Thailand Company Formation Trends Through the Pandemic 2026
In short
New company registrations in Thailand hit a two-decade high of 151,205 in 2021, not a Covid slowdown, a 35.9 percent jump from 111,284 in 2019. Registrations then fell 25.6 percent to a trough of 112,461 in 2023. By 2025 the count recovered to 128,617, still 14.9 percent below the 2021 peak but 15.6 percent above the last pre-pandemic year. The pandemic years were a boom, then a bust, not the slump most people assume.
Did Covid-19 actually slow down company formation in Thailand?
No, it did the opposite at first. New company registrations rose every year of the pandemic before they fell. In 2019, the last full year before Covid-19, Thailand registered 111,284 new companies (DBD, 2026). In 2020, the first pandemic year, that count climbed to 122,427, a gain of 10.0 percent while the wider economy was shrinking. Thailand's GDP contracted 6.1 percent in 2020, one of the sharpest drops in Southeast Asia (World Bank, 2021). Company formation and output moved in opposite directions. Registrations kept climbing into 2021, reaching 151,205, the highest founding-year count on record in this registry and a 35.9 percent jump over the 2019 baseline. The reversal came after the peak, not during the worst of the crisis. Registrations fell 20.7 percent in 2022 and another 6.2 percent in 2023, landing at a trough of 112,461. From there the count climbed back to 121,657 in 2024 and 128,617 in 2025, still 14.9 percent short of the 2021 high but 15.6 percent above where the country stood in 2019.
New company registrations by founding year, 2015 to 2025
Figures in new companies registered.
Registrations rose straight through the pandemic years, peaked in 2021, then corrected for two years before climbing again.
New registrations and year over year change, 2015 to 2025
| Founding year | New companies | Change from prior year |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 68,500 | +8.0% |
| 2016 | 73,163 | +6.8% |
| 2017 | 89,719 | +22.6% |
| 2018 | 104,273 | +16.2% |
| 2019 | 111,284 | +6.7% |
| 2020 | 122,427 | +10.0% |
| 2021 | 151,205 | +23.5% |
| 2022 | 119,923 | -20.7% |
| 2023 | 112,461 | -6.2% |
| 2024 | 121,657 | +8.2% |
| 2025 | 128,617 | +5.7% |
Founding-year counts and the percent change from the prior year, as of 7 Jul 2026.
Why the boom then bust pattern matters
Most write ups of Thailand's pandemic years assume the registry tells the same story as GDP. It does not. New company formation is a confidence signal, not an output signal, and the two decoupled sharply in 2020 and 2021. People who lost jobs or hours in tourism and services appear to have formalized side businesses and delivery ventures rather than wait out the disruption, pushing registrations to a record even as the broader economy contracted. That surge then had to correct. A jump of 35.9 percent in two years was never going to hold once travel reopened and the flood of pandemic era startups thinned out, which is exactly what the 20.7 percent and 6.2 percent declines of 2022 and 2023 show. The part that gets missed is the shape after the correction. Registrations did not settle back at the 2019 level, they settled 15.6 percent above it. Anyone using a single pandemic year, 2020 or 2021 alone, to argue Thailand's business formation either collapsed or is now cooling for good is reading only one side of a cycle that has already completed twice.
Definitions
- Founding year
- The calendar year in which a company was registered with the DBD. This differs from the Buddhist-calendar statement year used for financial filings elsewhere in this dataset.
- Year over year change
- The percent change in new registrations from one founding year to the next, calculated as the difference divided by the prior year's count.
- Peak to trough correction
- The percent decline from the highest year in a cycle to the lowest year that follows it, here measured from the 2021 peak to the 2023 trough.
- Two-decade high
- The largest founding-year count observed across the full range of years available in the registry, 2007 through 2025.
Assumptions
- The 2026 founding year is excluded because registrations for that year are still being filed and the count is incomplete.
- Founding year reflects the DBD registration date, not necessarily the date a business began trading or the date it later closed.
- The GDP contraction figure is drawn from World Bank reporting for context and is not itself a DBD registry number.
- The registry records that a company was formed. It does not record why, so the drivers described here are offered as the most plausible reading of the pattern, not a claim the data can directly prove.
Methodology
Figures are founding-year counts of new company registrations from the Department of Business Development registry, as of 7 July 2026. Founding year is the calendar year in which the company was registered, not the Buddhist-calendar statement year used elsewhere in this dataset. The 2026 founding-year row is excluded because it covers a partial year of filings. Every percent change in this piece was recomputed directly from the raw yearly counts.
How we verified this
- 2019 to 2021 growth recomputed as (151205 minus 111284) divided by 111284, equals 35.9 percent.
- 2021 to 2023 correction recomputed as (112461 minus 151205) divided by 151205, equals negative 25.6 percent.
- 2025 versus 2021 gap recomputed as (128617 minus 151205) divided by 151205, equals negative 14.9 percent.
- 2025 versus 2019 growth recomputed as (128617 minus 111284) divided by 111284, equals 15.6 percent.
- Every year over year change from 2016 through 2025 in the table was recomputed directly from the founding_year counts, for example 2020 versus 2019 is (122427 minus 111284) divided by 111284, equals 10.0 percent, and 2022 versus 2021 is (119923 minus 151205) divided by 151205, equals negative 20.7 percent.
- 151,205 was confirmed as the maximum founding_year count across the full queried range of 2007 through 2025, supporting the two-decade high claim.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons by founding year. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2021). Thailand Economic Monitor July 2021: The Road to Recovery. World Bank Group. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/thailand/publication/thailand-economic-monitor-july-2021-the-road-to-recovery
Frequently asked questions
Did company formation in Thailand fall during Covid-19?
No. New registrations rose in both 2020 and 2021, reaching a two-decade high of 151,205 in 2021. The decline came afterward, in 2022 and 2023.
When did new company registrations peak in Thailand?
2021, with 151,205 new registrations, the highest founding-year count in the registry.
Have registrations recovered to the 2021 peak?
Not yet. 2025 reached 128,617, which is 14.9 percent below the 2021 peak but 15.6 percent above the 2019 pre-pandemic level.
What caused the drop after 2021?
The registry data show the size of the correction, a 20.7 percent decline in 2022 followed by a further 6.2 percent decline in 2023, but the registry itself does not record the reasons a company was formed.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thailand Company Formation Trends Through the Pandemic 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thailand-company-formation-during-the-pandemic-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.