Most buyers of truck capacity check a carrier's price, its references and its trucks. Few check the one thing the state keeps a public record of: whether the company is licensed to carry other people's goods at all.
There is a free public search for it. It is useful, and it has three traps that a quick look will walk straight into. Counting every entry in it on 2 October 2026 shows what they are, and this article turns them into a ten-minute check you can run before the first booking.
Why it is worth ten minutes
Thai law does not let anyone carry goods for hire without an operating licence. Section 23 of the Land Transport Act forbids it, and Section 126 sets the penalty at up to five years in prison, a fine of 20,000 to 100,000 baht, or both. The licence types, and why a private truck licence is not a for-hire one, are in comparing two freight quotes that are not alike.
A licence also does something less obvious. Under Section 32 it is where the carrier's conditions are written down: how many vehicles it must use, what the vehicles are, the mark each must carry, how many crew, where the vehicles are kept and repaired. So the licence is where you can see, from outside, what the state has actually allowed this company to run.
What the public search holds
The Department of Land Transport publishes a searchable list of licence holders. It covers non-fixed-route trucks, which is the licence a carrier needs to sell you a truck, and also private transport licences. Each entry shows:
- The company name and locality
- The licence number, the type and a size band
- An expiry date and a status label
- The office address
- How many vehicles the licence covers, by body type
- A telephone number and sometimes an email
You can search by name or by licence number, and narrow by province, district, size, dangerous goods or cold chain, and domestic or international scope. The page says its data is current to 10 September 2026 and holds 14,087 entries.
Three traps in the list
1. The status column says Active on every line
All 14,087 entries are labelled Active. That includes 595 whose own expiry date is earlier than the date the page says its data is current to. Of those, 526 lapsed during 2026 before 10 September and 69 lapsed earlier, the oldest on 16 March 2023.
The register does not say why. A renewal may be in progress, or the entry may simply not have been updated. You cannot tell from outside, and that is the point: the status label carries no information, so read the expiry date yourself. About one entry in twenty-four fails that test.
The Department's guide gives a licence a five-year life, and the dates fit: a licence numbered in 2568 expires in 2573. So a licence whose date is near is ordinary. Put the date in your contract file and look again 90 days before it.
2. A licence number is not an identifier
The licence number is a sequence number and a Buddhist Era year, for example 9/2568. Those numbers repeat. The 14,087 entries share just 2,559 different numbers. Only 712 numbers belong to one company. The number 9/2568 sits on 36 different entries.
So a carrier quoting you "licence 9/2568" has told you almost nothing. Match three things together: the name, the province and the number. And remember the search box finds numbers inside numbers. Typing 9/2568 returns 273 entries, because 89/2568 and 129/2568 contain it.
3. Private licences are on the same list
125 of the entries are private transport licences, which allow a company to move its own goods and nothing more. They sit in the same list under the same layout. Read the type line on the entry. If it says private (รถบรรทุกส่วนบุคคล), that company has a licence for its own trucks, not for yours.
One more reading trap. The size letters mean different things on different Department pages. On this register S is 4 to 30 vehicles. On the Department's operator statistics page S is 1 to 10. Compare fleets by the vehicle counts, never by the letter.
Not on the list does not mean not licensed
The list holds 13,961 for-hire truck licences. The Department's own count on a sister page is 40,896 non-fixed-route truck operators. The list is about a third of that. Nearly every number on it carries a year from 2563 to 2569, so it is plainly not a complete history of every licence.
So the right reading is one-sided:
- Found, current, right type and matching name: a strong positive
- Not found: a question for the carrier, not a verdict. Ask for the licence document itself, and if you still doubt it, the Department's goods transport bureau (02 271 8491) or the provincial transport office where the carrier is based can confirm
Compare the fleet to the licence
The entry lists the vehicles the licence covers by type. Set that against what the carrier tells you it runs.
A worked example. A carrier says it runs 80 trucks. Its entry lists 22 vehicles. Then 22 of the 80 are on its own licence, which is 27.5%. The other 58 are somebody else's trucks, or not yet on the licence. That is not wrong. Subcontracting is normal, and it is how many small operators cover a peak. But it changes what you are buying, and it decides who you can claim against. Both are covered in the claim against a carrier that hired another carrier.
The licence application also has to show the registration book of every vehicle, and Section 32 requires the operator's mark on each one. The Department's guide says the mark goes on both outside sides, clearly visible. That gives you a check at your own dock: ask for the vehicle list, and see whether the truck that arrives has the mark and is on the list.
Then check the company itself
The licence tells you the state allowed a company to run trucks. It does not tell you whether the company is still trading. For that, use the business registry run by the Department of Business Development. A company profile shows:
| Field | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Status | Still operating |
| Registration date | How long the company has existed |
| Registered capital | Whether it matches the fleet it claims |
| Directors and signing authority | Who can bind the company, which you need for the contract |
| Objectives at registration | Whether transport is among them |
| Years financial statements were filed | A run of recent years, up to the latest five shown |
| Registered head office | Whether it matches the office on the licence entry |
Two cautions the registry prints about itself. First, the filing years show only the latest five years. Second, the department says its profile is general information and cannot be used as a legal reference. If a contract or a dispute depends on a fact, ask the carrier for an official registration certificate. The profile has a button to request one.
A company registered this year will show no filings. That is age, not a warning. A company that has traded for years and has filed nothing recently is a different question, and it is a fair one to ask the carrier to explain. That is a judgement about what the gap suggests, not a rule the registry states.
The Department's own guide to getting a licence is a quiet help here. It says an applicant should be a registered company with capital of at least 500,000 baht and an objective that includes transport. A carrier running dozens of trucks on a company whose registered capital is far below that, or whose objectives omit transport, deserves a closer look.
An optional extra: the Q Mark
The Department also runs a voluntary quality standard for truck operators, called Q Mark. The operator applies, an independent body visits the actual premises, and the certificate is renewed by reassessment. It covers five areas: organisation, transport operations, staff, vehicles and customer handling.
It is certification of how a company works, not a licence, and few have it: 458 for-hire operators against 40,896 counted, about 1%. Holding it is a good sign. Not holding it means little, because almost every operator does not hold it.
What each check proves
| Check | Proves | Does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Name, province and number match a register entry | The state recorded this company as a licence holder | That the licence is current |
| Expiry date in the future | The licence has not lapsed on its face | That conditions are being kept |
| Type line says non-fixed-route | The company may carry for hire | That every truck it sends is on the licence |
| Fleet count against its claim | How much of the fleet is its own | Whether the subcontractors are licensed |
| Business registry profile | The company exists and what it declared | Anything a legal dispute can rely on without a certificate |
| Mark and plate at your dock | The truck at your gate matches the list | How the driver or the load is handled |
What to do this week
- Ask each carrier for its operating licence and vehicle list, as a file or copy, before the next booking
- Search the register by name, then match name, province and number together
- Read the type line. It must say non-fixed-route (รถบรรทุกไม่ประจำทาง), not private
- Read the expiry date yourself and put it in your calendar for 90 days before
- Compare vehicle counts on the entry with the fleet the carrier claims, and ask who owns the difference
- Open the company on the business registry. Check status, objectives, directors and filing years, and that the office matches
- Ask for an official registration certificate for any carrier you are about to sign with
- At the dock, look for the operator mark on both sides of the truck, and the plate against the list
- Write the check into the contract. A short clause that the carrier holds a current licence for the work, tells you before it lapses, and names any subcontractor is one of the clauses in what a road freight contract should say
None of this needs a lawyer or a software tool. It takes about ten minutes for the first carrier and less for the next, and it moves the conversation from "we are licensed" to a number you have read yourself.