Licensing a Thai villa or accommodation business

Section 4 of the Hotel Act B.E. 2547 defines a hotel as accommodation established for business purposes of providing temporary accommodation for travellers or any other person in exchange for compensation, and then excludes accommodation established to provide accommodation for a monthly paid service charge or upward only. Section 15 says no person may operate a hotel business without a licence from the Registrar, and section 19 gives a licence a life of five years. A ministerial regulation made under the third limb of that definition used to put small places of not more than four rooms and twenty lodgers outside it. Ministerial Regulation No. 2 B.E. 2566 replaced that with not more than eight rooms and thirty lodgers, on notice to the registrar, an inspection by the competent official, and a letter of acknowledgement issued within forty days of the notification. The fees come from regulation as well: 10,000 baht for a category 1 licence rising to 40,000 baht for category 4, renewal at half the rate, and 80 baht per room per year to operate. Building control and the permitted use of the building are separate questions with separate offices behind them.