Thailand publishing license.

Publishing magazines or newspapers in Thailand necessitates acquiring a publishing license for your business.

Publishing laws in Thailand.

A magazine is regarded as a ‘newspaper’ in the Publishing Act B.E. 2550. The “Editor” and “Owner” of the newspaper business shall have the following qualifications:

A logo of the trademark in the exact color
Being a Thai national
Having regular residence in Thailand
Not being an incompetent or quasi-incompetent person
Not having been imprisoned by the judgment of a court which is final, unless the impunity is lapsed not less than three years, or the offence is related to an act of negligence, or a petty offence

The “Printer” and “Publisher” of the newspaper business shall comply with the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th condition.

Note that, if the “Owner of the newspaper business” is a company, the following applies:

Thai individual(s) or juristic person(s) hold no less than 70% of total shares. In case that a company is a shareholder, again the 70% Thai shareholding will need to be proven. This until the Ultimate Beneficial Owner is proven to be a Thai individual
At least ¾ of the directors are Thai nationals

In order to obtain the license, first of all the head of the magazine will need to be checked. One cannot register under a name that is already used by someone else. The second step will be to apply for the registration of the head magazine. A set of documents, such as the period of issuance, language, sample, company documents and a medical checkup and criminal record check of the editor etc, will need to be provided. In principle, this step is approved within 30 working days, and the government fee at this stage is at 5,000 THB. The last step will be to apply for the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). There is no government fee, and the number is in principle obtained within one working day.