Under the Factory Act B.E. 2535, “Factory” means a building place, or vehicle which uses a machine from 5 horse powers or an equivalent thereof or more or which employs 7 workers or more with or without any machine for manufacturing, producing, assembling, filling, repairing, maintaining, testing, improving, altering, transporting, keeping, or destroying anything in accordance with the type of factory as prescribed in the ministerial regulation.
If you engage in a business that needs to use any machine from 5 horse powers or an equivalent thereof for doing the above mentioned activities in your factory, your machine(s) have to be registered (according to the Registration of Machinery Act B.E.2514) in order for you to be able to mortgage them or perform any juristic acts with them. However, machinery registration is not a must. Most companies which register their machinery do it so that they can get a loan from the bank using machinery as a collateral. The definition of machine which can be registered is as follows;
“Machine” means a component of several pieces for generating energy, changing or altering energy or transmitting energy by the force of water, stream, wind, gas, electricity, or other energy of energies combined and also includes fly-wheel equipment, pulleys, belt, axles, gears, or other things which have reciprocal working.
If you wish to register your machine, you can submit the application and required documents to the competent registrar at the Department of Industrial Works. After the registrar accepted your documents, the registrar has the power to ask for more information or documents or ask you to show any related persons as the witnesses (if necessary). If the documents are deemed to be unacceptable, the registrar may refuse the registration request and notify you the reason in writing. When your documents are approved, the registrar will issue the Certificate of Registration of Machine for you.
Please note that in case you need to move the registered machine from the original location or change the substantial part of machine from the registered list, you have to notify the competent registrar in writing. The registrar will issue for you a revised Certificate of Registration of Machine.
Contact ThaiLawyers if you need help setting up factories or registering your machinery.