How to Apply For BOI Promotion Successfully

An officer evaluating the realism of your projections is evaluating the capacity of those responsible for delivering it.

The Board looks for experience and qualifications appropriate to the activity under which promotion is sought. A software project led by personnel with a demonstrable software background presents a straightforward case. The same project advanced by an applicant whose experience lies in an unrelated field does not, irrespective of the quality of the plan.

Identify the individuals concerned, setting out their qualifications and relevant experience in the field, and specify who will hold responsibility for the technical side of the project. Named individuals in defined roles carry substantially greater weight than an organisational chart of unfilled positions. The source of funding should be established with equal clarity: financial statements where the company is already incorporated, and a documented account of the intended investment where it is not.

Your project has to match one named activity on the BOI's list and meet that activity's own conditions. Not your industry, your activity.

The BOI does not ask whether software is promoted; it asks which software activity this is. A company writing bespoke software for a single client, or a general AI software company is not doing the same thing as one building a platform, and the BOI reads that distinction closely.

BOI promotion is tied to a project. A project sitting near an activity rather than inside it is the most common rejection there is.

What separates a strong application from a weak one here is specificity.

Technology transfer. A statement of intent to share knowledge carries no weight. The Board expects to be shown which technology is to be transferred, to whom, and by what mechanism.

Training of Thai personnel. Identify the roles concerned, the skills to be developed, the period over which training will be delivered, and the party responsible for delivering it. This element is weighted comparably, and commitments expressed in general terms are received as general commitments.

Employment and local procurement. State the number of Thai personnel to be engaged and the positions they will occupy, together with the materials and services the project will source domestically in place of importing them.

Alignment with current priorities. The Board refreshed its promotion measures for 2026 to 2027 in January 2026, with emphasis upon the bio-circular-green economy, electric vehicles and batteries, semiconductors and advanced electronics, digital and data centre infrastructure, and research and development. A project falling within one of these areas proceeds on materially easier terms than one that does not.

Depending upon the activity, the project must also satisfy environmental requirements and employ modern processes and new machinery.

Being prepared and able to defend your numbers is one of the most important aspects of the process. The interview dedicates a good period of time to this. The officer wants to make sure that you have thought through and planned the business carefully. Four things carry that.

Realistic projections. Officers see a great many business plans, and forecasts that assume everything goes right are recognised immediately.

A viable business. A promoted project is still a business. If it does not look viable on its own terms, the incentives are not what make it work.

Numbers you can explain. Every figure needs a basis you can state out loud: where the revenue forecast comes from, how the costs were built up. "That is our estimate" is not an answer.

Documents that agree with one another. The business plan, the projections, the capital figure and the investment amount all have to tell the same story. Inconsistency is what officers press on hardest, because it suggests the numbers were assembled rather than worked out.

Step 1: Pre-Screening Consultation

Pre-screening tests the activity match while it is still easy to fix. We present your proposed project informally to BOI officers, who tell you whether it fits an eligible promoted activity and whether you can meet the financial criteria, before you have committed anything formally.

It is not mandatory, but it is still worth doing. You can pre-screen at BOI headquarters in Bangkok, at any of seven Regional Investment and Economic Centres, or at 17 overseas BOI offices. Alternatively, contact Attori Law and we will do it for you.

Step 2: Submitting Your Application via e-Investment

This stage tests documentation. All standard applications go through the e-Investment Promotion System, paper submissions are no longer accepted, and every document uploads as a PDF.

Whatever your business type, you submit:

• A detailed business plan with financial projections covering investment capital, production or service capacity, sales forecasts, and estimated expenses and revenues
• Copies of the most recent financial statements, for existing companies
• Current shareholder list with nationality breakdown
• Certificate of business registration issued within the last six months, if the company is already registered
• Description of technology or production and service processes
• Staffing plan distinguishing Thai and foreign employees
• Plans for technology transfer and local workforce training

Prepare all of it before you submit. If the BOI finds your application incomplete, you have 30 calendar days to correct it. That deadline is not negotiable, and missing it means automatic rejection and starting again.

Step 3: The Interview

This is where you and your team are assessed. Within 10 working days of the BOI accepting your application, you confirm an interview date with the officer handling your project, and the presentation usually runs about an hour.

Officers weigh the same things regardless of sector:

• Financial viability and consistency of projections
• Use of modern processes or technology
• Technology transfer and Thai workforce training plans
• Environmental protection measures
• Overall benefit to the Thai economy, including job creation, local sourcing and supply chain development

Send the people who will actually run the project. An officer forming a view on whether your numbers are deliverable is forming it partly from who is in the room.

Step 4: Approval Timelines

How long your project waits depends on its size:

Those timelines run in working days from the date your documents are complete, which is after the interview and after any corrections, not from the date you first applied. In practice the whole process takes 4 to 6 months.

The BOI notifies you in writing within 7 working days of reaching a decision.

Step 5: Post-Approval Deadlines

Approval starts a sequence of deadlines, and missing any of them puts your promotion at risk.

Your certificate is issued within about 10 working days once the BOI has a complete set of supporting documents:

• Memorandum of association
• Business registration certificate
• Company affidavit issued by the Department of Business Development
• Shareholder list with nationalities, certified by the registrar
• Evidence of the transfer of funds from overseas
• Any joint venture, licensing, technical assistance or technology transfer agreement
• The utility and manpower report for the project

Your Foreign Business Certificate, visas and work permits follow from here. See BOI company registration.

Activity misalignment. Trying to fit your business into a promoted category where it does not genuinely belong. This is the most common cause of rejection.

Weak financial documentation. Discrepancies between projected revenue, proposed capital and investment amounts.

Generic business plans. Recycled pitch decks without Thailand-specific financial projections.

Missing deadlines. Failing to schedule the interview within 10 working days, or to respond to correction requests within 30 days.

Three things cost companies their promotion, and all three are avoidable.

Investing less than you said. If your application promised 10 million baht and you put in 5, you are in breach of the certificate rather than merely behind schedule.

Drifting from the promoted activity. Your incentives attach to the activity named on your certificate. If what the company actually does moves away from it, the promotion no longer covers the business you are running.

Missing the machinery and setup deadlines in the table above.

The quarterly progress report is where a gap between your plan and your actual investment becomes visible. From the date your certificate is issued until the BOI approves the start of full operations, you file through the BOI's e-Monitoring system every quarter, setting investment made, machinery imported and staff hired against what you projected. This replaced twice-yearly reporting in March 2026.

Incentives can be reduced, suspended or withdrawn. Keep a calendar of your certificate's deadlines from the day it is issued.

How Attori Law Can Help

Attori Law is itself a BOI-promoted company, so we have made this case for our own firm as well as for clients. We prepare BOI applications from pre-screening through to certificate issuance. If you are considering BOI promotion for your business in Thailand, get in touch and we will assess whether your project qualifies.

(Reviewed September 2026)