Thai Excise Department — Excise Tax and Online Services
A plain-language guide to what excise tax is, who actually has to deal with it, and what the Excise Department’s website offers.
www.excise.go.th
What you can do
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A tax on specific goods only
Not a tax on income or on general sales, but on a defined list of goods and services — fuel, vehicles, beverages, alcohol and tobacco among them.
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File and pay online
Registered operators can submit returns and settle payment electronically instead of carrying paperwork to a district office.
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Licence applications and renewals
Shops, restaurants and hotels selling alcohol or tobacco need an Excise Department licence, renewed on the cycle the law sets.
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Rate and classification announcements
The site publishes the tariff classifications and rates for each product group — figures that change, and are worth reading at source.
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Draft rules and public consultation
The department consults on subordinate legislation before it takes effect, so affected businesses can follow and comment.
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Area offices nationwide
Registration, licensing and inspection largely run through the regional and area excise offices covering your premises.
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A citable official source
The text of an announcement on the department’s own site is the version you can cite — unlike third-party summaries, which go stale.
What is excise tax?
The Excise Department sits under the Ministry of Finance and is one of Thailand’s three main revenue departments, alongside the Revenue Department and the Customs Department. Its job is to collect excise tax — a levy aimed at particular goods and services rather than at people’s income or at commerce in general. The rationale runs two ways: raising revenue from products that can bear it, and using price as a lever to slow consumption of things that carry health or environmental costs.
The legal basis is the Excise Act B.E. 2560 (2017), which folded several separate excise statutes into one. As a rule the liability arises when goods leave the factory or enter the country, not when a shopper picks them off the shelf. The tax is therefore already inside the retail price and, unlike VAT, does not show as its own line on the receipt — which is why most people in Thailand pay excise every day without noticing.
How it differs from VAT and income tax
The commonest confusion is between excise and VAT. Both are indirect taxes ultimately borne by the consumer, but they differ in scope and in how they are calculated. VAT applies to nearly all sales at one nationwide rate; excise applies only to listed items, at rates that vary by product — some assessed on value, some on quantity, and some on a combination of the two. The table below sets out the main taxes a Thai business encounters.
| Tax | Levied on | Collected by |
|---|---|---|
| Excise tax | A defined list of goods and services — fuel, vehicles, beverages, alcohol, tobacco | Excise Department |
| Value added tax | General sales of goods and services at each stage of trade | Revenue Department |
| Income tax | Personal income and corporate profit | Revenue Department |
| Import duty | Goods brought into the kingdom | Customs Department |
What excise tax applies to
- Petroleum and petroleum products, including certain fuels — among the largest revenue groups.
- Cars and motorcycles, with rates keyed to vehicle type, engine size and carbon dioxide emissions.
- Non-alcoholic beverages, including the sugar-content component popularly called the “sugar tax”.
- Liquor and alcoholic drinks of every kind, domestic and imported.
- Tobacco, both cigarettes and rolling tobacco, which must carry a tax mark on the pack.
- Air conditioners and batteries, long-standing entries in the excise schedule.
- Certain services, such as entertainment venues and horse racing courses, taxed on business receipts.
Who actually deals with the department
Most people never contact the Excise Department at all. Those who genuinely must are manufacturers whose products fall inside the tariff, importers of those goods, and operators of the services the law taxes. All three register before they begin, file on their cycle, and keep records ready for inspection. There is a fourth group that rarely expects to be involved: shops, restaurants, hotels and convenience stores selling alcohol or tobacco. They produce nothing, yet still need a selling licence from the department and must renew it on schedule — and trading on the wrong licence, or none, is exactly what a routine inspection finds.
What the department’s website offers
- Announcements, ministerial regulations and subordinate rules, including the tariff schedules — the citable versions.
- Internet filing and payment for operators who have already registered.
- Guidance on applying for and renewing each class of licence, with the supporting documents required.
- Forms, taxpayer manuals and product-specific explanations aimed at newly established businesses.
- Public consultations on draft rules — the channel that tells businesses what is about to change.
- Contact details for the regional and area excise offices across the country.
When the official site cannot be found, this page stands in for it
A check of robots.txt at www.excise.go.th on 27 August 2026 found a site-wide block applied to every crawler with no exceptions. Rate announcements, taxpayer manuals, forms and consultation notices are therefore never indexed and cannot appear in search results at all. The people this hurts are the ones who need the material most: a beverage manufacturer typing a question about how the sugar component is calculated, a car importer trying to locate their tariff line, a restaurant owner looking for where to lodge a liquor licence. What they get instead is law-firm commentary, old news coverage and forum threads, much of it written years ago and never reconciled with the current announcements. This page exists to describe what the Excise Department handles in the words people actually search, and then hand over the official address so they can read the source themselves. ThaiGov.co is an independent directory with no connection to the Excise Department or the Ministry of Finance; we file nothing, process no licence applications, and charge no fees.
How to use it
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Work out how you are involved
If you are an ordinary consumer you have already paid this tax inside the price and need do nothing. If you manufacture, import or sell taxed goods, your legal obligations begin before you open for business.
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Check whether your product is in scope
Taxable goods sit in a tariff schedule, and small details move the rate a lot — sugar content in a drink, engine size in a car. Read the current schedule on the department’s own site.
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Register before you produce or import
Manufacturers and operators of taxed service venues must register with the area excise office covering their premises before starting — not after the first sale.
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Obtain every licence your business needs
Licences are split by product and by how you sell — drinking on the premises versus taking away are different permissions. Confirm which type matches your operation before applying.
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Enrol in the online filing system
Once registered, request access to the internet filing system and submit returns on the cycle your product follows. Filing deadlines differ between product groups, so confirm yours with the office.
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Track rate changes as they are published
Excise rates move with fiscal policy and with health or environmental measures, sometimes in scheduled phases. A habit of checking the department’s announcements keeps your pricing and cost planning current.
Go to the official site
You are leaving ThaiGov.co for the agency’s official website — www.excise.go.th
Frequently asked questions
How is excise tax different from VAT?
VAT applies to almost all sales of goods and services at a single rate and is collected by the Revenue Department. Excise applies only to a listed set of goods and services, at rates that vary by product, and is collected by the Excise Department. One item can carry both — a can of beer bears excise at the manufacturing stage and VAT again when it is sold.
Do ordinary people have to file an excise return?
No. Consumers never file or pay excise themselves — the liability falls on the manufacturer or importer before the goods reach you, and is already built into the shelf price. Filing is the duty of manufacturers, importers and operators of taxed services.
Does a restaurant or shop selling alcohol need an Excise Department licence?
Yes. Selling liquor or tobacco requires an Excise Department licence even if you neither produce nor import it. Licences are categorised by product and selling method and must be renewed rather than obtained once and kept forever. Check the current categories and conditions with the area excise office covering your premises.
What is the rate for a particular product?
There is no single rate. Each product group has its own schedule, and small details shift the figure — sugar per 100 ml in a drink, vehicle type and CO2 output in a car. Rates are also adjusted from time to time as policy changes, so read the current announcement on the department’s site rather than trusting an undated summary article.
Why does searching for excise information not surface the department’s site?
Because www.excise.go.th uses robots.txt to block search engines across the whole site, its pages are never indexed and cannot appear in results. It is not an outage and not a bad query. The fix is to open the site by typing the address yourself and search from within it.
What if online filing fails or I cannot sign in?
First confirm the business’s excise registration is still active and that system access is tied to the current authorised person — a change of director or a move of premises often breaks the match. If it still refuses, contact the area excise office with your registration number and the time of the attempt. Do not leave it until the deadline, since fixing user access can require extra paperwork.
How can I tell a genuine Excise Department contact from a fake one?
Thai government bodies use domains ending in .go.th and nothing else; a look-alike site on another domain should be assumed fake. Fees and tax are paid through official channels, never by transfer to a personal account, and no official can guarantee a licence in exchange for an extra payment. When in doubt, phone or walk into the area excise office and ask.