Will I be taxed if I receive more than 3,000 transfers a year?

The rule does not tax anyone. It requires your bank or e-wallet provider to report the count and total to the Revenue Department. Whether any income is taxable depends on the Revenue Code's ordinary rules, which the reporting rule did not change.

What exactly triggers a report?

In a calendar year, 3,000 or more deposits or incoming transfers, or 400 or more totalling ฿2 million or more, counted across all your accounts at the reporting institution. That changes what is reported, not what is owed.

Are outgoing payments counted?

No. Only deposits and incoming transfers.

What does the bank send?

Your identity number or passport number, your name, the number of receipts, the total received, and the account numbers. Totals, not individual transactions.

Can the thresholds be lowered?

The Act allows a ministerial regulation to raise them. The Revenue Department's Q&A says they cannot go below the figures in the Act.

How long is the data kept?

No more than ten years from receipt, under the Act.

Money & Survival

Eight transfers a day

Thailand's "e-payment law" does not tax anyone. It requires banks to report customers with 3,000 incoming payments a year, or 400 totalling ฿2 million. That is about eight a day. Here is what is counted, what is reported, and what the reporting does not change.

By Bangkok Lad Article 196 6 min read Written 29 September 2026 Updated 4 October 2026

In March 2026 a warning set off alarm among young Thais and online sellers: receive more than 3,000 transfers in a year and the Revenue Department will tax you. Thairath reported people asking whether splitting a dinner bill or booking concert tickets for friends would now mean paying more tax.

The law it refers to has been in force since March 2019. It does not tax anything.

It makes banks count.

What the law says

The Revenue Code Amendment Act (No. 48) B.E. 2562 (2019) was published on 20 March 2019 and took effect the next day. It added four sections to the Revenue Code. Two were about paying tax and filing electronically. The other two — section 3 septemdecies and the penalty that enforces it — are what earned the nickname “the e-payment law”.

It puts a duty on three kinds of institution: financial institutions under the Financial Institutions Business Act, state financial institutions set up by their own Acts, and electronic-money providers under the Payment Systems Act.

Each March, each of them must report to the Revenue Department anyone who, in the previous calendar year, received either:

3,000 or more deposits or incoming transfers, all their accounts combined; or
400 or more, totalling ฿2 million or more.

The duty is the institution’s, and so is the penalty. A bank that fails to report can be ordered to comply and then fined up to ฿100,000, plus up to ฿10,000 a day while it remains in breach. The section places no duty on the account holder, and so it carries no penalty for them.

What is counted, and what is sent

Ministerial Regulation No. 355 of December 2019 fills in the detail.

Every deposit or incoming transfer into an account counts, each time, whatever the bank’s own procedures for crediting money. Payments through card terminals, QR codes and other electronic methods count individually. Money received in a foreign currency is converted at the year-end average buying rate calculated by the Bank of Thailand.

Only money coming in is counted. Payments out are not.

Each institution reports what it holds. The count covers all of a person’s accounts at that institution, combined. That changes what is reported, not what is owed.

What is sent is a summary, not a statement. For each person over a threshold, the institution reports an identity number, the name, the number of receipts, the total received and the numbers of the accounts involved. For a foreign individual the identifier is a passport number, under the reporting format the Director-General set in 2020. The rule applies to foreign residents’ Thai accounts on the same terms.

The Revenue Department may keep the data for no more than ten years. The same Act also rewrote the penalty for a tax official who discloses a taxpayer’s information: up to a year in prison, a fine of up to ฿20,000, or both.

Eight a day

3,000 a year is about eight a day, every day of the year.

Behind that number is a market stall with a QR code on the counter. A vendor taking ten phone payments a day, six days a week, crosses the line without doing anything unusual. So does anyone selling small items online at volume. The first test is aimed at the many small receipts that used to be cash.

The second test is aimed at the opposite pattern. At its minimum of 400 receipts, reaching ฿2 million takes an average of ฿5,000 each. It picks up fewer, larger payments: the landlord, the freelancer, the wholesaler.

The thresholds are written into the Act, and the Act only lets them move one way. A ministerial regulation may raise the count or the total. The Revenue Department’s own Q&A says in terms that they cannot be set below 400, ฿2 million or 3,000. The Department’s consolidated text of the section lists no regulation that has raised them.

A fixed count in a country whose payments are moving onto QR codes will catch more people every year without any change in the law. That is not a hidden intention. It is what a fixed number does.

What it does not do

It creates no tax. Income from selling goods has been assessable income under section 40(8) of the Revenue Code for decades. Section 46 lets a seller deduct expenses under a royal decree. A business with turnover of no more than ฿1.8 million a year is exempt from VAT, the level set by Royal Decree No. 432 in 2005. None of that changed in 2019.

A receipt is not income. The Department’s own Q&A lists money that arrives in an account without being the holder’s income: transfers from parents, repayment of a loan, and money received to be passed on for merit-making. The Revenue Code goes further for family money. Section 42(27) exempts support and gifts from an ascendant or descendant, such as a parent, grandparent, child or grandchild, or from a spouse, up to ฿20 million a year. Section 42(28) exempts support given out of moral duty, and gifts made at ceremonies or on customary occasions, from anyone else up to ฿10 million.

Money collected for merit-making still counts toward the thresholds. The Q&A says so, and suggests that anyone who collects it regularly open a separate account for it.

The Department says it will not use the report to assess tax directly. In its Q&A it says the data alone is not enough to show that anyone has failed to meet their tax obligations. It is run against other information — tax returns, withholding records, water and electricity use — to select people at risk of not meeting them. It says people who are not in business have little chance of being selected for audit. That is the Department describing its own practice. It is not a limit written into the law.

The first report covered eight days

The Act set the first reporting deadline for 31 March 2020, but the regulation saying what to report was not published until 23 December 2019. It counted only transactions from the day after. The first report covered 24 to 31 December 2019: eight days.

Then COVID-19 arrived. On 2 April 2020 the Finance Minister extended the first deadline to 30 June 2020. The first full year counted was 2020.

What it is for

The Act’s statement of reasons is candid. It cites the national electronic-payment infrastructure plan, the same programme that produced PromptPay. It says private transactions had moved onto information technology so quickly that tax monitoring could no longer be done efficiently.

That is the whole story in two steps. The state’s e-payment programme built the rails, PromptPay among them. Everyday money moved onto them: the stall, the online shop, the group dinner. Then, in 2019, the state asked the rails to count.

What this adds up to

The e-payment law is a counting rule, and it counts the wrong thing to be a tax. It counts money in, not income. It reports totals, not transactions. Its only penalty falls on the bank.

So the scare is aimed at the wrong target. For someone who splits dinner bills, the rule may produce a report and, on the Department’s own account, little chance of being selected for audit. For a seller already filing, it changes nothing.

For a seller who was not filing, the rule changes the odds of being noticed, not the law. The income was always taxable. What 2019 changed was whether anyone could see it.

Nothing in this article is tax advice, and nothing in it says whether any reader owes tax or what they should file.

Common misconceptions

“Receive 3,000 transfers and you pay tax.” The rule obliges banks and e-money providers to report. It imposes no tax. Tax on business income, and VAT for businesses above ฿1.8 million of turnover, existed before it.

“Every transfer I make is counted.” Only deposits and incoming transfers are counted. Payments out are not.

“All my banks are added together.” Each institution reports the accounts it holds. That changes what is reported, not what is owed.

“Money from my parents will be taxed.” The Revenue Department’s own Q&A says transfers from parents are not income. The Revenue Code exempts support and gifts from an ascendant or descendant, such as a parent or child, or from a spouse, up to ฿20 million a year.

“It only applies to Thais.” Foreign individuals are reported by passport number, under the reporting format the Director-General set in 2020.

“The limits will be lowered.” The Act allows a regulation to raise the thresholds, not lower them.

Sourcing

The Revenue Code Amendment Act (No. 48) B.E. 2562 (2019) is read at source in its Gazette text (here). Section 2 sets commencement the day after publication, and the Gazette date is 20 March 2019. Section 3 adds sections 3 quindecies to 3 octodecies to the Code. Section 3 septemdecies sets the three classes of reporter, the two thresholds, the March deadline, the power to raise the thresholds by ministerial regulation and the ten-year retention limit. Section 3 octodecies sets the order-to-comply power and the administrative fine of up to ฿100,000 plus up to ฿10,000 a day. Section 4 of the amending Act replaces section 13 of the Code with a penalty of up to one year's imprisonment, a fine of up to ฿20,000, or both, for an official who breaches section 10. Section 5 sets the first reporting deadline of 31 March 2020, and the note to the Act gives its reasons. That PromptPay came out of the same national e-payment programme is the Bank of Thailand's own account (here). The section as it stands is read in the Revenue Department's consolidated text (here), which cites only Ministerial Regulation No. 355 under it. Ministerial Regulation No. 355 B.E. 2562 (2019) (here), Gazette 23 December 2019, defines "account" and "receiving a transfer" and lists the five items reported. It sets the counting rules for electronic and QR receipts and the foreign-currency conversion, and limits the first report to transactions from the day after publication. The Director-General's Announcement No. 16 (here) sets the reporting format, including a passport-number identifier for foreign individuals. The Finance Ministry's announcement of 2 April 2020 (here) extends the first deadline to 30 June 2020. The Revenue Department's Q&A of 27 November 2019 (here) is the source for the examples of receipts that are not income, the use of other data including water and electricity, the likelihood of selection, the advice on merit-making accounts and the statement that thresholds cannot be lowered. It is attributed throughout as the Department's own account. Revenue Code sections 40(8), 42(27), 42(28) and 46 are read at source (here). Royal Decree No. 432 B.E. 2548 (2005) sets the ฿1.8 million VAT exemption level from 1 April 2005 (here). The March 2026 alarm, and the questions about split bills and concert tickets, are from Thairath's report of 24 March 2026.

⚠️ Five gaps. No published count of how many people or accounts are reported each year was found, so the article gives none. No figures on audits or assessments that followed from the reports were found. How a joint account is attributed between its holders was not established. Whether money moved between a person's own accounts at different institutions counts was not ruled on by any source read here. The regulation's definition of "receiving a transfer" does not exclude it, and Thai financial press treats it as counted, so the article does not address it. Platform operators' reporting duties under the separate digital-platform regime were not examined.

The argument — that the rule counts receipts rather than income; that a fixed count set in 2019 widens as payments move onto QR codes; and that what the rule changed was the state's visibility rather than anyone's liability — is this site's analysis and is presented as argument. Nothing here is tax advice.

Common questions

Will I be taxed if I receive more than 3,000 transfers a year?: The rule does not tax anyone. It requires your bank or e-wallet provider to report the count and total to the Revenue Department. Whether any income is taxable depends on the Revenue Code's ordinary rules, which the reporting rule did not change.
What exactly triggers a report?: In a calendar year, 3,000 or more deposits or incoming transfers, or 400 or more totalling ฿2 million or more, counted across all your accounts at the reporting institution. That changes what is reported, not what is owed.
Are outgoing payments counted?: No. Only deposits and incoming transfers.
What does the bank send?: Your identity number or passport number, your name, the number of receipts, the total received, and the account numbers. Totals, not individual transactions.
Does it apply to foreigners?: Yes. Foreign individuals are reported by passport number.
Can the thresholds be lowered?: The Act allows a ministerial regulation to raise them. The Revenue Department's Q&A says they cannot go below the figures in the Act.
How long is the data kept?: No more than ten years from receipt, under the Act.