate income tax exemption for 3 to 8 years, depending on your activity category (up to 13 years for some technology projects with merit-based add-ons)
- Exemption or reduction of import duties on machinery and raw materials
- The right to operate as a 100% foreign-owned company, without a Foreign Business License
- Land ownership rights for the promoted business
- Work permits for foreign specialists without the standard quota of four Thai employees per foreigner
For a foreign entrepreneur, that last pair often matters as much as the tax holiday. BOI status removes the two structural constraints, ownership and hiring, that shape almost every other setup route in Thailand.
More info about BOI company structure and benefits
Who Qualifies in 2026
BOI promotion is activity-based, not size-based. A common misconception is that it only serves large manufacturers. The minimum investment for most activities is 1 million baht, excluding the cost of land and working capital, which puts promotion within reach of genuine SMEs.
Your project must fall within one of the BOI’s promoted activity sections:
- Agriculture, food, and biotechnology
- Medical industry
- Machinery and vehicles
- Electrical appliances and electronics
- Metals and materials
- Chemicals and petrochemicals
- Public utilities
- Digital industry
- Creative industries
- High-value services
Promotion policy follows the BOI’s five-year strategy covering 2023 to 2027. For 2026, the priority sectors are digital infrastructure and data centres, electronics, clean energy, and food processing. The full list of promoted activities and current conditions is published on the official BOI website at boi.go.th, and it changes several times a year, so check the current announcements before you commit to a category.
New projects also need a debt-to-equity ratio no higher than 3 to 1, and knowledge-based activities (software, R&D, some services) are assessed on annual salary expenditure for qualified staff rather than capital investment.
Is BOI the Right Route for Your Business?
Before you start assembling documents, it is worth checking BOI against the alternatives, because promotion is not the best fit for every foreign-owned business.
If your business serves the Thai market in a sector the BOI does not promote — a restaurant, a retail shop, a general trading company — promotion is simply not available, and your realistic options are a Thai-majority limited company or, for US citizens, a company under the US-Thai Treaty of Amity. If your activity is promoted but your revenue would be modest, weigh the compliance load honestly: annual BOI reporting and separate revenue accounting are real ongoing costs, and for a very small operation the tax exemption may not repay the effort.
More info about US-Thai Treaty of Amity
BOI makes the most sense when at least two of these apply to you: your activity fits a promoted category, you need or strongly want full foreign ownership, you plan to hire foreign specialists, or your projected profits are large enough that a multi-year corporate income tax exemption changes your numbers meaningfully. A software company with three foreign developers and export revenue is a textbook fit. A single-owner consultancy billing a few hundred thousand baht a year usually is not.
The incentive depth also varies more than most summaries suggest. Activities are grouped into tiers — the highest-priority technology categories can receive 8 years of corporate income tax exemption with no cap, while lower tiers receive shorter exemptions capped at the invested amount, and some receive only non-tax incentives like ownership and work permit rights. Merit-based add-ons for R&D spending, advanced technology training, or locating in specific provinces can extend the exemption further. Where your activity lands in that structure should be part of the pre-screening conversation, not a surprise after approval.
The Application Process, Step by Step
Step 1: Pre-screen your project
Pre-screening is optional. Skip it at your peril. You present your project informally to BOI officers, who confirm whether it fits a promoted activity and whether the financials will pass. Activity misalignment is the most common reason applications fail, and pre-screening catches it before you have invested weeks in paperwork. You can pre-screen at BOI headquarters in Bangkok, at one of seven regional centres, or at the BOI’s overseas offices.
Step 2: Prepare the documents
Every application needs a business plan with financial projections covering investment capital, capacity, sales forecasts, and expenses. You will also need the shareholder list with nationality breakdown, a business registration certificate issued within the last six months (for existing companies), recent financial statements, a description of your production or service process, a staffing plan separating Thai and foreign roles, and plans for technology transfer and training Thai staff. Everything goes in as PDF.
If you have not incorporated yet, you can apply first and register the company after approval. Many founders do it in that order.
Step 3: Submit through the e-Investment Promotion System
All standard applications go through the BOI’s e-Investment Promotion System. Paper submissions are no longer accepted. If the BOI finds your application incomplete, you get 30 calendar days to fix it — and every correction cycle adds weeks to your total timeline, which is why the document stage deserves more care than most applicants give it.
Step 4: Present your project
One to two weeks after submission, the BOI schedules a project presentation. A founder or director explains the project to BOI officers and answers questions about the business plan, technology, and staffing. The questions are predictable if you have prepared; the interview covers the same ground as your application. It takes one day.
Step 5: Wait for the decision
Decision timelines depend on the size of the project. Applications up to 200 million baht are targeted for a decision within about 40 working days of complete submission. Projects between 200 million and 2 billion baht go to a sub-committee and take around 60 working days, and the largest projects — above 2 billion baht — are decided by the full Board, which can take up to 90 working days. Separately, any project with an investment value above 750 million baht (excluding land and working capital) must include a feasibility study in its application.
One caveat matters more than the official numbers: these windows cover the formal decision only. They do not include the review phase before your application is accepted as complete — the back-and-forth with BOI officers, requests for clarification, and correction cycles, each of which resets the clock. In practice, from first document preparation to certificate in hand, the overall process usually takes more than six months, and complex or poorly prepared applications can stretch to a year.
Step 6: Accept the certificate and register
After approval you have roughly six months to accept the promotion and complete company registration with the Department of Business Development, if you have not registered already. The BOI then issues the promotion certificate specifying your incentive package, its conditions, and the deadlines for starting operations.
Costs and Timeline at a Glance
| Stage | Typical Duration | Government Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-screening | 1–2 weeks | Free |
| Document preparation | 2–4 weeks | Free |
| e-filing submission and review (projects up to THB 200M) | ~40 working days | Free |
| Sub-committee review (THB 200M–2B) | ~60 working days | Free |
| Board-level review (projects over THB 2B) | Up to 90 working days | Free |
| Certificate acceptance and DBD registration | 1–2 weeks | Standard DBD fees apply |
| Total, typical SME project | 6–12 months | — |
The BOI does not charge application fees. Your real costs are professional fees for preparing the application, DBD registration fees once approved, and the capital you commit to the project itself.
After Approval: The Part Nobody Warns You About
A promotion certificate is not a one-time prize. It is an ongoing relationship with conditions attached. Promoted companies must submit annual reports covering revenue, employment, training, and investment progress, and must begin operations within the timeframe stated in the certificate.
The accounting side is stricter too. BOI-promoted income has to be tracked separately from non-promoted income, because the tax exemption only covers revenue from the promoted activity. Get that allocation wrong and you can lose the exemption on audit. If the BOI issues a warning about non-compliance and your explanation is not accepted, the promotion can be revoked — including retroactive loss of incentives in serious cases.
This is where good bookkeeping stops being an administrative chore and becomes the thing protecting your tax holiday.
Learn more about our accounting services for BOI companies
Common Reasons Applications Get Rejected
- Wrong activity category. The project does not actually fit the promoted activity applied under. Pre-screening prevents this.
- Weak financial projections. Numbers that do not hold together, or capital that cannot be traced to a credible source.
- Thin business plans. The BOI wants to see how the project benefits Thailand: employment, technology transfer, exports. A plan written purely around your own returns reads as a mismatch.
- Missed correction deadlines. The 30-day window for fixing an incomplete application is fixed. Miss it and you start over.
- Underprepared interviews. A founder who cannot answer basic questions about their own staffing plan or technology raises doubts about the whole application.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does BOI approval take in Thailand?
The formal decision is targeted at about 40 working days for projects up to 200 million baht, around 60 working days for projects between 200 million and 2 billion baht, and up to 90 working days for the largest projects decided by the full Board. Those windows exclude the review phase and back-and-forth with BOI officers before the application is complete. End to end, plan for more than six months — and up to a year for complex projects.
How much does a BOI application cost?
The BOI charges no application fee. Costs come from professional assistance with the application, DBD registration fees after approval, and the minimum project investment of 1 million baht (excluding land and working capital) for most activities.
Can a small business apply for BOI promotion?
Yes. The 1 million baht minimum investment puts BOI promotion within reach of SMEs, and the BOI explicitly supports smaller projects. What matters is that the activity fits a promoted category, not the size of the company.
Do I need a Thai partner for a BOI company?
No. BOI promotion allows 100% foreign ownership of the promoted business, without applying for a separate Foreign Business License. This is one of the main reasons foreign entrepreneurs pursue it.
Can I apply for BOI before registering my company?
Yes, and many founders do. You can submit the application first and complete company registration with the Department of Business Development within the acceptance window after approval.
What happens if a BOI company breaks its conditions?
The BOI issues a warning and the company can respond with an explanation. If the response is not accepted, incentives can be suspended or the promotion revoked. Separate accounting for promoted and non-promoted income is the compliance point companies most often get wrong.
How Plizz Helps With BOI Applications
Plizz’s legal team handles BOI applications from pre-screening through certificate acceptance: confirming the right activity category, preparing the business plan and financial projections, managing the e-filing, and prepping founders for the BOI presentation. Because Plizz also provides accounting services, the same firm that wins your promotion can maintain the separate revenue tracking that keeps it — including the annual reporting the BOI requires.
If your project involves bringing foreign specialists to Thailand, Plizz’s visa and work permit service handles the permits your BOI status entitles you to.
Get more info about our visa and work permit service
Thinking about BOI promotion for your project? Contact Plizz’s legal team for a free consultation before you commit to a structure, the right category choice at the start saves months later.