Need some clerification here.  Can farangs get a business loan with Thai banks?I already know we can get a loan for buying a condo.Thanks all....

It's very difficult to get a loan for a condo. You have to to prove you are well established in Thailand in many ways and earning decent money in a stable job.

You can also get a loan from Bangkok bank in Singapore but the terms are not easy (30% deposit, max 10 year repayment)

As for a business loan, the short answer is not much chance. For a start Thai banks do not even give business loans to Thai companies for the kind of things they do in the West. You will always need collateral and it has to be tangible and convertible collateral like plant and machinery, certainly not account receivables or a business plan.

If you do manage to get some kind of loan it will be with a Thai partner who can qualify on his own merit or with an established Thai owned company that has two years of audited results.

Sorry to be negative but I have practical experience in this in my company which earns millions of dollars per annum and has been established for many years but we still can;t get any kind of overdraf or loan

First of all what Piant said and Niranahm said is sound advice, now my 2 satangs worth.

Yes you can however it isnt that easy for a foreigner, as it isnt for a Thai generally.

The black days of the NPL still looms with the banks, lots still carry billions of baht in debt regardless of what the MOF said to the public when they told the banks to quit the NPL debt, who just transferred what they couldnt sell to "another book"

As you cannot have company that isnt owned 51% by a Thai, company or otherwise, the loan will be made against the Thai as security. So your Thai partner, must have the neccessary requirements to get the loan, not you. You can chip in with collateral sure, but it will be the Thai that carries the day.

Another requirement to have, is a reasonably full order book for whatever you want the loan for, once again for collateral.

If it is a service and cannot have an order book until your operational, the chicken and the egg thing, then you will need to have a business plan, once again backed by your Thai partner.

If your partner is well known probably no issue, if he is a guy of the street without a business record or of more value, good name contacts, it then becomes difficult.

Your business plan is not safe, so provide what you have to, but no more.

You will have to a Work Permit, a 12 month visa and probably your accounts with the bank showing a reasonable balance.

I suggest you try the SME Bank then SCB, they tend to know about business more than others.

Good luck.

Your company can of course be up to 100% farang owned if you are BOI sponsored but that only makes it harder to get a loan.

SME is good try but none of their offerings have turned out to be as good as they sounded when I investigated that avenue.

It's kind of amazing often how many banks will tell you with a straight face that they will give you a loan if you set aside cash to the value of the loan in another account!

Realistically if you are doing small business here and you don't have the finance yourself, best to to seek private equity financing from "high net worth" individuals, or save up your pennies...

Yes that's right re the BOI, however it is very difficult to work under a lot of the BOI rules. Particularly your accounting due to the audits. As an example everything you have to pay as "extras" to do business in Thailand has then got to come out of a seperate personal source.

If you want some BOI contacts let me know.