Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing issues associated with nominee structures here in Thailand. Been discussing this for quite a while now. The last 2 months we have seen a number of crackdowns associated with so-called nominee shareholders in a corporate context. For those who are unaware, as I discussed in other videos, nominees are explicitly illegal pursuant to Thai law, and there is especially a push associated with corporate structures that are set up to own land in Thailand that seem to be using various types of nominee type of setups. I've discussed this at length and there is even a recent article I was quoting where there was some speculation as to “oh, well, really the foreigners are the victims in all of this.” Well as I said, it takes two to tango; it's not like people are unaware of these issues. And it seems that certain aspects of the enforcement establishment in Thailand tend to agree with this notion.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Foreign nominee firms still the target of an escalating crackdown and blamed for poor economic growth. Quoting directly: “More than 14,800 tax probes, 17,556 land investigations and thousands of police cases reveal the sheer scale of Thailand’s campaign against suspected nominee companies, signalling a fundamental change in how foreign-owned businesses are monitored.” Quoting further: “Thailand’s crackdown on foreign nominee shareholding has become a full-scale economic enforcement same with 23 agencies, thousands of tax, land and police investigations and new registration checks cutting high-risk company formations by more than 65%. However, foreign investors warn the widening offensive is also raising cost, delaying deals and unsettling compliant businesses in key tourism and property markets. Against that backdrop, the Department of Business Development sought to explain why the campaign has intensified. Officials describe nominee ownership as a long-standing structural problem rather than a recent development. According to the Ministry, previous administrations failed to address the issue with sufficient determination. Consequently, thousands of high-risk corporate structures accumulated over several decades. The figures illustrate the scale of that growth. Authorities identified just 523 high-risk nominee entities in 1998. By 2008, that figure had climbed to 2041 companies. A decade later, it reached 5,143 before rising again to 11,746 in 2025. Overall, the cumulative number of legal entities with foreign investment between 0.01% and 49.99% reached 119,297 by June 21 of this year.”

So clearly, we have seen an upward trend of the existence of these companies but more my point in all of this is bringing to the forefront the fact that as Thai law enforcement points out, this has always been illegal; it has always been explicitly illegal. I am not bringing this up to sort of poo poo people or point fingers or whatever. It's just at the end of the day, it is best to handle this and especially the response to it in a realistic manner, rather than saying, "oh well, you are just targeting a certain group”, or you are victimizing this group, at the expense of another by going after things in this way."

The point I'm trying to make in this video is at the end of the day, this has always been a problem and especially where it comes up in the context of land, this has always been a highly risky endeavour from a legal standpoint or whatever. 

Now I know that there has been a sort of complacency that has existed regarding this and normalcy bias kind of kicked in over the years and caused people basically to say, "well I'm getting away with it, so there's not going to be a problem." As we have seen, I did a video where just in a few weeks’ time they confiscated property, and I believe this was real property to the tune of over a billion baht so we are not talking about insignificant amounts of money, insignificant capital that is having a problem now, and also, you have got to keep it in the context of the fact that this is not a new enforcement initiative; this is not something that they just changed a rule and overnight all this happened. Also, these old structures are not loopholes. I've seen it described as that in so many publications. It's just such an erroneous way of describing this structure or the state of play if you will regarding this issue. 

The point I am trying to make regarding this is if you are looking to do business in Thailand, you are looking to own property in Thailand of any type, again for the most part foreigners are precluded from owning land, but again condos are a possibility, leaseholds, Usufructs etc. If you are looking to do any of this stuff, it is a good idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.