Thailand vs Singapore: Active Company Share in 2026
In short
Half of Thailand's 1,989,709 registered companies still carry an active status, 993,373 in total, a 49.93 percent share as of 17 July 2026. Singapore's ACRA register runs leaner. Only 30.1 percent of the roughly 2.1 million entities ACRA has ever recorded still carry a live status, about 636,822 companies as of August 2026. Thailand's active share runs 1.66 times Singapore's. Judged purely on how much of the historic register still functions, Thailand's corporate stock looks the healthier of the two.
How does Thailand's active share compare with Singapore's?
Thailand's Department of Business Development counted 1,989,709 registered companies as of 17 July 2026 (DBD, 2026). Of those, 993,373 still carried an active size band, a share of 49.93 percent. A near mirror image, 993,336 companies, sat dormant, and a further 3,000 carried no size band at all. Singapore's ACRA register tells a leaner story. Its full entity file runs to roughly 2.1 million records stretching back to 1881, and only 30.1 percent of them still carry a registered, live status as of 15 September 2026 (Data.gov.sg, 2026). ACRA's own monthly count puts the live figure at 636,822 entities in August 2026 (ACRA, 2026). Thailand keeps close to half of its register alive. Singapore keeps closer to three in ten.
Active share of the registered company stock
- Thailand50
- Singapore30
Figures in percent active or live.
Thailand keeps roughly half its register active. Singapore's older, deeper file keeps closer to three in ten.
Thailand and Singapore side by side
| Metric | Thailand | Singapore |
|---|---|---|
| Entities ever on file | 1,989,709 | about 2.1 million |
| Active or live entities | 993,373 | 636,822 |
| Active or live share | 49.93% | 30.1% |
| Dormant or deregistered share | 49.92% | 69.9% |
| Data as of | 17 Jul 2026 | 15 Sep 2026 |
Registered companies, active status and share, Thailand as of 17 Jul 2026, Singapore as of 15 Sep 2026.
Two registers, two definitions of active
The comparison needs one honest caveat before it travels any further. Thailand's flag comes from filing behavior. A company counts as active once it has a recent size band on file, evidence that it still reports revenue and trades. Singapore's flag comes from legal status. An entity stays live until ACRA formally strikes it off or winds it up, a process that can lag well behind the day a business actually stops operating. Singapore's file also runs 145 years deep, back to 1881, so it carries a far thicker layer of history than Thailand's more recent register. Both numbers still answer the same practical question for anyone screening a market. They tell you what share of everything ever registered is worth looking at today.
Why this gap matters
A headline count of registered companies flatters both economies, but Singapore's flatters harder. Quote Singapore's 2.1 million entities without the 30.1 percent live share and a buyer, lender or researcher overstates the working corporate base by more than three times. Quote Thailand's 1.99 million without the 49.93 percent active share and the overstatement is real but milder, closer to double. For due diligence teams building a target list or a regulator sizing a tax base, the registered total is a poor proxy for the working economy in either country, and Singapore's older, deeper file makes that gap wider than most people assume. Thailand's younger register, by contrast, still functions closer to a coin flip. Roughly one in every two companies that ever registered is still on its feet.
Definitions
- Active company
- In Thailand's registry, a company that carries a current size band, meaning it has a recent filed financial statement showing it still trades.
- Dormant company
- A registered Thai company with no current size band, meaning it has not filed a recent financial statement showing active trading.
- Live entity
- In Singapore's ACRA register, an entity that has not been struck off, dissolved or wound up, so it still holds a registered legal status.
- Deregistered entity
- An ACRA entity formally struck off, dissolved or wound up, removed from live status but still present in ACRA's historical entity file.
- Active or live share
- Active or live entities divided by every entity ever recorded on the register, expressed as a percentage.
- Size band
- Thailand's classification of a company as micro, small, medium or large based on its most recent filed revenue or assets.
Assumptions
- The 2.1 million figure for Singapore's total entity file is an estimate read from a public dataset's row count, not an official ACRA headline total.
- ACRA's 636,822 live count is dated August 2026 and the 30.1 percent registered share from data.gov.sg is dated 15 September 2026, two slightly different snapshot dates a few weeks apart.
- Thailand's active flag depends on a filed size band while Singapore's live flag depends on formal deregistration, so the two measures are related but not identical.
- 3,000 Thai companies carry no size band and are excluded from the active and dormant split, 0.15 percent of the total register.
Methodology
Thailand figures come from the Department of Business Development registry aggregates, computed_at 17 July 2026. A company counts as active when it carries a current size band, derived from its most recent filed financial statement, and dormant when it does not. The 993,373 active and 993,336 dormant figures sum to 1,986,709, the subset of the 1,989,709 total registered companies that carry a size band. Singapore figures come from ACRA's public statistics. The 636,822 live entity count is ACRA's own August 2026 registry statistic. The 2.1 million total and the 30.1 percent registered share come from the data.gov.sg Entities Registered with ACRA dataset, last updated 15 September 2026, which covers every entity ACRA has filed since February 1881. The 2.1 million figure is an estimate read from that dataset's row count, not a headline ACRA statistic, and is flagged as such.
How we verified this
- 993,373 active plus 993,336 dormant sums to 1,986,709, matching the size-banded subset exactly with no double count.
- 993,373 divided by 1,989,709 total registered companies equals 0.4993, a 49.93 percent active share for Thailand.
- 1,989,709 minus 1,986,709 leaves 3,000 companies with no size band, 0.15 percent of the register, held out of the active and dormant split.
- 636,822 divided by approximately 2,100,000 ACRA entity records equals about 0.303, close to the 30.1 percent registered share data.gov.sg reports directly for its dataset.
- 49.93 divided by 30.1 equals 1.66, so Thailand's active share runs about two thirds higher than Singapore's.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and size band aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority. (2026). Business registry statistics. https://www.acra.gov.sg/resources/business-registry-statistics/
- Data.gov.sg. (2026). Entities registered with ACRA [Data set]. https://data.gov.sg/datasets/d_3f960c10fed6145404ca7b821f263b87/view
Frequently asked questions
What share of Thailand's registered companies are still active?
49.93 percent, or 993,373 of the 1,989,709 companies on file with the Department of Business Development as of 17 July 2026.
What share of Singapore's ACRA register is still active?
30.1 percent, based on the roughly 2.1 million entity records ACRA has ever filed. Only about 636,822 of them carried a live status in August 2026.
Why is Thailand's active share so much higher than Singapore's?
The two registers flag activity differently. Thailand marks a company active when it still files a size band from recent trading. Singapore only marks an entity inactive once it is formally struck off or wound up, and its file stretches back to 1881, so it carries far more historic deregistered entities than Thailand's younger register.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thailand vs Singapore: Active Company Share in 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thailand-vs-singapore-active-company-share-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.