Legal Services & Resources
Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.
Contact us: +66 2-266 3698
Alcohol Licenses in Thailand
Transcript of the above video:
This video today we are going to be discussing as the title would allow you to presume, we are going to be discussing the Alcohol Licensing regime in Thailand.
As you may be aware we've done some videos about this. Some of the tax regime has changed with respect to alcohol here in the Kingdom, also certain things with respect to customs duties and import duties have changed with respect to alcohol importation and the licensing thereof. There is another video on this channel that discusses that in more detail. What we're talking about here is what sometimes is referred to in at least in the West, or at least in other jurisdictions I've been in the West as a liquor license or an alcohol license. It's a license to serve alcohol in a venue such as a bar or a restaurant. There is another video on this channel which gets into three types of licenses which are common in the F & B world which is the alcohol license, tobacco license and the so-called restaurant license. I decided it was probably a good idea to go ahead and make another separate set of videos to sort of break out into a little bit more detail some information about the specifics of each one of the licenses. So this video is going to basically discuss alcohol licensing specifically. Why is it important? Well one of the big reasons it's important is one or a business or one or a group of individuals is engaged in the unlicensed distribution or vending of alcohol within the Kingdom, that can be punishable by serious fines and even possibly criminal penalties. Another thing to think about and this is of more importance we find with respect to alcohol licensing is if one runs a food and beverage operation or even something like a hotel or guest house without the alcohol license, it's not necessarily going to be possible to mitigate expenses having to do with the purchase of alcohol for the given venue. So if you don't have an alcohol license, they're not going to give you a tax write-off for buying a bunch of booze that you then later sell on to patrons. So that's the reasons it's important. We often assist with alcohol licensing. The licensing fee structure, last year actually, 2017 underwent a sort of amendment if you will or a an amending process whereby the new statute allows for an increased fee for an alcohol license although it would appear to me that they are not going to take to ratchet it all the way up to top of that scale, it's basically been set in place so they can slowly and incrementally raise that fee over the coming months, weeks, years, probably years moving forward. So at present I haven't seen a massive increase in the alcohol license fee but that being said the ceiling has been set rather high with respect to that licensing regime and it remains how that's going to be raised in the future but it stands to reason that they do probably plan on raising that fee structure up over time. Another thing to keep in mind with respect to alcohol licensing, most foreigners are not going to be able to get an alcohol license in their own name so incorporation of let’s say an F & B establishment such as a bar or restaurant is going to be necessary to go ahead and get an alcohol license issued. Thais on the other hand can get alcohol licenses in their name under sole proprietorships etc. so it's somewhat of a, I won't say somewhat, it's a qualitatively different scheme alcohol licensing for foreigners than it is when you compare it to the way in which Thais can get licensed for alcohol vending and distribution.