Amendments to Thailand's Factory Act will greatly affect the
entire industrial factory business throughout the country. On 30
April 2019, the Royal Thai Government Gazette declared an amendment
to the Factory Act B.E. 2535 (1992) by The Factory Act (No. 2 and
No. 3) B.E. 2562 (2019). Recently, The Factory Act (No. 3) passed
the 180 days period and became effective on 1 May 2019. The Factory
Act (No. 2) is not effective yet.
In the amendment, the word 'factory' has been modified
to mean a building, place, or vehicle using machinery with 50
horsepower or more, or 50 workers with or without machinery, in its
operations. This means that around 60,000 factories nationwide with
machineries and workers under the old factory act will from now on
not be classified as a factory governed by the factory act any
longer, but they still need to comply with the local ordinances,
issued under e.g. the Town Planning Act, or the Public Health Act
1992.
