Thailand's Most and Least Indebted Companies by Margin, 2026
In short
Thailand's least indebted companies post a median net margin of 6.4 percent, while its most indebted companies post just 1.0 percent, as of 17 July 2026. Splitting 652,938 filing companies into four equal groups by total liabilities shows margin falling at every step, from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent to 3.0 percent to 1.0 percent. The steepest single drop lands between the second and third quartile. Debt load and profitability move in the same direction across the Thai corporate base as a whole.
Do the most indebted companies really earn less?
Yes. Split Thailand's filing companies into four equal groups by total liabilities, and median net margin falls at every step. The quarter with the least debt posts a median net margin of 6.4 percent. The quarter with the most debt posts a median net margin of only 1.0 percent. That is a drop of 5.4 percentage points, and the least indebted group's margin runs about 6.4 times higher. The two middle quartiles sit in between at 6.2 percent for the second and 3.0 percent for the third. The decline is not a straight cliff. It is a steady staircase down, and it holds across 652,938 Thai companies with both a liabilities figure and a net margin on file as of 17 July 2026.
Median net margin by total liabilities quartile
- Q1, least indebted6
- Q26
- Q33
- Q4, most indebted1
Figures in percent median net margin.
Margin erodes at every step up the debt ladder. The steepest single drop lands between the second and third quartile, not at the top.
Total liabilities quartiles and median net margin
| Liability quartile | Total liabilities range, baht | Companies | Median net margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1, least indebted | 0 to 31,050 | 163,235 | 6.4% |
| Q2 | 31,050 to 613,636 | 163,235 | 6.2% |
| Q3 | 613,638 to 6,135,205 | 163,234 | 3.0% |
| Q4, most indebted | 6,135,292 and above | 163,234 | 1.0% |
Companies ranked by total liabilities and split into four equal groups, as of 17 Jul 2026.
Why this matters
Debt itself is not the problem. Plenty of expanding companies borrow to grow and still post healthy margins. What this pattern shows is that heavy liabilities and thin profitability tend to travel together across the Thai corporate base as a whole. A company in the top quarter for liabilities keeps less than a sixth of the profit per baht of revenue that a company in the bottom quarter keeps. Lenders, suppliers extending credit terms and investors screening for risk can read total liabilities as a rough signal of margin pressure, not a certainty for any single firm. The pattern also lines up with the OECD's finding that Thailand's most indebted firms, independent small and medium enterprises, carry both the highest debt relative to assets and the thinnest capital buffers of any size group in the country. When a credit cycle turns, this is the population with the least room to absorb the shock.
Definitions
- Net margin
- Net profit as a share of revenue for a single company. A margin of 6.4 percent means about 6.4 satang of profit for every baht of revenue.
- Total liabilities
- Everything a company owes, including loans, trade payables and other obligations, as reported on its balance sheet.
- Median
- The middle value in a sorted list, so half of the companies in a group sit above it and half sit below it.
- Quartile
- One of four equal-sized groups formed by sorting companies from lowest to highest on a chosen measure, here total liabilities.
Assumptions
- Only companies with both a reported total liabilities figure and a reported net margin are included, which excludes companies that have not filed a complete financial statement.
- A handful of companies, 5 out of 652,943 candidates, report negative total liabilities, a data anomaly rather than a real economic position. These 5 are excluded before ranking into quartiles, leaving 652,938 companies.
- Total liabilities is a stock measure taken from the latest filed balance sheet and is not adjusted for company size, industry or age.
- Net margin is reported per company rather than pooled across a quartile, so the median reflects the typical company rather than the group's combined profit and revenue.
Methodology
Total liabilities and net margin come from company-level financial statement data filed with Thailand's Department of Business Development, aggregated in the Max Data registry as of 17 July 2026. Companies with both a reported total liabilities figure and a reported net margin are ranked by total liabilities and split into four equal-sized quartiles, each holding just over 163,000 companies. Net margin is reported here as the median for each quartile rather than the mean, because a small share of companies report revenue figures close to zero, which turns net profit divided by revenue into an extreme and misleading ratio. The median is far less sensitive to those outliers and gives a realistic picture of the typical company in each group.
How we verified this
- Quartile company counts were summed: 163235 + 163235 + 163234 + 163234 = 652938, matching the total sample of companies with both a liabilities figure and a net margin on file.
- The margin gap was recomputed as the least indebted quarter's 6.4 percent minus the most indebted quarter's 1.0 percent, equal to 5.4 percentage points.
- The margin ratio was recomputed as 6.4 divided by 1.0, showing the least indebted quarter's median margin runs about 6.4 times the most indebted quarter's.
- The national aggregate net margin of 4.1 percent was queried separately from the national summary table and falls between the second quartile's 6.2 percent and the third quartile's 3.0 percent, consistent with a population-wide figure sitting inside the quartile range.
- The quartile boundaries, counts and median margins were rebuilt directly from company-level liabilities and margin data after dropping 5 companies with negative reported total liabilities, and every boundary, count and median matched the figures in this page exactly.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- OECD. (2025). OECD Capital Market Review of Thailand 2025: The corporate sector. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-capital-market-review-of-thailand-2025_0a975590-en/full-report/the-corporate-sector_008c96e5.html
Frequently asked questions
Do Thailand's most indebted companies post worse net margins than its least indebted companies?
Yes. Companies in the most indebted quarter of filers post a median net margin of 1.0 percent, compared with 6.4 percent for the least indebted quarter, as of 17 July 2026.
How is a company's debt quartile determined?
Companies with both a reported total liabilities figure and a reported net margin are ranked by total liabilities and split into four equal-sized groups, from lowest to highest liabilities.
Why use the median instead of the average net margin?
A small share of companies report revenue close to zero, which makes net profit divided by revenue an extreme ratio for those companies. The median is not distorted by those outliers and better represents a typical company in each group.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thailand's Most and Least Indebted Companies by Margin, 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thailands-most-and-least-indebted-companies-by-margin-2026
Data & corrections
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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.