How Many Industry Codes Sit Inside Each Thai Sector, 2026
In short
Manufacturing spans 421 distinct 5-digit industry codes, more than any of Thailand's 21 lettered business sectors, as of 7 July 2026. Wholesale and retail trade follows with 200 codes. Real estate holds only 9 codes despite housing 149,608 companies. Households and extraterritorial organizations sit at the bottom with 3 and 2 codes. Across the whole registry, 1,228 distinct industry codes exist. The typical sector contains just 27 of them.
How many industries hide inside each sector?
Ask how many distinct 5 digit industries sit inside manufacturing and the answer is 421, more than any of Thailand's 21 lettered business sectors as of 7 July 2026. Wholesale and retail trade carries 200 codes. Agriculture, forestry and fishing carries 105. At the other extreme, real estate runs on just 9 codes and public administration on 13. A sector's code count has nothing to do with how many companies register inside it. Real estate packs 149,608 companies into those 9 codes, an average of 16,623 companies per code. Manufacturing spreads its 230,396 companies across 421 codes, an average of 547 per code. That makes real estate about 30 times more concentrated by code than manufacturing. Wholesale and retail trade sits in between, with 3,580 companies for each of its 200 codes. One sector is a fine grid of narrow specialties. Another is a handful of wide, crowded lanes.
Distinct 5-digit industry codes per sector
- Manufacturing421
- Wholesale and retail trade200
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing105
- Information and communication65
- Transportation and storage64
- Administrative and support52
- Financial and insurance46
- Other services37
- Professional, scientific and technical34
- Construction32
- Education27
- Arts, entertainment and recreation26
- Human health and social work23
- Accommodation and food service23
- Mining and quarrying22
- Water and waste16
- Public administration13
- Real estate9
- Electricity and gas8
- Households as employers3
- Extraterritorial organizations2
Figures in industry codes.
Manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade carry more than half of all 1,228 codes in the registry between them.
Industry codes, companies and density by sector
| Sector | Industry codes | Companies | Companies per code |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 421 | 230,396 | 547.3 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 200 | 715,976 | 3,579.9 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 105 | 19,259 | 183.4 |
| Information and communication | 65 | 52,537 | 808.3 |
| Transportation and storage | 64 | 85,273 | 1,332.4 |
| Administrative and support | 52 | 100,691 | 1,936.4 |
| Financial and insurance | 46 | 35,567 | 773.2 |
| Other services | 37 | 20,455 | 552.8 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 34 | 138,962 | 4,087.1 |
| Construction | 32 | 283,534 | 8,860.4 |
| Education | 27 | 13,897 | 514.7 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 26 | 18,486 | 711.0 |
| Human health and social work | 23 | 17,294 | 751.9 |
| Accommodation and food service | 23 | 83,598 | 3,634.7 |
| Mining and quarrying | 22 | 8,231 | 374.1 |
| Water and waste | 16 | 4,818 | 301.1 |
| Public administration | 13 | 38 | 2.9 |
| Real estate | 9 | 149,608 | 16,623.1 |
| Electricity and gas | 8 | 7,833 | 979.1 |
| Households as employers | 3 | 32 | 10.7 |
| Extraterritorial organizations | 2 | 4 | 2.0 |
Distinct 5-digit industry codes, registered companies and companies per code, as of 7 Jul 2026.
Why the code count matters more than it looks
A 5 digit industry code is how the registry describes what a company actually does, so the number of codes inside a sector is a rough measure of how much internal variety regulators bothered to write down. Manufacturing needed 421 separate codes because it covers everything from rice milling to car assembly to pharmaceutical production, activities with almost nothing in common except a factory floor. Real estate needed only 9 because leasing, developing and brokering property are, at bottom, a small number of transaction types repeated at enormous scale. That gap changes how each sector should be read in every other insight on this site. A ranking of the top industry within manufacturing is really a ranking among 421 rivals. A ranking of the top industry within real estate is a ranking among 9. The same word, sector, is doing very different structural work depending on which letter you are looking at.
Definitions
- TSIC code
- Thailand Standard Industrial Classification code, a 5 digit number the DBD assigns to describe a company's specific business activity, built on the international ISIC standard.
- Section
- The broadest classification level, one of 21 letters from A to U, each grouping many related 5 digit industry codes.
- Companies per code
- A sector's total registered companies divided by its count of distinct 5 digit codes, a measure of how crowded each code is on average, not an individual company figure.
- Aggregate
- A total or average built from many individual company records, rather than a single company's reported figure.
Assumptions
- A code is counted for a section if at least one registered company in the DBD registry currently carries that 5 digit TSIC code.
- Companies per code is a section-wide average and does not imply every code within a sector has an equal number of companies.
- 5 digit code descriptions are not published on this site because the source description_en field is not populated, so codes are counted but not individually named.
Methodology
Industry code counts are the number of distinct 5-digit TSIC codes recorded in the DBD registry for each of the 21 lettered ISIC sections, drawn from market_tsic_insight as of 7 July 2026. Company counts and companies per code use the section-level entity_count from market_section_insight, the same as of date. TSIC 5-digit descriptions are not published on this site, so codes are counted but not individually named. Companies per code is entity_count divided by the distinct code count for that section, an aggregate density measure, not a per-company average.
How we verified this
- Summed distinct code counts across all 21 sections, 421 plus 200 plus 105 plus 65 plus 64 plus 52 plus 46 plus 37 plus 34 plus 32 plus 27 plus 26 plus 23 plus 23 plus 22 plus 16 plus 13 plus 9 plus 8 plus 3 plus 2, equals 1,228, matching the database total of distinct 5 digit codes.
- Summed entity_count across all 21 sections in market_section_insight, 19259 plus 8231 plus 230396 plus 7833 plus 4818 plus 283534 plus 715976 plus 85273 plus 83598 plus 52537 plus 35567 plus 149608 plus 138962 plus 100691 plus 38 plus 13897 plus 17294 plus 18486 plus 20455 plus 32 plus 4, equals 1,986,489, matching the registry total of companies with a classified industry section.
- Manufacturing companies per code recomputed as 230,396 divided by 421 equals 547.3. Real estate recomputed as 149,608 divided by 9 equals 16,623.1, about 30.4 times denser than manufacturing.
- Sorted all 21 code counts ascending, 2, 3, 8, 9, 13, 16, 22, 23, 23, 26, 27, 32, 34, 37, 46, 52, 64, 65, 105, 200, 421, and took the 11th value as the median, which is 27.
- Manufacturing's 421 codes divided by the 1,228 total equals 34.3 percent of every industry code in the registry, held by one sector.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons by Thailand Standard Industrial Classification. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- National Statistical Office of Thailand. (2009). Thailand Standard Industrial Classification (TSIC) 2009. https://statstd.nso.go.th/downloadcffile.aspx?id=16
Frequently asked questions
How many 5 digit industry codes does Thailand's business registry use in total
1,228 distinct 5 digit TSIC codes are recorded across all 21 lettered sections as of 7 July 2026.
Which sector has the most distinct industry codes
Manufacturing, with 421 codes, more than any other section and over a third of all codes in the registry.
Which sector has the fewest industry codes
Extraterritorial organizations, with 2 codes, followed by households as employers with 3 and electricity and gas with 8.
Does a sector with fewer codes mean it has fewer companies
No. Real estate has only 9 codes but 149,608 companies, more than manufacturing has per code and far more than most sectors with dozens of codes.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). How Many Industry Codes Sit Inside Each Thai Sector, 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/how-many-sub-industries-make-up-each-thai-sector-2026
Data & corrections
Download the data (CSV)Spot something off, or want to ask about the data? Email insights@maxsolutions.co.th. We publish corrections.
Written by
Chatpong L.Founder, Max Data, Max Solutions Co., Ltd.
Chatpong L. leads Max Data, a company-intelligence platform built on Thailand's official business registry. He writes about the structure of the Thai economy using primary registry data. His work covers company formation, industry concentration, and regional business activity.
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This page reports company-level and aggregate statistics only. It names no individuals and makes no claims about any person. Figures are provided for information and may be revised as source data updates.