Thailand's Median Company Founding Year Is 2019 (2026)
In short
The median founding year for a Thai company is 2019, as of 17 July 2026. Of the 1,561,866 companies with a known founding year, exactly half were incorporated in 2019 or earlier. The halfway mark falls at company number 780,933. Companies founded in 2019 or later make up 55.5 percent of that total. The register's typical company is not yet seven years old.
What year is the median Thai company's founding year?
The median founding year is 2019 (DBD, 2026). Line up every Thai company with a recorded founding year from 2007 through 2025, order them from oldest to newest, and the company standing exactly in the middle was incorporated in 2019. That ordered group totals 1,561,866 companies. The halfway point sits at company number 780,933. Running the count year by year, the total reaches only 694,292 by the close of 2018, still short of the halfway mark. Adding 2019's own 111,284 new companies pushes the running total to 805,576. That crosses the halfway mark inside a single year. Half the register is younger than 2019. The other half is older.
Cumulative company formation, 2007 to 2025
Figures in cumulative companies with a known founding year.
The running total crosses the halfway mark of 780,933 during 2019, the same year that lands as the median.
New company formation by year, 2007 to 2025
| Founding year | New companies | Cumulative count | Cumulative share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,007 | 30,227 | 30,227 | 1.94% |
| 2,008 | 33,093 | 63,320 | 4.05% |
| 2,009 | 35,371 | 98,691 | 6.32% |
| 2,010 | 41,404 | 140,095 | 8.97% |
| 2,011 | 45,389 | 185,484 | 11.88% |
| 2,012 | 49,466 | 234,950 | 15.04% |
| 2,013 | 60,270 | 295,220 | 18.9% |
| 2,014 | 63,417 | 358,637 | 22.96% |
| 2,015 | 68,500 | 427,137 | 27.35% |
| 2,016 | 73,163 | 500,300 | 32.03% |
| 2,017 | 89,719 | 590,019 | 37.78% |
| 2,018 | 104,273 | 694,292 | 44.45% |
| 2,019 | 111,284 | 805,576 | 51.58% |
| 2,020 | 122,427 | 928,003 | 59.42% |
| 2,021 | 151,205 | 1,079,208 | 69.1% |
| 2,022 | 119,923 | 1,199,131 | 76.78% |
| 2,023 | 112,461 | 1,311,592 | 83.98% |
| 2,024 | 121,657 | 1,433,249 | 91.77% |
| 2,025 | 128,617 | 1,561,866 | 100% |
New companies founded each year, running total, and running total as a share of the 1,561,866 companies with a known founding year, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why a young register matters
A register with a 2019 median means most Thai companies have never traded through a full decade of financial statements. Anyone underwriting a Thai counterparty, extending trade credit, or evaluating a supplier is more likely than not looking at a company with fewer than seven years of filed history behind it. The formation curve also tells its own story. New company formation grew roughly fivefold from 30,227 in 2007 to a peak of 151,205 in 2021. It then settled into a steadier band of roughly 112,000 to 129,000 a year through 2025. That 2021 peak landed as Thailand climbed out of the pandemic era and stands as the single busiest year on record. A young median is not a warning sign on its own, but it does mean survival data, credit history, and management track records are thinner for the typical company than the headline count of 1,989,709 registered companies might suggest.
Definitions
- Founding year
- The calendar year a company was incorporated, as recorded in the DBD registry.
- Known founding year
- A company whose founding year is recorded in the registry and falls in the 2007 through 2025 range used for this calculation.
- Cumulative count
- The running total of companies formed from 2007 up to and including a given year.
- Median founding year
- The founding year in which the cumulative count of companies first passes half the total count of companies with a known founding year.
Assumptions
- Founding year reflects the DBD's recorded incorporation date, not necessarily the date a business began trading.
- The 1,561,866 base covers only founding years 2007 through 2025. Companies founded before 2007 or with no recorded founding year are outside this base and outside the 1,989,709 total registered companies.
- The 2026 year-to-date total of 110,866 new companies is excluded from the median calculation because the year is still in progress as of the 17 July 2026 data pull.
Methodology
New company counts by founding year are drawn from market_new_companies_insight in the DBD-sourced registry, as of 17 July 2026. The founding_year field in this table runs on the Gregorian calendar. Founding years 2007 through 2025 were summed to 1,561,866 companies with a known founding year, and the running total was recomputed year by year to locate the year in which it first exceeds half that sum. The 2026 year-to-date total of 110,866 was excluded because the year is still in progress and would understate the true 2026 count. Companies founded before 2007, or with no recorded founding year, fall outside this table and outside the 1,561,866 base, so they are not part of the median calculation.
How we verified this
- Summed new_companies for founding years 2007 through 2025 by hand from market_new_companies_insight and got 1,561,866, excluding the incomplete 2026 total of 110,866.
- Half of 1,561,866 is 780,933.0, the halfway mark used to find the median founding year.
- Recomputed the running total year by year: it reaches 694,292 through 2018, still below 780,933, then reaches 805,576 through 2019, above 780,933, so the median founding year is 2019.
- Companies founded 2019 or later equal 1,561,866 minus 694,292, which is 867,574, and 867,574 divided by 1,561,866 equals 0.5555, or 55.5 percent.
- 1,561,866 divided by the 1,989,709 total registered companies equals 0.7850, or 78.5 percent, showing the founding-year table covers a little over three quarters of the full register.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and new company formation by year. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Nation Thailand. (2026). New business registrations slip in 2025, DBD says. https://www.nationthailand.com/business/corporate/40061481
Frequently asked questions
What year is the median Thai company's founding year?
2019. Half of the 1,561,866 companies with a known founding year were incorporated in 2019 or earlier, and half in 2019 or later.
What share of Thai companies were founded in 2019 or later?
55.5 percent, or 867,574 of the 1,561,866 companies with a known founding year.
Why is 2026 excluded from the median calculation?
The 2026 count of 110,866 only covers part of the year as of the 17 July 2026 data pull, so including it would understate that year's true total and distort the median.
How old is the typical company on Thailand's register?
Using 2019 as the median founding year, the typical company is not yet seven years old as of mid 2026.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thailand's Median Company Founding Year Is 2019 (2026). Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thailands-median-company-founding-year-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.