Chiang Mai Business Network

29/09/2026

Since 1 January 2026, becoming a registered bookkeeper in Thailand requires a recognised accounting qualification, membership of the Federation of Accounting Professions and a pass in the new online e-Accountant exam.

Existing bookkeepers do not need to requalify. Every bookkeeper must still confirm their status each year and complete the required training hours.

Every Thai limited company must have a registered bookkeeper. The role can be an employee or an external provider from an accounting firm. The new rules change the cost and the availability of both options.

Get the details on our blog.

28/09/2026

Most teams in Chiang Mai grow faster than the systems that hold them together. A strong performer becomes a manager, new staff join each quarter, and the way people communicate is left to chance.

TeamBridge Thailand works with organisations across Northern Thailand to change that, through leadership coaching, team building, staff training, and recruitment and onboarding support. Sessions run in English and Thai, using practical personality-based tools that managers take back to their own teams.

Every engagement begins with a free team assessment, which gives you a clear picture of how your team works today and where the gaps sit.

Book yours at teambridgethailand.com/assessment or message us on LINE at .

28/09/2026

Every day, someone in Chiang Mai searches for a plumber in Hang D**g, a translator near Nimman or a caterer who can feed 40 guests on a Saturday, and the businesses that appear in front of them are the ones that get the call.

Golden Pages is the Chiang Mai business directory run by Chiang Mai Business Network. When you join CMBN, your business goes live on Golden Pages with full details and contact information, so customers looking for local services find you directly.

The listing is where it starts. CMBN members are also promoted across our social channels, email newsletters and editorial placements on CNX Mag and Chiang Mai Business, which carries your name to readers who were not yet searching for you.

Join CMBN, get listed and get found.

28/09/2026

Chiang Mai is buying. Thailand is not.

Foreign buyers took ownership of 379 condominium units in Chiang Mai between January and June 2026, up 19% on a year earlier. Across Thailand, the same figure fell 8.8%.

The growth did not come from where most people expect. Chinese buyers are still the largest group, but they now make up less than half the market. Myanmar buying rose in Chiang Mai while it fell nationally. Taiwan went from one unit to 16. Western European buyers are fading.

Our new Field Report breaks down the full ranking by nationality, what is driving each shift, and which figures are still unconfirmed.

26/09/2026

Some of the best businesses in Chiang Mai are known only to the people who already use them, passed along by word of mouth between friends and regular customers. That kind of loyalty is valuable, but it does little for the new resident, visitor or business owner who has never heard the name and is searching online for exactly what that business offers.

Marike, founder of Pure Thai Naturals and a verified Golden Pages member, describes the platform as "the difference between being a local secret and a trusted local business."

Every Golden Pages listing is checked by hand before publication, covering the registered name, trading address, working phone number and current hours. That verification gives people searching the directory a reason to trust what they find, and gives member businesses a reason to be found.

A good business in Chiang Mai deserves to be known beyond its regulars, and Golden Pages exists to make that happen.

22/09/2026

One of our interns paid a deposit on a three month rental through a local agent. The lease ended, the seven day return deadline written into the contract passed, and the agent stopped answering. The landlord said it was not their problem, because the deposit had never reached them in the first place. What finally produced a repayment schedule was a police report, not a civil claim.

Most people in that position write the money off, and I understand why. For a 3,000 THB deposit on a scooter, walking away is often the sensible decision rather than the lazy one, since the demand letter, the complaint and the half day in court cost more than the deposit is worth.

A 150,000 THB deposit on a house runs through exactly the same legal process, and there the maths flips completely. That is two or three months of income for most people. I still see long-term residents write those off, usually because a drawn out dispute with someone they will keep running into feels heavier than the loss itself.

The protection that actually works costs almost nothing and happens before the money leaves your hand. Choose who you rent from rather than chasing the cheapest rate, photograph the condition at handover and again at return, get the terms in writing even on LINE, and confirm that the person taking your money has the authority to hold it.

Thailand has no deposit protection scheme. Nothing steps in when a landlord or an agent has already spent it.

19/09/2026

New in Golden Pages: TeamBridge Thailand, San Pa Tong. Enneagram-based team development, workshops and coaching for organisations in Chiang Mai. Verified by CMBN.

Thoughtful hiring. Sustainable teams.

18/09/2026

A client paid a deposit on a leased office and is now watching the landlord's company quietly wind down. Another has been collecting customer deposits for years without once asking how the Revenue Department views that money.

Deposits touch almost every business in Thailand, and the rules change depending on which side of the transaction you are sitting on.

Since 4 September 2025, anyone renting out three or more residential units counts as a business operator under the Consumer Protection Act. That threshold used to be five. Deposits are capped, returns run on a seven working day clock, and getting it wrong is a criminal matter rather than an unpaid debt. From 30 December 2025 the same approach applies to car and motorcycle rental operators.

There is also no law in Thailand requiring you to hold deposit money separately from your operating account. That is why so many disputes end with a landlord who spent it and cannot give it back.

Lone has written up the legal position, the tax treatment that catches people out, and the five things a deposit clause should cover. [First of three articles on deposits in Thailand.]

18/09/2026

A guest rarely remembers a hotel from one viewpoint. They remember the walk from the street into shade, the courtyard that gives them somewhere to pause, and the light in a corridor at the end of the day.

This article from Niwatarchitects looks at hotel and resort architecture in Chiang Mai, and at the difference between a building that copies Lanna forms and a building that understands the city it stands in.

It draws on three projects. Away Chiangmai Thapae Resort sits inside the busy Thapae area and has to create a sense of retreat without closing the city out. Sela Hotel builds its identity through scale, proportion and the way one space opens into the next. Na Sarand Boutique Hotel works at a smaller scale, where the corridors, stairs and gardens between public and private carry as much of the experience as the rooms.

Climate shapes all of it. Shade decides where people choose to sit, openings decide how air and views move through a building, and covered transitions make the walk between inside and outside comfortable through the heat of the afternoon.

A hotel is not only where a traveller stays. It becomes part of what they remember about where they have been.

Explore hotel resort architecture in Chiang Mai through Sela Hotel, Away Chiangmai Thapae Resort and Na Sarand Boutique Hotel by Niwat Architects

16/09/2026

Seventeen baht buys a three-slice pack of Farmhouse bread from a vending machine in a hospital corridor. Two hundred and fifty baht buys a sourdough sandwich at a Bangkok café, and the price covers the table, the service and the afternoon you spend there.

Those are not two rungs on the same ladder. They are two different businesses answering two different questions.

The usual story about Thailand's bread market runs in a straight line: white bread, then whole wheat, then artisan sourdough, with consumers climbing steadily upward. Our research did not find that line. What it found was one market pulling in two directions at once, with sliced bread competing on convenience against sticky rice and ready meals, while sourdough competes on flavour, craft and the room it is eaten in.

We also looked at the health language stuck to both ends, because "whole wheat", "unbleached" and "organic" answer three different questions and none of them is the one shoppers think they are asking.