Notary attorneys
Financial statements of a Thai limited company must be audited and opined on by a licensed Certified Public Ac
Corporate services
Financial statements of a Thai limited company must be audited and opined on by a licensed Certified Public Accountant under the Accounting Act B.E. 2543 and the Accounting Professions Act B.E. 2547. We appoint an independent CPA, assemble the closing file and manage submission to the DBD and the Revenue Department on time.

An audit is not a year-end ritual; it is the output of twelve months of document discipline. Companies that file tax invoices, contracts and payment evidence as they go usually close quickly with an unqualified opinion. Companies that assemble paperwork only before the AGM usually face a long list of prior-period adjustments.
This page sets out the legal framework, the independence rule separating bookkeeper from auditor, the schedules auditors actually request, and the issues that lead to a qualified opinion. Fees are not published because scope depends on size and transaction complexity — ask our team by phone, LINE or email.
Financial statements of a Thai limited company must be audited and opined on by a licensed Certified Public Ac
Provinces · 50+77
Checked against the intended destination and receiving authority
Send your company profile, headcount and existing documentation by LINE, phone or email — we scope the work an
Late-filing fines, Revenue Code surcharges and the size thresholds that permit a Tax Auditor are set by ministerial regulation and notification and are amended from time to time. Confirm current figures with the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, or ask us to check your specific case before you rely on a number.
We do not guarantee audit outcomes or tax assessment results. Our mandate is complete, accurate records filed within the statutory deadlines.
Variable facts — verify before relying on them
Late-filing fines, Revenue Code surcharges and the size thresholds that permit a Tax Auditor are set by ministerial regulation and notification and are amended from time to time. Confirm current figures with the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, or ask us to check your specific case before you rely on a number.
Does a dormant company still need an audit?
Yes. Even with no transactions the company must prepare financial statements, have them audited by a licensed CPA, submit them to the DBD and file PND.50. A dormant audit is quick, but it is not optional.
Can our bookkeeping firm also audit us?
No. The auditor must be independent of the party preparing the accounts; performing both roles breaches the independence rules in the Federation of Accounting Professions' code of ethics.
How long does a Thai statutory audit take?
It depends on document readiness. A small company with a complete closing file often finishes in a few weeks; companies with inventory, intercompany balances or cross-border transactions should start 45 to 60 days before the planned AGM.
Can we change auditor mid-year?
Yes, preferably before fieldwork begins. The outgoing and incoming auditors must exchange information as required by the auditing standards, and the auditor named in the DBD submission must be correct.
Must audited statements be in Thai?
The set submitted to the DBD must be in Thai. We prepare a parallel English version with certified translation for foreign parent companies.
Our overseas bank asks for audited statements — what else is needed?
Usually translation into the destination language, certified translation, notarial certification of signatures, legalisation by the Department of Consular Affairs and stamping by the destination embassy. The Apostille Convention enters into force for Thailand on 28 February 2027.
What is the practical impact of a qualified opinion?
The statements can still be filed, but banks, investors and licensing authorities will ask questions, and it can affect credit facilities and some licence renewals. The underlying cause should be fixed for the following period.
Do BOI-promoted companies have extra requirements?
Yes. Promoted companies must separate exempt from non-exempt income in the accounts and report according to the conditions in the promotion certificate. Confirm the certificate-specific conditions with the Board of Investment.
How is your audit coordination fee set?
By company size, transaction volume, intercompany complexity and document readiness. Contact our team by phone, LINE or email for a written quotation.
Answers written from real files: what to prepare, who certifies what, and business-day estimates.
A licensed CPA may audit and express an opinion on the financial statements of any Thai juristic person. A tax auditor may only audit and certify the accounts of smaller registered partnerships that meet the Revenue Department's conditions. Every limited company, regardless of size, needs a CPA. Choosing the wrong category means the filed accounts are incomplete and the audit has to be redone.
Start from the filed, audited set and obtain a copy bearing the auditor's signature. Translate it into the destination language, then have a Notarial Services Attorney certify the signature of the director or the translator if the recipient requires it, and add MFA Consular legalisation plus destination-embassy endorsement. From 28 February 2027, Hague Convention states will accept an Apostille instead of the embassy step.
Read the basis paragraph first. If the qualification rests on insufficient evidence, it is usually cured next year by obtaining bank confirmations, contracts or other supporting documents. If it rests on a departure from the accounting standards, the treatment itself has to change from the start of the period. Either way, record the remediation plan in writing for shareholders and lenders.
An ordinary Thai limited company is not subject to a fixed rotation cycle; the shareholders appoint the auditor for each financial year. Companies within the capital-market regime face stricter rotation rules. What matters every year is a clear shareholders' resolution appointing the auditor and setting the audit fee, because a missing resolution is a common reason filings are queried.
Third-party confirmations carry more evidential weight than internally produced documents because management cannot alter them. The auditor will ask banks to confirm balances, credit lines and guarantees, and will ask major debtors to confirm outstanding amounts. Where no reply arrives, alternative procedures such as reviewing post-year-end receipts are used, which takes longer and delays the closing timetable.
An unqualified opinion means the statements present fairly in all material respects. A qualified opinion, an adverse opinion or a disclaimer each signals a scope limitation or a departure from accounting standards. Read the explanatory paragraph carefully rather than the label alone, because banks and counterparties usually base their decision on the reason given there, not on the reported figures.
Yes. A limited company must have its annual financial statements audited by a Thai licensed CPA and filed, even when there were no transactions in the period. Skipping the audit because the company is dormant is one of the most common causes of accumulated late-filing exposure discovered later during due diligence on a share sale.
The authorised director signs on behalf of the company, the person responsible for the accounts signs as bookkeeper, and the licensed auditor signs the audit report. The statements must also be approved by a shareholders' meeting before filing. Missing any of these signatures is treated as an incomplete submission and the package is returned for correction.
Working backwards from the shareholders' meeting and the filing deadline, fieldwork usually needs to begin two to three months after the year end. Inventory counts must be observed at the closing date itself, so that step cannot be moved later. Booking the auditor before the year end, not after, is the single change that most reliably prevents a late filing.
Provide the counterparty list, balances at the period end, and a contact authorised to reply, then let the auditor send the confirmation directly under their own procedure. Replies in another language are often accompanied by a certified translation in the working papers. Allow roughly two to four working weeks for cross-border replies, since time zones and local holidays dominate the schedule.
It depends on the recipient. For group consolidation a certified translation is usually enough. Banks, investors and foreign regulators generally want a set showing the auditor's report and signature, which then goes through signature certification and Consular legalisation. Ask the recipient which version they will accept before ordering, because upgrading later means reissuing the whole set.
Yes, subject to a shareholders' resolution under the articles, with the incoming auditor's details reflected in the filing. In practice the new auditor requests opening-balance working papers and prior-period data from the outgoing firm; where that handover is incomplete, the scope of work may be limited and the report will say so. Settle the handover before the change takes effect.
Yes. A Thai juristic person must prepare financial statements and have them audited by a licensed CPA for every accounting period, even with no revenue or while dormant. Missing filings carry penalties for the company and its directors, and they undermine any company affidavit later used abroad. Where several years are outstanding, file them in chronological order rather than skipping to the current year.
Rarely on their own. Recipients generally want the statements as issued under the Thai system plus a translation with an accountable translator, and the signatory's signature certified before the file reaches MFA Consular. In-house English versions are commonly refused because no certification chain supports them. Confirm the recipient's requirement in writing first; that single step saves the most time on this workflow.
A licensed CPA gives an opinion on whether the financial statements are fairly presented under auditing standards. A Notarial Services Attorney certifies who signed in their presence, or that a copy matches the original — never the figures. Many foreign recipients require both layers in sequence. We map that order at the start so a file is not submitted at the wrong layer and returned.
If the auditor issued it in English, translation is usually unnecessary, but the signatory's signature or a true copy still needs a Notarial Services Attorney certification before the Department of Consular Affairs and the destination embassy. A Thai-language report must be certified-translated first. We reconcile company name, registration number and director spellings against the affidavit before anything is submitted.
Yes, whenever the document travels abroad. The auditor's signature certifies professional content, but the Department of Consular Affairs and embassies need a signature-certification layer whose origin they can verify. That is the Notarial Services Attorney step. The two layers do not replace each other and cannot be reordered. We explain the sequence to your auditor at the start so no one has to be asked for a second signature later.
Use the official-record route instead: request certified extracts of the financial statements filed with the Department of Business Development, which carry a government certification stamp, then run those through certified translation and signature certification as usual. Most foreign recipients accept this because it traces back to a state authority. We check in advance whether your particular recipient accepts the route before you spend time on it.
Accountant-prepared statements compile figures from company records. Audited statements carry an opinion signed by a licensed CPA, and that opinion is what the word audited refers to. Sending the wrong type is usually rejected by the recipient before it ever reaches a certification counter. We read the recipient's exact wording first and tell you what additional work the request implies.
Not if it is planned. The auditor's wet-signed certified copy can travel to us while translation and pack preparation run in parallel. The point to watch is that the signature must be original on the copy that will actually be used, not a scan reprinted later. We schedule the courier legs to land just before the certification slot so nothing sits idle.
It affects how they read, not their legal validity. The statements can still be filed and certified onward as normal. But recipients such as banks and counterparties tend to read the qualification paragraph before the figures. What helps is a management explanation in the same language as the statements, setting out the cause and what has since been corrected. We draft and translate that note so both sides read it the same way.
A closed trial balance, the fixed asset register with depreciation, debtor and creditor listings, loan and material contracts, bank confirmations, the full year of input and output VAT reports, and minutes approving significant transactions. Once that set is complete the audit runs continuously. The usual delay is not the numbers — it is a contract nobody can locate, so we work through a line-by-line checklist before fieldwork starts.
No. The auditor must be independent of the preparation of the accounts, so the firm that posts your entries cannot also express an opinion on them. Groups often misread this because their home jurisdiction allows a single provider with separate teams. Split the two engagements from the start; retrofitting independence after the year has closed usually means a second audit firm reviews a full year of unfamiliar records under time pressure.
A modified or qualified opinion does not stop the filing, but it travels with the statements. Banks reading a credit file, buyers in due diligence, and embassies assessing a company's standing all read the opinion paragraph before the numbers. The practical response is to fix the underlying cause — usually missing documentation for a class of transactions — during the following year, so the next opinion is clean and the file tells a story of correction.
Appoint before the year you intend to audit closes, ideally at the annual shareholders' meeting that approves the previous year's statements. Late appointment compresses fieldwork into the weeks before the filing deadline, which is exactly when the auditor asks for confirmations from banks and counterparties that take their own time to reply. Early appointment also lets the auditor flag a documentation gap while the year is still open and the evidence still obtainable.
Start from the signed audited statements as filed. Have them translated into the destination language by a translator who certifies the translation, then a Notarial Services Attorney certifies the signature of the director or the translator, depending on what the recipient asked for. Consular legalisation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs follows, then the destination embassy. From 28 February 2027 an Apostille replaces the embassy step for Hague Convention states.
ลูกค้าจริง 60+ สัญชาติทั่วโลก ใช้บริการ Notary, แปลรับรอง, MFA และสถานทูตกับเรา
"ทีมงานช่วยจัดเตรียมหนังสือมอบอำนาจสำหรับใช้ที่ออสเตรเลียได้รวดเร็วมาก พร้อมประสานงาน NAATI ครบจบในที่เดียว"
"Very professional notary service. Document was certified, translated and ready for the UK embassy in two business days."
"ใช้บริการรับรอง Affidavit + รายชื่อผู้ถือหุ้นเพื่อจดทะเบียนสาขาที่สิงคโปร์ ทีมงานละเอียดและตอบกลับไว"
Compliance work rarely stops at one page. These are the neighbouring topics in this cluster and the certification steps most files continue into.
Other topics in this cluster
Certification steps this often leads to
See the cluster overviewSend your company profile, headcount and existing documentation by LINE, phone or email — we scope the work and reply in writing within one business day.
Short answer: Company documents such as certificates, board resolutions, powers of attorney and financial statements must be signed by the authorised directors shown on the company affidavit, sealed where required, then have the signature certified by a notarial services attorney before consular and embassy legalisation in the order the receiver requires.
Thai legal entities
Foreign companies and branch offices
Tenders, contracts and investment files
1. Verify signing authority against the affidavit
Match director names, the number of required signatories and the seal condition against the latest affidavit; a signature outside those conditions invalidates the whole set.
⏱ Confirmed with quotation
2. Draft the documents and translation
Draft resolutions or powers of attorney with a defined scope, validity period and covered transactions, with names spelled exactly as in the passport.
⏱ 1–2 working days (estimate)
3. Sign before a notarial services attorney
Authorised signatories appear in person with original identity documents so the attorney can certify the signature and the signer's capacity.
⏱ 1 working day (estimate)
4. File for consular legalisation
Submit the certified set to the Department of Consular Affairs through the channel currently offered.
⏱ 1–3 working days (estimate, excluding agency queues)
5. File at the destination embassy and deliver
Submit to the receiving country's embassy or consulate under its own conditions, then deliver with a backup copy for company records.
⏱ 2–10 working days (estimate, varies by mission)
| Criterion | In-house | Our team handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Signing authority check | HR or the company secretary checks it internally | We reconcile the affidavit and seal conditions before printing |
| Resolution and POA drafting | Generic templates that may not match the transaction | Drafted for the actual transaction with wording receivers have accepted |
| Multi-layer filing | Staff make repeated trips between agencies | We run the layers continuously and report status at each one |
| Risk to the closing date | High when a rejection lands near signing day | Screened in advance by a team with more than 15 years in this field |
If you would rather your team not spend days moving files between agencies, we can run the chain from authority check to delivery. Initial consultation is available by phone, LINE or email.
All durations are working-day estimates excluding agency queues, and are not a guarantee of any authority's decision.
Sources: กรมพัฒนาธุรกิจการค้า (DBD) — บริการข้อมูลนิติบุคคล · กองสัญชาติและนิติกรณ์ กรมการกงสุล กระทรวงการต่างประเทศ · สภาทนายความในพระบรมราชูปถัมภ์ · Last reviewed: 2026-08-10
Document and legalization advisers with 15+ years of practice
Before we start, we read your actual documents and confirm the legalization route matches what the receiving authority asks for. During the work we report progress, and after delivery we still answer questions about how to submit the file.
We prepare documents to the requirements of the receiving authority. Any approval decision remains at that authority's discretion.
Send your documents on LINE for a preliminary review, a recommended legalization route and a written quote.
General guidance, not a case-specific determination. Requirements change with agency notices — confirm with the receiving authority before you act.
Sources: กรมพัฒนาธุรกิจการค้า กระทรวงพาณิชย์ (DBD) · สำนักงานคณะกรรมการส่งเสริมการลงทุน (BOI) · กองสัญชาติและนิติกรณ์ กรมการกงสุล กระทรวงการต่างประเทศ · สภาทนายความในพระบรมราชูปถัมภ์ · Last reviewed: 2026-08-04
What foreign tax authorities and banks actually ask for, how Thai tax documents are certified for use abroad, and where the process usually stalls.
The basic test in the Revenue Code is presence in Thailand for an aggregate of 180 days in a tax year. How days are counted and how foreign-sourced income is treated follow Revenue Department practice, which has been updated in recent years. Confirm your own position with the Revenue Department or your accountant before filing anything abroad.
It is issued by the Revenue Department and shown to a foreign tax authority to claim relief under a double tax agreement — typically a reduced withholding rate on dividends, interest or royalties. Foreign payers usually want the latest year and sometimes ask for consular legalisation on top. Ask the recipient exactly which form they need.
Usually yes. The receiving body normally wants a certified English translation, and many countries also require legalisation by the Department of Consular Affairs followed by their own embassy. The documents seen most often are the residence certificate, tax payment receipts, filed returns and an employer's letter.
For the paperwork, yes. Once the Apostille Convention enters into force for Thailand on 28 February 2027, documents used in another contracting state carry a single apostille instead of a further embassy step. The substance of treaty relief does not change — that still depends on the specific treaty article and the foreign authority's assessment.
Usually the latest company affidavit from the Department of Business Development, the shareholder list, filed financial statements and the relevant board or shareholder resolutions. Where a director signs a statement of fact, a notarial services attorney can authenticate that signature; the document is then translated, certified and put through the legalisation chain the recipient prescribes.
We own the document and certification side — the correct route, in the correct order — and coordinate with your accountant or tax adviser. We do not guarantee any tax authority's decision, and we do not recommend filing before the treaty article has been checked. Have our team review the document set first by phone, LINE or email.
Sources: กรมสรรพากร (The Revenue Department) — ถิ่นที่อยู่ทางภาษีและ อนุสัญญาภาษีซ้อน · กองสัญชาติและนิติกรณ์ กรมการกงสุล กระทรวงการต่างประเทศ · HCCH — Apostille Section (สถานะภาคีของไทย) · Last reviewed: 2026-08-11
These are illustrative composites of common corporate document patterns, not individual client records, and not a guarantee of any authority's decision. Durations are approximate working-day ranges.
Illustrative scenarios, not individual client records · Last reviewed 2026-08-09
Short answer: Registrars refuse names that clash or breach naming rules, objectives that do not cover the real business, foreign shareholder powers of attorney without a complete certification chain, and incomplete office-address evidence.
We design the shareholding, objectives and foreign-document chain around the licences you will need next — advice first, filing second.
Durations are working-day estimates excluding agency queues, and are not a guarantee of any authority's decision.
Sources: กรมพัฒนาธุรกิจการค้า (DBD) · สภาทนายความในพระบรมราชูปถัมภ์ · Last reviewed: 2026-08-10
Company documents such as certificates, board resolutions, powers of attorney and financial statements must be signed by the authorised directors shown on the company affidavit, sealed where required, then have the signature certified by a notarial services attorney before consular and embassy legalisation in the order the receiver requires.
If you would rather your team not spend days moving files between agencies, we can run the chain from authority check to delivery. Initial consultation is available by phone, LINE or email.
Durations are working-day estimates excluding agency queues and are not a guarantee of any decision.

Statements on this page follow the authorities below. Confirm current requirements with the authority before filing. Last reviewed 2026-07-29.
Fees are not published online — ask our team by phone, LINE or email for a scope-based quote.