Thailand’s taxman chases the smartphone economy as 173,579 unregistered operators enter the system, including 56,091 online traders. Weak markets and rising costs are pushing more workers towards side jobs, freelance work and digital selling rapidly.
Thailand’s vast informal economy is rapidly moving from market stalls to smartphones, and the Revenue Department is following. Officials have brought 173,579 previously unregistered operators into the tax system in just 11 months, including 56,091 online traders. Both figures have already smashed full-year targets. The shift comes as weak purchasing power hits traditional markets and millions seek extra income from selling, freelancing and side jobs. Yet every move online creates a clearer digital trail through platforms, QR payments and bank transfers. Now, Data Analytics, merchant reporting and electronic tax systems are giving officials an unprecedented view of an economy employing 21.1 million informal workers. Meanwhile, billions pour into Thailand’s data centres, AI and advanced industries, sharpening the divide between two very different digital economies.
Thailand’s Revenue Department is rapidly widening its tax net as tens of thousands of previously unregistered traders move online. The drive comes as more Thais combine regular jobs with online sales, freelance work and other supplementary earnings.
In parallel, the country’s huge informal economy is becoming increasingly visible through smartphones, digital platforms and electronic payments. Traditional markets, meanwhile, are struggling with weaker purchasing power and rising operating costs.
The scale of the tax push emerged on September 11. Revenue Department Director-General Somsak Anantawat released results covering the first 11 months of fiscal 2026. Officials brought 173,579 previously unregistered operators into the tax system during that period. Notably, the department’s full-year target was only 149,026 operators. It therefore beat the target by 24,553 before the fiscal year had ended.
Online operators formed a striking part of that expansion. Some 56,091 were brought into the tax system during the 11 months. By comparison, the department had targeted 55,125 for the entire fiscal year. Accordingly, online operators accounted for almost one-third of all newcomers. The online target itself was exceeded by 966 operators.
Smartphones turn into permanent market stalls as Thai workers earn extra income online
Behind those figures lies a wider transformation in Thailand’s alternative economy. Increasingly, informal commerce is moving from physical markets onto smartphones. For many workers, online commerce provides another source of income alongside their regular employment. Others combine irregular work with online sales, freelance assignments, food businesses or other small commercial activities.
Previously, someone seeking another ฿3,000, ฿5,000 or ฿10,000 monthly could turn to a weekend market. They might rent a stall, sell food from home or trade at a flea market. Alternatively, they could undertake casual work after finishing their regular job. Those activities remain widespread. However, the smartphone has created another route into the same economy.
A worker can sell clothes, cosmetics, food or second-hand goods online after work. Similarly, another person can offer tutoring, translation, photography or administrative services. Affiliate selling and livestream commerce provide additional opportunities. Crucially, these businesses can operate outside normal working hours. Sellers can retain daytime employment while trading at night.
The cost structure can also be different from physical trading. An online seller does not necessarily require conventional retail premises. Likewise, there may be no journey to a market or daily stall rental. Customers can instead be reached through platforms and social media. A smartphone can effectively become a permanent market stall.
Traditional markets lose buyers as digital sales leave clearer trails for Thailand’s tax officials
That change comes during difficult conditions across many traditional markets. A report last month examined markets around Bangkok, neighbouring provinces and elsewhere in Thailand. It found more people attempting to become sellers while fewer customers were arriving to buy. At the same time, existing traders faced weaker purchasing power and rising costs. More sellers were therefore competing for limited consumer spending.
Digital channels provide another outlet for that commercial activity. Yet they also create a radically different information trail. A flea-market trader can conduct much of the day’s business using cash. By contrast, an online trader can generate records through platforms, bank transfers and QR payments. Customer orders produce further information. Merchant accounts and platform commissions create additional records.
The Revenue Department is increasingly equipped to use this expanding pool of information. Its fiscal 2026 strategy specifically targets businesses operating outside the tax system. As part of this, officials use surveys, audits and collection of outstanding tax liabilities. The RD10X programme also forms part of the strategy. Centralised information, Data Analytics and digital monitoring are becoming increasingly important.
The department says those technologies are already strengthening tax collection. Revenue reached ฿2.162 trillion during the first 11 months of fiscal 2026. That was 7.2% above the corresponding period last year. Furthermore, collections stood 3.7% above budget projections. The results came alongside the rapid expansion of previously unregistered operators entering the system.
Large online platforms feed merchant data into an expanding Revenue Department electronic tax network
Large electronic platforms form another part of the widening tax network. Since January 1, 2024, qualifying platforms have faced additional reporting requirements. The rules apply to accounting periods beginning from that date. Thailand-registered platforms with annual business income exceeding ฿1 billion must submit special electronic accounts.
Importantly, crossing that threshold creates an ongoing reporting obligation. The requirement remains even if the platform’s subsequent annual income falls below ฿1 billion. Consequently, the system creates an expanding source of electronically recorded commercial information. The information is transmitted directly through the Revenue Department’s electronic system.
Those submissions contain information concerning merchants operating through qualifying platforms. Separately, they cover platform revenues generated from businesses using those services. Tax officials therefore receive information about commercial activity conducted through major online marketplaces. Businesses once difficult to identify can consequently become visible through platform records.
For small traders, the basic tax position remains straightforward. Selling from a bedroom does not create a separate tax category. Neither does conducting business through a smartphone instead of a conventional shop. The Revenue Department says e-commerce businesses essentially face the same tax obligations as conventional businesses.
Online income faces normal tax rules as Revenue Department targets side earnings and freelance workers
Income from selling goods or services online must therefore be included when calculating taxable income. In addition, VAT registration requirements apply when the statutory conditions are reached. Registration and an actual tax liability, however, remain different matters. Expenses, deductions, allowances and total annual income can affect the eventual amount payable.
This distinction matters because Thailand’s online traders vary enormously in scale. Some merchants can generate substantial turnover through digital platforms. Others make comparatively small supplementary sales after finishing regular employment. Nevertheless, both can generate electronic records as transactions increasingly move through digital systems.
On another front, the department is contacting people receiving income outside conventional salaries. On September 9, it announced notification letters concerning 2026 half-year personal income tax returns. The P.N.D.94 return covers several categories of non-salary income. Consequently, salaried workers receiving qualifying income elsewhere can also fall within its scope.
That increasingly overlaps with changes across Thailand’s labour market. The country’s freelance sector reportedly expanded 94% between 2020 and 2025. By 2025, it had reached approximately 7.4 million active freelancers. Increasingly, workers combine conventional employment with freelance work, selling or other commercial activities.
Thailand’s huge informal workforce shifts online as millions combine salaries, selling and freelance work
The phenomenon has sometimes been called the “slash generation”. An individual can simultaneously be an employee, seller and freelancer. In practice, several smaller income streams can exist alongside a conventional salary. Online platforms make those combinations easier to operate throughout the week.
Thailand’s wider informal workforce is considerably larger. The OECD estimated 21.1 million Thai workers were informally employed during 2024. That represented 52.7% of total employment. Thus, more than half the workforce remained informal under that measure. Informality was particularly widespread among people working for themselves.
By 2024, Thailand had 12.8 million informal own-account workers. Around 95% of own-account and contributing family workers remained informal. Elsewhere, a 2026 study produced an even higher estimate using a broader definition. It placed informal employment at approximately 65%.
The proportions were particularly high across several familiar parts of Thailand’s street economy. Market traders, street vendors and home-based workers featured prominently. Motorcycle drivers and domestic workers were also included. Across those groups, informality ranged between 82% and 100%.
Smartphone side businesses grow as huge technology investments reshape the Thai economy
Against this backdrop, the Revenue Department is expanding its digital tax base inside an enormous informal economy. At the same time, the character of that economy is changing. Weekend markets, street stalls and home businesses remain commonplace. However, smartphones increasingly allow similar commercial activity without a fixed physical location.
A factory worker, for example, can sell imported accessories after finishing a shift. An office employee can sell clothes online during the evening. Elsewhere, a household can operate a food business through social media. Someone without secure employment can combine delivery work with livestream selling.
These activities can form separate pieces of household income. Moreover, the seller can switch between several roles during the same day. Conventional employment can provide one income stream. Online trading can provide another. Freelance work can add a third.
At the opposite end of Thailand’s economy, a very different digital transformation is underway. Enormous investments are flowing into data centres, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. Major technology projects involve hundreds of billions of baht. Large corporations also continue to dominate business revenues.
Digital commerce leaves a clearer tax trail as platform accounts, QR payments and bank transfers expand
At household level, however, digitalisation operates on a much smaller scale. A smartphone can be the principal business tool. Social media provides advertising, while platforms provide access to customers. QR systems and bank transfers provide payment channels. Livestreaming allows sellers to demonstrate products without opening physical shops.
The contrast is sharp. At the upper end are capital-intensive technology projects and major corporations. Further down are millions of smaller transactions, side jobs and freelance assignments. Online selling increasingly links this alternative economy with Thailand’s wider digital infrastructure.
Digitalisation also changes how easily those businesses can be identified. Platform accounts identify merchants, while electronic payments record transactions. Bank transfers leave another record. QR payments provide further electronic information. Meanwhile, qualifying platforms must transmit prescribed information to the Revenue Department.
The weekend market was comparatively opaque when transactions remained entirely cash-based. The digital market produces more information. As a result, moving online changes more than the sales channel. It can also increase the electronic visibility of commercial activity.
Revenue Department beats annual targets as electronic filing and D-MyTax expand visibility of traders
The Revenue Department itself is undergoing the same transformation. Some 96.05% of all tax returns are now submitted electronically. The corresponding figure last year was 94.52%. Additionally, personal tax information is increasingly being pre-filled through D-MyTax. Information linked from other organisations can also enter the system.
In turn, tax collection increasingly combines physical enforcement with electronic analysis. Previously, identifying an informal trader could require a survey or visit to business premises. Those methods remain part of the fiscal 2026 strategy. Digital commerce, however, provides another route towards identifying previously unregistered activity.
The September results show the scale of that expansion. In only 11 months, 173,579 previously unregistered operators entered the tax system. The overall annual target was exceeded by 16.5%. More strikingly, the separate target for online operators was also beaten before year-end.
Online businesses represented more than 32% of all previously unregistered operators brought into the system. The Revenue Department describes the expansion as part of increasing fairness in tax collection. Salaried employees normally have their income recorded. In many cases, tax can also be deducted before salaries are paid.
Revenue widens existing tax rules as OECD proposes simpler digital regime for small businesses
Conventional registered businesses likewise face accounting and tax requirements. The department is increasingly applying the existing tax framework to online commercial activity. Yet individual operations range from major online merchants to people making relatively small supplementary sales.
Their final tax positions can therefore differ substantially. Total annual income remains relevant, alongside allowable expenses, deductions and allowances. Still, the underlying commercial activity is becoming more visible across the entire spectrum.
The OECD has separately examined ways to formalise more of Thailand’s informal economy. It recommended considering a simplified turnover-based tax regime for small businesses using digital tools. According to the OECD, such arrangements could reduce compliance costs. They could also bring more self-employed workers into social insurance systems.
For now, the Revenue Department is expanding its reach through existing mechanisms. Platform reporting provides one stream of information. Electronic tax returns provide another. D-MyTax increases the information available electronically. Data Analytics adds another tool for examining those records.
Physical stalls and smartphone sales increasingly overlap as traders chase customers across both markets
Alongside this, surveys and audits remain components of the fiscal 2026 strategy. Collection of outstanding tax liabilities continues as well. The result is a system increasingly combining conventional enforcement with centralised electronic information.
Retail provides perhaps the clearest illustration of the change. Someone can still sell clothes at a weekend market on Saturday. During the week, however, that same trader can continue selling through a smartphone. Products displayed physically at weekends can be advertised online throughout the week.
Traditional and digital micro-commerce can therefore overlap. A trader does not necessarily operate exclusively in one channel. Instead, the physical stall can become one part of a wider online business. Payments can similarly move between cash, QR systems and bank transfers.
Conditions in traditional markets provide another important part of the picture. Reports describe increasing numbers of sellers competing for fewer buyers. Meanwhile, household purchasing power has weakened and operating costs have increased. Digital trading offers access to customers without relying entirely on market footfall.
Millions of freelancers and informal workers move into digital channels as the Revenue tax base widens
Thailand’s 7.4 million active freelancers provide another measure of the changing labour structure. Likewise, 12.8 million informal own-account workers demonstrate the enormous scale of self-employment. Above all, the OECD’s 21.1 million informal workers show how deeply alternative employment remains embedded.
These groups are not identical. However, they show the enormous scale of economic activity outside conventional salaried employment. Increasingly, part of that activity is being conducted through electronically visible channels.
The Revenue Department’s 56,091 online operators sit directly at that intersection. Informal and supplementary commercial activity is moving into digital marketplaces. Simultaneously, Thailand’s tax infrastructure is becoming increasingly digital. Both changes are now advancing at speed.
The department’s collection figures underline that expansion. Revenue reached ฿2.162 trillion during the first 11 months of fiscal 2026. Collections rose 7.2% year-on-year. They also exceeded budget projections by 3.7%.
During the same period, officials beat their annual target for previously unregistered operators. They also surpassed their full-year target for online businesses. The figures show that online traders have become a significant part of the widening tax base.
Smartphones turn homes into permanent shops as digital records give tax officials more commercial data
Thailand’s weekend markets, flea markets and street stalls therefore represent only one part of a much larger alternative economy. Smartphones now perform many of the same commercial functions. They allow people to advertise, sell, receive payments and communicate with customers from home.
More importantly, those businesses can remain active throughout the week. A trader can work another job during daylight hours and sell products at night. A freelancer can simultaneously take assignments and sell goods. A household can operate a social-media business without conventional retail premises.
Yet those activities increasingly connect with platforms, payment systems and electronic records. In contrast with traditional cash trading, digital commerce can create multiple data points from a single sale. The Revenue Department is increasingly positioned to collect and analyse that information.
Thailand’s two digital economies grow as Revenue Department brings more online traders into the tax net
At the top of Thailand’s economy, billions continue flowing into digital infrastructure and advanced technology. At household level, millions are using the same digital transformation differently. They are selling goods, freelancing and assembling additional income through smartphones.
The two developments are unfolding simultaneously. One involves huge capital investments and major corporations. The other involves millions of small businesses, informal workers and supplementary income streams.
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Now, the Revenue Department’s figures show another part of that transformation. More than 173,000 previously unregistered operators entered its tax system within 11 months. Of those, more than 56,000 were online operators.
The physical market remains an important part of Thailand’s alternative economy. Increasingly, however, the smartphone has become another market stall. At the same time, Thailand’s expanding digital tax system is following the trade online.
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