What to Do If Your BOI Application Gets Rejected

If your BOI application just got rejected, take a breath: it’s not the end of the road, and it’s rarely random. Most rejections trace back to one of a handful of fixable problems, and once you know which one hit you, the fix is usually narrower than it looks.

A rejection feels final, but it’s a judgment on this specific application, not a verdict on your business. Figuring out what actually went wrong is the difference between fixing it and repeating it.

Here’s why applications get turned down, what your options are afterward, and how we’d approach getting it right the second time.

Why BOI Applications Get Rejected

BOI promotion is granted per activity, not per company, and the decision is made against a published list of eligible activities and a set of conditions attached to each one. If you’ve been turned down, your rejection almost certainly falls into one of these categories.

Your Activity Isn’t on the Promoted List

This is the most basic reason an application fails. The Board of Investment promotes specific activities under its current strategy, and if what your business actually does doesn’t map onto one of them, no amount of paperwork changes the answer.

It’s easy to assume that being foreign-owned, tech-enabled, or export-oriented is enough on its own. It isn’t; the activity itself has to be one BOI has chosen to promote.

Your Business Plan is Weak or Incomplete

Your application is a case for why this project deserves promotion, and it’s read for substance: what your company will actually do, how it will be staffed, what it will produce or deliver, and how the numbers add up.

If your plan is vague on operations, or doesn’t clearly show how your project meets the activity’s specific conditions, expect a rejection or a request for more information that stalls things.

Your Capital or Value-add Falls Short of the Threshold

BOI sets a general minimum investment of THB1,000,000 per project, excluding land and working capital, though some activities carry a higher figure, and knowledge-based activities are measured against a minimum annual salary-expense level instead.

New projects are also expected to keep debt-to-equity (how much debt you’re carrying against how much you and other shareholders have put in) at 3:1 or below. If your project is under-capitalized for its activity, or too leveraged, it won’t clear the bar regardless of how good the underlying idea is.

You’ve Missed a Specific Condition for the Activity

Many promoted activities carry their own conditions beyond the general capital and debt-to-equity rules: minimum technology content, environmental or industry-specific requirements, or scale thresholds. Missing one of these is a common, and often overlooked, reason a plan gets sent back.

Good to know: if your project is above THB2,000 million (excluding land and working capital), you need a feasibility study as part of the application. Skipping or under-building that study on a large project is its own way to get bounced back for more information.

Can You Resubmit?

BOI applications aren’t decided by a single reviewer. They go through committees sized to your project’s investment value, and the review timeline scales with it too:

• Projects up to THB200 million: reviewed on a 40-working-day timeline.
• Projects between THB200 million and THB2,000 million: 60 working days.
• Projects above THB2,000 million: 90 working days, with the largest projects going to the full Board.

In practice, this means your rejection could come out of a subcommittee-level review for a smaller project, or out of a full Board decision for a large one.

BOI’s public guide doesn’t set out a formal appeal procedure for a rejected application, so be cautious of anyone who promises to “appeal” a decision through a special channel. What’s realistic, and what most applicants do, is treat the rejection as feedback: identify which of the reasons above actually applied, fix it, and file a new application.

There’s nothing in BOI’s process that bars a corrected resubmission. A second application that properly addresses the plan, the capital structure, or the missing condition stands on its own merits.

Ask anyone who’s been through the BOI application process and you’ll hear a version of the same thing: most rejections are avoidable, and once you can see the specific reason, it’s usually narrower to fix than it first looked. In the business forums, founders who get an experienced firm to pre-check the activity and plan before filing say they rarely get rejected at all.

What resubmitting won’t fix is an activity that simply isn’t eligible. If the core problem is that your business doesn’t do anything BOI currently promotes, no amount of revising the plan changes that, and it’s worth moving to the alternatives below rather than repeatedly reworking an application for an activity that was never going to qualify.

Your Alternatives If BOI Isn’t an Option

If BOI promotion genuinely isn’t available to you, whether because the activity isn’t on the list or because your project can’t meet the conditions, you still have legal routes to operate and, in some cases, to hold significant or full foreign ownership. We cover these in more depth in our guide to 100% foreign ownership in Thailand, but here’s the short version.

A Standard Thai Limited Company

Under the Foreign Business Act, a company is treated as foreign if non-Thai shareholders hold half or more of its shares, which is the legal basis for the familiar 49% foreign, 51% Thai structure.

This is the default route for any activity that isn’t restricted and doesn’t need BOI promotion at all: it’s faster and cheaper to set up, but it caps your foreign ownership and doesn’t carry any of BOI’s tax exemptions or staffing relief. We walk through the tradeoffs in detail in BOI company vs. Thai Limited company.

The US Treaty of Amity

If you’re a US national, or your company is majority US-owned, you can hold up to 100% ownership in most sectors under this treaty, without going through BOI at all. It doesn’t cover everything; these sectors are excluded:

• Communications
• Transport
• Fiduciary services
• Banking and deposit-taking
• Land
• Natural resources
• Domestic trade in indigenous agricultural products

For a US-owned business in an eligible sector, this can be a simpler path to full ownership than either BOI or a Foreign Business License.

A Foreign Business License

For activities that fall under the Foreign Business Act’s List Two or List Three, which cover national-security or culturally sensitive activities and a long list of services (accounting, legal, engineering, construction, and most retail, wholesale, and hospitality businesses), a Foreign Business License is the route to majority or full foreign ownership without BOI promotion.

It requires at least THB3,000,000 in capital per restricted activity, and approval is discretionary rather than a right: the authorities decide case by case, and List Two applications need Cabinet-level approval. It’s a real option, but it’s neither fast nor guaranteed.

None of these alternatives duplicate what BOI promotion offers. A Thai Limited company caps foreign ownership at under half; the Treaty of Amity only helps US nationals in eligible sectors; and a Foreign Business License is a discretionary, capital-intensive approval rather than an automatic right. Each is worth knowing about, but none of them is a like-for-like substitute for a BOI certificate.

Getting It Right the Next Time

Most second applications that succeed do so because you treat the first rejection as a diagnosis rather than bad luck. Here’s what’s worth checking before you file again.

• Confirm the activity fits before anything else. Match your business’s actual operations, not an aspirational description of it, against a currently promoted activity. If there’s genuine doubt, settle this before you rewrite a single page of the plan.
• Build a plan that reads like operations, not marketing. Show how the project will be staffed, what it will produce, and how it meets the specific conditions tied to its activity, in plain and specific terms.
• Check your capital and debt-to-equity numbers against the activity’s actual threshold. The general minimum is THB1,000,000 excluding land and working capital, but some activities set a higher figure, and knowledge-based activities are judged on annual salary spend instead. Confirm your debt-to-equity ratio sits at 3:1 or better for a new project.
• Address every condition attached to the activity, not the headline requirements alone. A missed technical, environmental, or scale condition is an easy and avoidable reason to be sent back a second time.
• Have a feasibility study ready if your project is large. Any project above THB2,000 million in investment, excluding land and working capital, needs one as part of the application.
• Get an experienced set of eyes on the application before it goes in. A firm that files BOI applications regularly can usually tell you in advance whether your activity qualifies and whether your plan is strong enough, which is far cheaper than finding out after a rejection.