The Land Department's 2026 audit of existing landholding companies: what owners must have ready

Can a Thai company that already owns land be investigated years after it registered? Yes — and through 2025 and 2026, that has become the routine case rather than the exception. The audit isn't limited to new purchases at the counter; it's an ongoing, AI-assisted review of companies that already hold title, running quietly in the background until a flag surfaces.

What changed: from spot checks to a standing database

• IBAS (Intelligence Business Analytic System) — an AI tool the Department of Business Development (DBD) has run since October 2025, cross-referencing corporate registry data against the Revenue Department, Customs, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and Land Department records to flag shareholding, capital and directorship patterns typical of nominee arrangements.
• A formal data-sharing agreement between the DBD and the Department of Lands, plus an MOU with the Central Investigation Bureau, means a flag raised in one agency can trigger a parallel investigation in another — a company doesn't need a new transaction to come under review.
• Three 'Most Urgent' circulars issued 15–25 May 2026 instructed every Provincial Land Office to build and maintain a database of every company holding land in its jurisdiction — registration details, parcels, acquisition dates, appraised values, stated business purpose. See The Land Office's May 2026 source-of-funds checks for the registration-side rules that came out of the same circulars.
• Land Offices must review this database monthly and report to the Department of Lands quarterly, with immediate reporting required for any company that meets the foreign-shareholding thresholds in Sections 97–98 of the Land Code.

The legal mechanism if a company is flagged: Section 96

Section 96 of the Land Code applies the disposal procedure in Section 94 "mutatis mutandis" to nominee cases — when it appears a Thai person or entity holds land as the registered owner in place of a foreign national or foreign-controlled juristic person, the Director-General of the Department of Lands has the authority to order disposal. The holder must sell the land within a period the Director-General sets, which by law can be no less than 180 days and no more than one year. If the land isn't sold within that window, the Director-General gains the power to arrange the sale directly — in practice, a forced disposal rather than a voluntary one. A separate proposal to amend the Land Code so unlawfully held land is forfeited to the state without compensation, instead of sold with proceeds returned to the holder, is under study but is not current law.

The scale so far

Enforcement tied to this framework is not marginal: reporting through 2025 and into 2026 has tracked several hundred companies prosecuted and well over ฿15 billion in economic damage identified nationwide, spanning Bangkok, the Eastern Economic Corridor and the southern islands. See Nominee-ownership enforcement spreads to Krabi for how the same campaign has moved across provinces.

What an existing company-structure owner should have ready

• Documented source of funds for every Thai shareholder — bank records or income evidence showing the shareholder could genuinely afford their stated shareholding, not just a signed share register.
• Evidence of real control matching the paper structure — if a Thai shareholder holds 51%, they should be able to show they exercise the voting and economic rights that percentage implies, not just hold a signed proxy or side letter.
• A credible business rationale for the company itself — a land-holding company with no other activity, no other shareholders, and a single foreign director is exactly the profile IBAS is tuned to flag.
• Underlying agreements reviewed for de facto control clauses — loan agreements, usufruct-style side contracts or voting proxies that hand economic or decision-making control to the foreign party undermine the structure even if the shareholding register looks correct.
• A relationship with a Thai lawyer who can respond to a Land Office inquiry quickly — once a company is flagged, the response window is short, and the disposal clock under Section 96 does not pause for a slow answer.

None of this is new law — the 49/51 company structure was always required to reflect genuine Thai control, not just genuine Thai names on paper; see A Thai company for property: when it makes sense, when it's toxic. What's changed is enforcement capacity: a structure that would once have sat unreviewed for years now sits inside a database that's checked every month.