If you run a software business, Thailand’s BOI is about as friendly as company setup gets for a foreigner. There’s no factory to build, no container of machinery to import, and no heavy capital to park in a bank. Your main asset is a team writing code, and the BOI has a whole category built around exactly that.
Software is one of the most popular routes for foreigners setting up in Thailand. It’s also the category we applied under when we got our own BOI promotion more than a decade ago. The rules have changed plenty since then, but the core requirement hasn’t.
There’s no huge investment to make, no industrial estate to move into, and no years of construction. What matters instead is how you set the business up in Thailand, including how you transfer skills and technology to your Thai staff.
Here’s how it actually works for a digital business, with the real activity codes and the conditions that come attached.
Key Takeaways
- Software development is a promoted activity in the BOI’s Digital category (activity 8.1.1), and it sits in Group A2, which carries an 8-year corporate income tax exemption.
- Digital activities let a foreigner hold up to 100% of the company, subject to Board approval, so you don’t need a Thai majority partner.
- Software uses a knowledge-based capital test: a minimum of THB1,500,000 per year measured against the salaries of the Thai tech staff you hire, not the usual THB1,000,000 project minimum.
- The tax holiday for software is capped at 100% of your qualifying local spend (Thai salaries, training, quality certifications), so the incentive scales with how much you invest in Thai talent.
- Import duty exemptions, the headline perk for manufacturers, barely matter here, since a software firm imports almost nothing.
- You bring in foreign developers under the Investment Promotion Act, which skips the standard 4-Thai-staff-per-foreigner rule, though minimum expat salary floors still apply.
- Watch the fine print: “modification” of existing software (activity 8.1.2) is Group B with no tax holiday, and the 8.1.1 route gives you only 12 months to reach full operation with no extension.
Why Digital Is a BOI Sweet Spot
Thailand’s Board of Investment organizes promoted activities into ten broad categories, and Digital is category 8, sitting inside the “Digital, Creative Industries and High-Value Service” division. It’s one of the S-Curve industries the country is actively trying to attract, which in plain terms means the door is open and the incentives are real.
What makes it a sweet spot for founders is that BOI was originally designed around heavy industry, where you prove your commitment by importing machinery and building things. A software company has none of that.
So the BOI runs digital activities on a different set of rules that fit a people-and-code business:
- a salary-based capital test instead of a machinery one
- a tax holiday tied to what you spend on local talent rather than fixed assets.
For the full picture of what BOI is and how promotion differs from a plain Thai company, see our guide on what BOI is. This article stays focused on the digital angle.
The Incentives That Matter for Software
A BOI-promoted software company picks up several benefits worth real money. Here are the ones that matter most.
100% Foreign Ownership
This is usually the reason founders come to BOI in the first place. Software development isn’t on the Foreign Business Act’s closed List One, so there’s no legal floor forcing Thai nationals to hold the majority, and BOI promotion lets the Board approve foreign shareholding up to 100% for an eligible activity. You can own your company outright.
It isn’t automatic, though: the 100% comes from per-activity Board approval, not a blanket guarantee, so it’s granted as part of your promotion rather than assumed. For software it’s routine. We cover the legal basis and the edge cases in the 100% foreign ownership guide.
Tax Incentives
Software development lands in Group A2. Across BOI’s group table, A2 gives an 8-year corporate income tax exemption, capped at 100% of the investment. That’s a full 8 years, right near the top of BOI’s scale, which surprises people who assume a no-machinery business gets a lesser deal. It doesn’t.
The twist for software is what the cap is measured against. For a factory, the cap tracks money sunk into machinery and buildings. For 8.1.1, the exemption cap is set each year at 100% of your actual qualifying expenditure, and the qualifying spend is local and people-based:
- Salaries for Thai IT staff you hire after applying for promotion.
- Salaries for temporarily employed Thai IT personnel.
- Training that builds your Thai team’s tech skills.
- The cost of earning recognized quality certifications (ISO 29110 or CMMI level 2 and up).
So the more you invest in Thai engineers and their skills, the more tax-exempt profit you can shelter. It’s a deliberate design: the government wants the software jobs and the skills transfer to land in Thailand, and the incentive rewards exactly that. For a growing dev shop, this can be genuinely valuable, since payroll is usually your single biggest line item anyway. Our incentives guide breaks down how the group system and the caps work in full.
The other headline BOI perk, import duty exemption on machinery and raw materials, is close to irrelevant here. A software company imports almost nothing dutiable. A few laptops and servers don’t move the needle, so don’t weigh a software application on the duty savings that make manufacturers’ eyes light up. For you, the value is the tax holiday, the ownership, and the visa access.
Bringing In Your Developers
A normal Thai company that wants to sponsor a foreign employee has to carry THB2,000,000 in paid-up capital per foreigner and employ four Thai staff for every foreigner. For a small dev team that wall is brutal, and it’s the reason a lot of founders can’t legally hire the foreign engineers they need.
BOI companies bring in foreign experts through the Board’s own work-permit process instead, which skips that 4-to-1 ratio and the THB2,000,000-per-head capital test. That’s often the single biggest operational reason a software founder chooses promotion.
You can staff your team with the people you actually want.
Two caveats keep this honest.
- Minimum salary: the expat salary floors still apply. Broadly, an operational role needs at least THB50,000 per month, management THB75,000 (or THB50,000 with a bachelor’s degree), and an executive THB150,000.
- Position: you have to show the BOI why you need each role and each hire. Bringing in an experienced developer is usually fine. A role that isn’t tied to the software work, like a secretary or admin support, is harder to justify, and the person still has to be genuinely qualified for the job.
Good to know: the 70% Thai-staff threshold BOI introduced for large manufacturers doesn’t apply to service businesses, and software counts as a service, so that rule won’t hit you.
What Actually Qualifies
The Digital category (8.x) is broader than most people expect.
It splits into four groups:
- digital technology
- digital infrastructure
- the digital ecosystem
- smart city
Each individual activity carries its own tax group, so the incentive depends on the exact activity you apply under, not on the fact that you’re “a tech company.” Here are the ones digital founders ask about most.
| Activity (BOI code) | What it covers | Group | Tax holiday |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software / platform / digital content development (8.1.1) | Building your own software, SaaS platform, apps, games, or digital content in Thailand | A2 | 8 years, capped at 100% of qualifying spend |
| Software / platform / content modification (8.1.2) | Reworking existing, already-marketed software rather than building something new | B | None (keeps non-tax perks) |
| Cloud services (8.2.2) | Cloud service delivered from certified Thai data centers | A2 | 8 years |
| Data center (8.2.1) | Running a data center (high-efficiency A2, other A3) | A2 / A3 | 8 or 5 years |
| Innovation park (8.3.1) | Operating an innovation park with incubation and maker facilities | A1 | 8 years, no cap |
| Smart city system development (8.4.2) | Developing and installing smart-city systems | A2 | 8 years |
For most founders reading this, activity 8.1.1, development of software, digital platforms, or digital content, is the one that matters.
It covers the bulk of what people mean when they say “software company”: custom software, a SaaS product, mobile apps, games, and digital media, as long as the development work genuinely happens in Thailand. That last part isn’t a formality. The condition is written into the activity: the development process has to take place here, not just a sales office bolted onto an offshore dev team.
Watch the retail line: activity 8.1.1 explicitly excludes retail and wholesale of any product. If your plan mixes software with selling physical goods, the trading side won’t ride in on the software promotion. It needs its own treatment, and that’s a common reason a digital application gets kicked back for restructuring.
What About Data Centers?
The heavier infrastructure activities (data centers, GPU data hosting) are in the same category but play a different game. Data hosting with advanced processing, for instance, carries a capital minimum of THB5,000,000,000, and a data center needs at least 2 MW of IT load.
Those are serious infrastructure projects, not the route for a typical software startup. If you’re writing code rather than pouring concrete for server halls, 8.1.1 is almost certainly your activity.
Capital Works Differently for Software
Most BOI projects have to meet a THB1,000,000 minimum investment, excluding land and working capital. Software doesn’t work that way, because a code shop doesn’t sink money into fixed assets. So the BOI swaps the machinery-based test for a knowledge-based one.
For activity 8.1.1, the minimum is THB1,500,000 per year, and that figure is measured against the salaries of the Thai IT staff you add after applying for promotion (plus any temporary Thai IT personnel).
Because of this, your commitment is proven through payroll, not through equipment on a balance sheet. That fits how a software business actually spends, and it’s the same test that answers the “how much capital do I need” question on our minimum capital guide.
One practical upside: you’re allowed to use existing or used machinery for a software project, so there’s no requirement to buy new kit just to satisfy BOI. Your laptops and existing setup are fine.
Two conditions to plan around: activity 8.1.1 gives you only 12 months from certificate issuance to reach full operation, and that deadline cannot be extended. And “modification” of already-marketed software (activity 8.1.2) is a separate activity in Group B, which carries no tax holiday at all. If you’re improving an existing product rather than building a new one, get the activity classification right before you apply, because the tax outcome is completely different.
How to Apply
The path for a digital business is the same as any BOI project, with a few points that carry more weight for software. Pin down your activity and group first, since it drives the capital test, the tax outcome, and the conditions (for most software work that’s 8.1.1, Group A2). Build a project plan that shows development happening in Thailand and Thai IT hires that meet the salary-based capital threshold. And plan to reach full operation inside the 12-month window, because the software activity grants no extension.
The rest runs the standard way: you file online for free, attend a clarification meeting (at the BOI office or by video conference), then accept the promotion, register the company, and apply for your certificate. The full step-by-step lives in our application process guide.
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