Scale of Thailand's Nominee Property Crackdown Comes Into Focus: 125,000+ Firms Screened, Over 80 Billion Baht in Land Under Review

Thailand’s Department of Business Development, working with the Department of Lands, is using company registration records covering roughly 125,622 firms nationwide to screen for nominee arrangements — cases where a Thai national or company is used to hold land or condominium ownership on behalf of a foreign buyer who would otherwise be barred from owning it outright. The screening data shows about 36,277 of those companies have foreign investment and between them hold more than 305,000 land plots totalling roughly 1.06 million rai, concentrated in Bangkok, Chon Buri and other major tourist and economic areas.

Speaking on September 18, government spokesman Ekkapob Pianpises said the investigation has so far identified around 2,100 companies whose shareholding structures point to likely nominee use, with more than 10,000 further companies flagged as suspicious and still under review. Officials say land worth in excess of 80 billion baht is now caught up in legal proceedings over possible nominee ownership, and that assets worth 20.392 billion baht have already been seized or frozen, and that new company registrations considered high-risk for nominee structures have fallen by roughly 70% since enforcement tightened — a drop the government attributes directly to the stepped-up checks. The drive was ordered by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and now spans multiple agencies sharing data to flag suspicious ownership patterns.

This is not a one-off raid but a standing, nationwide screening effort, and it matters most for anyone buying or already holding Thai property through a company structure: arrangements that were common practice for years are now facing sustained legal scrutiny, and existing nominee holdings — not just new ones — are within scope.