Thailand's Most and Least Loss-Prone Industries 2026
In short
Accommodation and food service is Thailand's most loss-prone industry section, posting an aggregate loss in 59.87 percent of its industry-code-years from 2007 through 2025. Agriculture, forestry and fishing follows at 58.20 percent. Arts, entertainment and recreation ranks third at 57.53 percent. Professional, scientific and technical services is the steadiest, losing money in only 10.11 percent of its industry-code-years. The three most loss-prone sections averaged a 58.53 percent loss rate as of 14 Aug 2026. That average is more than five times the 11.02 percent average of the three steadiest sections.
Which Thai industries post a loss most often?
Accommodation and food service is Thailand's most loss-prone industry section. From 2007 through 2025, 59.87 percent of its industry-code-years closed with an aggregate net loss (DBD, 2026). Agriculture, forestry and fishing follows close behind at 58.20 percent. Arts, entertainment and recreation ranks third at 57.53 percent. Professional, scientific and technical services sits at the opposite end, losing money in only 10.11 percent of its industry-code-years. Financial and insurance is nearly as steady, at 11.27 percent. Construction sits close behind it, at 11.67 percent. The gap is stark. The three most loss-prone sections averaged a 58.53 percent loss rate. That average is more than five times the 11.02 percent average of the three steadiest sections.
Share of industry-code-years that posted a loss, by section
- Accommodation and food service60
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing58
- Arts, entertainment and recreation58
- Human health and social work47
- Education41
- Other service activities40
- Mining and quarrying36
- Information and communication33
- Transportation and storage27
- Real estate27
- Water and waste21
- Administrative and support20
- Manufacturing18
- Wholesale and retail trade15
- Electricity and gas15
- Construction12
- Financial and insurance11
- Professional, scientific and technical10
Figures in percent of industry-code-years loss-making.
Restaurants, hotels, farms and the arts run hot and cold from one year to the next. Professional services, finance and construction rarely post a section-wide loss.
Loss share by industry section, 2007 to 2025
| Industry section | Loss share | Industry-code-years | TSIC codes | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation and food service | 59.87% | 309 | 19 | 83,598 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 58.20% | 1,232 | 88 | 19,259 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 57.53% | 299 | 18 | 18,486 |
| Human health and social work | 46.51% | 301 | 19 | 17,294 |
| Education | 41.07% | 392 | 22 | 13,897 |
| Other service activities | 40.05% | 437 | 29 | 20,455 |
| Mining and quarrying | 35.82% | 349 | 19 | 8,231 |
| Information and communication | 33.44% | 924 | 51 | 52,537 |
| Transportation and storage | 27.20% | 956 | 56 | 85,273 |
| Real estate | 27.20% | 125 | 8 | 149,608 |
| Water and waste | 21.31% | 244 | 14 | 4,818 |
| Administrative and support | 19.80% | 803 | 47 | 100,691 |
| Manufacturing | 18.48% | 6,947 | 377 | 230,396 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 15.08% | 3,130 | 174 | 715,976 |
| Electricity and gas | 14.53% | 117 | 7 | 7,833 |
| Construction | 11.67% | 454 | 29 | 283,534 |
| Financial and insurance | 11.27% | 683 | 38 | 35,567 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 10.11% | 534 | 29 | 138,962 |
Share of 5-digit TSIC industry-code-years with a combined net loss, ranked highest to lowest, as of 14 Aug 2026.
Why this matters
The pattern lines up with how these sectors actually work. Farms sit at the mercy of weather, global commodity prices and a single harvest cycle, so a bad year shows up immediately in the numbers. Restaurants, hotels and other food and accommodation businesses compete on thin margins with high fixed costs, and a slow tourist season or a rent increase hits them first. A World Bank review of rural Thai incomes found farm profit can swing sharply from one year to the next, a volatility this registry data confirms at the industry level (World Bank, 2023). Professional service firms, insurers and banks work the other way. Their revenue comes from fees, contracts and interest income that do not evaporate in a slow quarter, which is why they post a section-wide loss in roughly one year out of ten instead of six. For a bank sizing a loan, a supplier extending trade credit or a graduate picking a career, that reliability gap is worth as much as the profit margin itself.
Definitions
- Industry-code-year
- One 5-digit TSIC industry code observed in one statement year. A code that appears in 19 separate years contributes 19 industry-code-years to its section's total.
- Loss-making code-year
- An industry-code-year in which the combined net profit of every company reporting under that code, added together, was negative, even if some individual companies within it were profitable.
- TSIC
- The Thailand Standard Industrial Classification, the code the DBD assigns each registered company. Codes run to five digits and roll up into 21 lettered sections covering broad activities such as agriculture or manufacturing.
- Loss share
- The count of loss-making code-years in a section divided by all code-years observed for that section, expressed as a percentage.
Assumptions
- A code-year is scored as loss-making based on the combined result of every company under that code, so a code can be marked loss-making even when some individual companies within it turned a profit.
- Households, section T, is excluded from the ranking because it has only 3 industry-code-year observations spanning 3 years, too thin to rank.
- Public administration and extraterritorial organizations have no industry-code-year time series in this table and are excluded.
- Statement year 2026, Buddhist year 2569, is excluded because registry coverage for it is still incomplete.
- Real estate and transportation and storage tie at a 27.20 percent loss share.
- The routine's data guide anchors dataAsOf at 7 July 2026, but the rows queried for this page carry a later computed_at of 14 August 2026, so this page uses that live figure.
Methodology
For every 5-digit TSIC industry code in every statement year from 2007 to 2025, recorded as Buddhist years 2550 to 2568 in the source data, this page checks whether the combined net profit reported by all companies with that code was negative, then groups the result by the 21-letter TSIC section. The loss share is the count of loss-making code-years divided by all code-years observed for that section. Data comes from the DBD registry, as of 14 August 2026. Statement year 2026 is excluded because filings are still incomplete. Households, public administration and extraterritorial organizations are excluded for having too few code-year observations to rank reliably.
How we verified this
- Recomputed accommodation and food service: 185 loss-making code-years divided by 309 observed equals 59.87 percent, matching the table.
- Recomputed agriculture, forestry and fishing: 717 divided by 1,232 equals 58.20 percent, matching the table.
- Recomputed professional, scientific and technical: 54 divided by 534 equals 10.11 percent, matching the table.
- Summed loss-making code-years across the 18 ranked sections, 4,446, divided by their combined 18,236 observations, equals 24.38 percent, matching the database's own economy-wide average for the same period.
- Recomputed the top-three average, 58.53 percent, divided by the bottom-three average, 11.02 percent, equals 5.31, supporting the more than five times claim in the tldr.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- World Bank. (2023). Thailand rural income diagnostic. World Bank Group. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099005010202299399/pdf/P1775991e5f180ee130cf14572184e61f60735628d80.pdf
Frequently asked questions
Which Thai industry section has the highest share of loss-making years?
Accommodation and food service, where 59.87 percent of its industry-code-years between 2007 and 2025 closed with an aggregate net loss.
Which Thai industry section is the most reliably profitable?
Professional, scientific and technical services, which posted an aggregate loss in only 10.11 percent of its industry-code-years over the same period.
Is Thai agriculture really that volatile?
Yes. Agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded a loss in 58.20 percent of its industry-code-years, the second highest loss share of any section. That share rests on 1,232 industry-code-year observations, the most of any section in this ranking.
How is a loss-making industry-code-year defined?
It is a 5-digit TSIC industry code in a single statement year where the combined net profit reported by every company under that code was negative, based on DBD filings.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Thailand's Most and Least Loss-Prone Industries 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/thailands-most-and-least-loss-prone-industry-sections-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.