While there are many types of licenses for providing financial services in Thailand, depending on the nature of the activity in question, most business-specific licenses are only available to Thai entities — with some available to Thai branches of foreign entities. For example, commercial banks seeking a banking license can be either a Thailand-incorporated entity or a Thai branch of a foreign bank, while no securities business licenses are currently available to offshore entities.

Some registration schemes are available to offshore entities for certain activities, such as dealing in derivatives for one's own account. Qualified offshore entities can apply for derivatives dealer registration under Thai law.

As there is no unified platform under any particular regulation on which to apply for different types of financial services business licenses or registrations, the application process needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on the type of license and registration.

For business activities in Thailand in general, foreigners and foreign entities (determined based on the place of incorporation and/or shareholding structure in the case of companies) are required to obtain a foreign business license under the FBA. Only some types of businesses, such as establishing a representative office or a regional office of a foreign entity, are narrowly excluded from this general licensing requirement.