Which Thai Industry Sections Gained or Lost Filers, 2026
In short
Wholesale and retail trade lost 5,892 companies with a filed financial statement in the latest statement year, the biggest headcount drop of any Thai industry section as of 17 Jul 2026. Construction lost 3,620 and manufacturing lost 3,223. Agriculture shrank fastest by percentage, down 5.74 percent. Accommodation and food service added the most filers in absolute terms, up 331, while arts and entertainment grew fastest by percentage, up 2.70 percent. Seven of eighteen sections gained filers. Eleven lost them, for a net loss of 14,971 companies economy wide.
Which sections gained filers and which lost them?
Eleven of Thailand's eighteen filing industry sections had fewer companies file a financial statement for statement year 2568, the Buddhist calendar equivalent of 2025, than they had a year earlier for 2567, equivalent to 2024 (DBD, 2026). Wholesale and retail trade lost the most in raw numbers, down 5,892 companies to 235,485 filers. Construction lost 3,620. Manufacturing lost 3,223, a decline of 3.76 percent. Wholesale and retail's own percentage decline was a comparatively mild 2.44 percent, smaller than construction, manufacturing, transportation, mining, agriculture and water and waste. Its size did the rest of the work. A section with more than 240,000 filers only needs a small percentage slip to produce the single largest headcount loss in the country. Agriculture, forestry and fishing shrank the fastest of any section by percentage, down 5.74 percent, even though its raw loss of 459 companies looks tiny next to wholesale and retail's.
Net change in filer count by industry section
- Wholesale and retail trade-5,892
- Construction-3,620
- Manufacturing-3,223
- Transportation and storage-1,421
- Administrative and support-719
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing-459
- Information and communication-378
- Professional, scientific and technical-190
- Real estate-89
- Water and waste management-85
- Mining and quarrying-58
- Other services34
- Electricity and gas41
- Education108
- Arts and entertainment164
- Human health and social work170
- Financial and insurance315
- Accommodation and food service331
Figures in net change in companies, latest statement year versus prior year.
Eleven sections lost filers and seven gained them. Wholesale and retail's loss dwarfs every other section in raw company count.
Filer counts by industry section, latest year versus prior year
| Industry section | Filers, year 2568 | Filers, year 2567 | Net change | Percent change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale and retail trade | 235,485 | 241,377 | -5,892 | -2.44% |
| Construction | 75,263 | 78,883 | -3,620 | -4.59% |
| Manufacturing | 82,520 | 85,743 | -3,223 | -3.76% |
| Transportation and storage | 28,682 | 30,103 | -1,421 | -4.72% |
| Administrative and support | 39,130 | 39,849 | -719 | -1.80% |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 7,541 | 8,000 | -459 | -5.74% |
| Information and communication | 21,057 | 21,435 | -378 | -1.76% |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 60,635 | 60,825 | -190 | -0.31% |
| Real estate | 75,896 | 75,985 | -89 | -0.12% |
| Water and waste management | 2,066 | 2,151 | -85 | -3.95% |
| Mining and quarrying | 1,952 | 2,010 | -58 | -2.89% |
| Other services | 8,287 | 8,253 | 34 | 0.41% |
| Electricity and gas | 3,398 | 3,357 | 41 | 1.22% |
| Education | 5,870 | 5,762 | 108 | 1.87% |
| Arts and entertainment | 6,234 | 6,070 | 164 | 2.70% |
| Human health and social work | 9,243 | 9,073 | 170 | 1.87% |
| Financial and insurance | 16,332 | 16,017 | 315 | 1.97% |
| Accommodation and food service | 34,566 | 34,235 | 331 | 0.97% |
Companies with a filed financial statement per section, statement year 2568, equal to 2025, versus 2567, equal to 2024, DBD registry as of 17 Jul 2026.
The percentage view reorders the winners
Ranked by percentage rather than headcount, the seven growing sections line up differently. Arts and entertainment leads at 2.70 percent. Financial and insurance follows at 1.97 percent, then education at 1.87 percent and human health right behind it. Accommodation and food service added the most filers in raw terms, 331, yet its 0.97 percent gain ranks sixth of the seven sections that grew, ahead only of other services at 0.41 percent. A section can top the country in bodies added and still sit near the bottom of the growth rate table.
Why this matters
Thailand's registry does not publish a direct count of business births and deaths by industry, so the change in who files a statement each year is the closest proxy a reader can build from public aggregates. A shrinking filer count does not automatically mean an industry produced less. Manufacturing's aggregate net margin has stayed near four percent even as its filer base fell, so the companies that remain are not necessarily struggling. There are simply fewer of them left standing. That domestic pattern lines up with outside reporting that Thai factory closures outpaced new factory openings for the first time in ten quarters in early 2026 (The Nation Thailand, 2026). For a bank or a supplier deciding where to extend credit, a section that keeps adding filers such as accommodation and food service or financial and insurance carries a different counterparty risk profile than one where the population of companies is quietly thinning every single year, even when both report similar margins today.
Definitions
- Filer
- A registered company whose TSIC code rolls up into a given industry section and that submitted a financial statement to the DBD for the stated accounting year.
- Statement year
- The accounting year a financial statement covers, shown in the source data using the Thai Buddhist calendar, where 2568 equals 2025 and 2567 equals 2024.
- Net filer change
- The difference between the number of companies that filed for the latest statement year and the number that filed for the year before, used here as an approximation of net business formation since the registry does not publish a direct count of business births and deaths by industry.
- Industry section
- The top level letter grouping of Thailand's TSIC industry classification, such as manufacturing or wholesale and retail trade, each covering many five digit industry codes.
- Net margin
- Net profit divided by revenue for the companies in a section, expressed as a percentage, used here only as background context on profitability and not as the basis for any filer count in this page.
Assumptions
- A section's filer count reflects which companies submitted a statement for that year, not the total number of companies still legally registered under that section.
- Part of the year over year change may reflect timing rather than closure, since a share of every year's filings continue to arrive after the cutoff date used for this comparison.
- The comparison covers the eighteen sections with enough filing companies to support a year over year count, and excludes public administration, households and extraterritorial bodies.
Methodology
This compares the number of companies in each TSIC industry section that filed a financial statement for accounting year 2568 in the Thai Buddhist calendar, equal to 2025, against the number that filed for 2567, equal to 2024, drawn from the DBD registry as of 17 July 2026. A company is counted under a section if any of its five digit TSIC codes rolls up into that section and it filed a statement for the year. The change is a filer count comparison, not a verified birth and death count. It can include companies that filed for the first time, companies that stopped filing after previously reporting, and late filings still arriving after the cutoff. Public administration, households and extraterritorial bodies are excluded because too few of their entities file a statement to support a year over year comparison.
How we verified this
- Summed companies_latest across all eighteen sections equals 714,157 and companies_prev equals 729,128, a net change of negative 14,971, which matches the database sum of the same two columns.
- Wholesale and retail's percentage change was recomputed as negative 5,892 divided by 241,377, equal to negative 2.44 percent.
- Manufacturing's percentage change was recomputed as negative 3,223 divided by 85,743, equal to negative 3.76 percent.
- Agriculture's percentage change was recomputed as negative 459 divided by 8,000, equal to negative 5.74 percent, the steepest of the eighteen sections.
- Counted seven sections with companies_latest greater than companies_prev and eleven with companies_latest less than companies_prev, summing to eighteen, matching a direct count query against the same table.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- The Nation Thailand. (2026). Thailand factory closures outpace openings as SME strain deepens. https://www.nationthailand.com/business/economy/40066477
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry section lost the most filers in the latest statement year?
Wholesale and retail trade, down 5,892 companies to 235,485 filers, a decline of 2.44 percent from the year before.
Did manufacturing lose more filers than wholesale and retail?
No. Manufacturing lost 3,223 filers, fewer than wholesale and retail's 5,892, though manufacturing's 3.76 percent drop was a steeper percentage decline.
Which sections added filers in the latest statement year?
Seven of eighteen sections grew: accommodation and food service, financial and insurance, human health, education, arts and entertainment, electricity and gas, and other services.
Does a falling filer count mean an industry is shrinking?
Not on its own. It counts distinct companies that filed a statement, not total output, so a section can report similar or higher revenue with a smaller number of larger filers.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Which Thai Industry Sections Gained or Lost Filers, 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/net-filer-gains-and-losses-by-thai-industry-section-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.
Related insights
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.