Thai tax invoice requirements: what Section 86/4 actually says

This is the gate, and it is the single most consequential rule on this page. A tax invoice is a VAT document. A business that is not registered for VAT in Thailand cannot issue one, regardless of what its customer asks for.

Section 86/13 is blunt about the consequence: a person who issues a tax invoice without authorisation "shall be liable to value added tax for the amount shown in tax invoice … as if he was a VAT registrant". In other words, printing the words on the page creates a VAT liability for the amount printed, whether or not the issuer ever collected it.

A full-form tax invoice must contain the following eight particulars. This is the Revenue Department's own English rendering of Section 86/4:

1. 1The word "tax invoice" in a prominent place.
2. 2The name, address and taxpayer identification number of the VAT registrant issuing the tax invoice.
3. 3The name and address of the purchaser of goods or services.
4. 4Serial number of the tax invoice and, if any, of the book.
5. 5Description, type, category, quantity and value of the goods or services.
6. 6The amount of value added tax calculated on the value of goods or services, clearly separated from that value.
7. 7The date of issuance.
8. 8Any other particulars as prescribed by the Director-General.

Item (8) above — "any other particulars as prescribed by the Director-General" — is the hook on which additional requirements hang. One of those is the purchaser's taxpayer identification number, imposed by Departmental Notification on VAT (No. 39), clause 7.

That notification ties the requirement to a condition: the seller must state the purchaser's taxpayer identification number where that purchaser is itself a VAT registrant (ผู้ประกอบการจดทะเบียน). It does not extend to ordinary consumers or to unregistered buyers. Practically: selling to a Thai company that reclaims input VAT, you need their tax ID; selling to a walk-in customer, you do not.

Section 86/6 permits retailers selling to the general public to issue an abbreviated tax invoice (ใบกำกับภาษีอย่างย่อ), which carries fewer particulars than the full form. The trade-off falls on the buyer, and it is the thing most worth understanding before you accept one.

The consequence for a foreign-managed company is practical: if an employee pays at a shop counter and comes back with an abbreviated tax invoice, the company cannot use it to claim the input VAT. A buyer who needs to claim should ask for a full-form invoice at the point of sale, before the transaction closes.

A receipt (ใบรับ, commonly ใบเสร็จรับเงิน) evidences that money was received. It is governed by Section 105, applies to sellers generally rather than to VAT registrants specifically, and carries its own list of particulars under Section 105 ทวิ: the issuer's taxpayer identification number, the issuer's name, the serial number of the book and of the receipt, the date of issuance, the amount received, and — for sales of goods — the type, name, quantity and price of the goods.

Section 105 requires the receipt to be issued immediately each time payment is received, whether or not the customer asks for one. The monetary thresholds that trigger the duty are set by Departmental Notification on Stamp Duty (No. 34), clause 1, which distinguishes four cases — and the notification says "exceeding" (เกิน) rather than "from … upwards", so a payment of exactly 100 baht does not cross the ordinary threshold.

Section 105 ทวิ requires the issuer to keep a copy of every receipt for not less than five years from the date of issuance, and provides that where no copy exists, the receipt is presumed not to have been issued. Section 87/3 governs retention of VAT records and documents.

Ordinary receipts for sales of goods or services do not attract stamp duty. Instrument 28 of the Stamp Duty Schedule covers receipts in three cases only: government lottery prizes, transfers of or creation of rights in registered immovable property, and the sale, sale with right of redemption, hire purchase or transfer of registered vehicles. If your receipt is for a land or vehicle transaction, take advice — the summary here is deliberately not detailed enough to rely on.

Businesses with annual taxable turnover above 1.8 million baht are required to register for VAT; below that, registration is voluntary. On the rate: the statutory rate and the reduced rate actually in force are set by royal decree and have been extended repeatedly, so this page deliberately does not print a number. Check the rate currently in force with the Revenue Department or your accountant rather than trusting any web page, including this one.