What Can Actually Leave Thailand as Hemp: Extracts, Seed, Fibre and Cosmetics

🏭 Hemp & Industrial Cannabis Hemp Products & Processing
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The usual assumption in the trade is that there are two ways out of Thailand. One is a narrow, expensive medical route for high-THC GACP flower. The other is a wide industrial route for low-THC CBD flower that needs nothing more than a lab report showing the plant was hemp. The first half of that is right. The second half stopped being true on 26 June 2025. Since then, cannabis inflorescence has been a controlled herb in Thailand whatever its THC content, because Thai law draws the line by plant part and not by potency. So the honest question for a hemp business is not how to export flower more cheaply. It is what else the plant produces that can leave the country as an ordinary commercial good. The answer is more interesting than it sounds: the one product Thailand has actively deregulated is the extract, the opposite of what most people assume.

1. Two tracks, and where the line really falls

The intuitive model is a THC threshold, where a plant below some percentage is an agricultural commodity and a plant above it is a controlled drug. Thailand does have such numbers. Hemp (กัญชง) is defined as Cannabis sativa L. subsp. sativa with no more than 1.0% THC by dry weight in leaves and inflorescence under the Ministerial Regulation on Hemp B.E. 2563 (2020). Separately, cannabis and hemp extracts above 0.2% THC by weight remain Category 5 narcotics.

Neither number creates an export route for flower. The Notification of the Ministry of Public Health Re: Controlled Herbs (Cannabis) B.E. 2568 was issued 26 June 2025 and took effect the same day. It controls the inflorescence of plants of the genus Cannabis, drawn by genus and plant part rather than by subspecies or THC content. Under Thai law, a 0.3% THC hemp bud is the same regulated object as an 18% THC medical flower. The full argument is in Low THC Does Not Save a Bud.

The two tracks therefore look like this:

Track A: flower, at any potency. Flower is a controlled herb. Exporting it requires a licence under section 46 of the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Thai Medicine Knowledge Act B.E. 2542, material from a GACP-certified cultivation site, and compliance with Ministerial Regulation (No. 2) B.E. 2569, in force 30 April 2026. Juslaws & Consult report that the regulation sets cumulative conditions for export, sale and processing licences. That reading has not been confirmed against the Royal Gazette text. The conditions they list are:

  • a demonstrated right to the premises
  • dedicated, segregated storage
  • a qualifying credential: a hospital licence, a herbal-product or drug manufacturing or sales licence, a Category 5 narcotics licence, folk-healer certification, or a cultivation site supplying licensed buyers
  • a DTAM-trained employee on site during operating hours

Domestically, flower may be dispensed only against a PT 33 prescription. It may not be sold or advertised online. At the destination it needs a licensed medical-cannabis import regime, which makes this a licence-to-licence trade, not a commodity trade.

Track B: everything that is not flower. This means extracts within the 0.2% threshold, seed, fibre, mature stalk, cosmetics and food ingredients. It is the genuine industrial track, and its defining feature is that flower is not in it. The rest of this article covers Track B.

The draft Cannabis Control Act was approved by the Cabinet on 22 September 2026 and sent to the House of Representatives; it is not yet law. If enacted in its current form it could redraw the hemp and extract categories described here, so treat this article as a snapshot of the rules in force in October 2026.

2. What this changes about a business plan

Stop pricing a hemp-flower export as an agricultural commodity. It carries medical-channel costs on the Thai side and faces a narrow legal window on the buying side.

The credential, not the farm, is now the binding constraint. If the reported conditions of Regulation No. 2 are accurate, a farm with excellent GACP but no qualifying licence cannot export flower. The commercial question becomes which licensed entity sits in the chain.

Extracts deserve a second look. The barrier there is the destination’s food and cosmetics law. That is difficult, but it is usually more manageable than narcotics licensing.

Watch the foreign-ownership line on the extract side (section 3).

3. Extracts within the 0.2% threshold: the deregulated product

Under the Narcotics Code, extracts exceeding 0.2% THC by weight are Category 5 narcotics. Extracts at or below 0.2% derived from cannabis or hemp grown in Thailand have been released from that control.

The notification expresses the threshold as THC “by weight”. Published legal summaries do not say whether it means Δ9-THC alone or total THC including THCA. Confirm the test basis with the Thai FDA and an accredited laboratory, and do not assume. For commercial purposes, specify total THC (Δ9-THC + 0.877 × THCA) at or below 0.2% in contracts and certificates of analysis. That is a specification to satisfy buyers, not the Thai legal definition.

A CBD-dominant extract or isolate from Thai-grown material that stays within the threshold falls outside narcotics and controlled-herb control. It still remains subject to Thai FDA product law and destination-country rules. A finished product still needs approval under the Food Act, the Cosmetics Act or the Herbal Products Act as relevant, and an export shipment may still need a permit. Check the Thai FDA’s current requirements for your product category. How destination markets treat extract compared with raw flower is covered in the companion article on raw CBD flower versus extract in destination markets.

Analytical method. Buyers and border laboratories increasingly measure total THC. The EU’s official method is gas chromatography, which decarboxylates THCA in the injector and so effectively reads total THC. In the United States, the federal hemp definition was amended in November 2025 (P.L. 119-37). The new definition counts total THC including THCA and caps finished hemp-derived cannabinoid products at 0.4 mg total THC per container. The change was due on 12 November 2026. A continuing resolution (P.L. 119-103) has since pushed most of it, including the total-THC test, to 11 December 2026, and bills for a further two-year delay have been introduced. That is the position as of October 2026, and Congress can still change the effective date. A product made to 0.19% Δ9-THC with meaningful THCA is not a 0.19% product under either regime.

Foreign ownership. The Ministerial Regulation on Licensing for the Production, Importation, Exportation, Sale or Possession of Category 5 Narcotics Specifically Cannabis or Hemp Extracts B.E. 2569 (2026) covers the above-0.2% side. Mahanakorn Partners and other law-firm commentaries report that it was published in the Royal Gazette on 26 March 2026 and took effect 26 April 2026. They also report that it limits licences to Thai juristic persons not treated as “foreign” under the Foreign Business Act, government agencies and the Thai Red Cross Society. This summary has not been checked against the Gazette text here. A foreign-invested structure that works for a growshop may not work for high-THC extract. That is one more reason to keep a product clearly within the deregulated threshold. The same commentaries report that extract licences issued under the 2020–2021 regulations stay valid only until 31 December 2026. Holders should confirm their own licence status directly with the Thai FDA.

4. Seed, fibre and mature stalk

Most narcotics statutes carve these parts out of the definition of cannabis. The UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 exempts mature stalk, fibre from mature stalk, and seed. Australia permits hemp seed in food and, by a 2018 customs approval, freed certain hemp seed and fibre products from import licence and permit requirements. New Zealand exempts stalk and seed, including hulled seed as food, while leaf and flower remain controlled.

For a Thai exporter this is the least legally complicated product family. The trade-offs are ordinary commercial ones: freight cost against unit value, and competition from established fibre and seed producers.

On the Thai side, export does not go through narcotics licensing, and it is mainly not a Thai FDA matter:

  • Seed generally needs a phytosanitary certificate from the Department of Agriculture and is subject to Thai seed and plant-variety rules. Seed for planting may also fall under the hemp regulation’s own conditions.
  • Fibre and stalk generally follow normal customs and agricultural export procedure.

Confirm the exact permits for your product with the Department of Agriculture and the Customs Department before the first shipment. The documents and HS codes are covered in Getting Paid and Getting There.

At the EU end, hemp seed foods are not Novel Foods, but they have harmonised THC maxima. Regulation (EU) 2022/1393, applicable from 1 January 2023 and now carried into the consolidated contaminants Regulation (EU) 2023/915, sets maximum levels of Δ9-THC equivalents (which count THCA as well). The limits are 3.0 mg/kg for hemp seed and seed-derived products and 7.5 mg/kg for hemp seed oil. South Korea’s Food Code sets reference values for hemp seed of THC ≤5 mg/kg and CBD ≤10 mg/kg (as reported by ChemLinked).

5. Cosmetics

Thailand permits four hemp-derived ingredient categories in cosmetics, provided the finished product contains no more than 0.2% THC by weight.

In the EU, cosmetics are governed by Regulation (EC) 1223/2009. CBD is not prohibited as such. However, Annex II entry 306 bans narcotics listed in the Single Convention, so CBD in extracts, resins or tinctures made from the flowering tops is prohibited. Synthetic CBD, or CBD from leaves and seeds without flowering tops, is not. In 2026 the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) concluded that CBD is safe up to 0.19% in cosmetic products, with THC as an impurity up to 0.00025%. Those are proposed reference levels. No binding limit has yet been written into the Regulation.

The EU label is a separate job from the Thai one:

  • Ingredients must be listed under INCI names, for example Cannabis Sativa Seed Oil or Cannabidiol.
  • A non-EU manufacturer needs a Responsible Person established in the EU, whose name and address appear on the label.
  • Mandatory text must be in the language(s) each member state requires, so multi-country distribution usually means multilingual or country-specific labels.

Asia is much harder than the EU, and the numbers are often underestimated:

  • Japan’s amended Cannabis Control Act took effect 12 December 2024. It replaced the old plant-part test, which limited legal products to material from mature stalk or seed, with a THC-content test. It set residual THC limits of 10 ppm for oils and powders, 1 ppm for solids and viscous products including cosmetics, and 0.1 ppm for aqueous solutions.
  • China banned cannabis-derived cosmetic ingredients from 28 May 2021. CBD went on the prohibited-ingredients list, and cannabis sativa leaf extract, fruit and seed oil went on the prohibited plant-ingredients list. Unlike Japan, this is not a stricter threshold; it is a ban.

Japan’s ppm figures are two to four orders of magnitude below a 0.2% THC specification. A cosmetic formulated to Thai limits does not automatically clear a Japanese one.

6. Food, and the Novel Food wall in the EU

In the EU, CBD in food needs Novel Food authorisation, and none has been granted. EFSA’s provisional safe intake of about 2 mg a day for an adult is far below what most CBD foods deliver. The detail is in the companion article on EFSA’s CBD intake figure. Any EU food label must also follow the Food Information to Consumers Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, and any health claim falls under Regulation (EC) 1924/2006. A smokable product is not a food at all, which is why smokable flower is restricted through narcotics or tobacco law instead. Examples are Italy under its 2025 security decree (Decree-Law 48/2025, converted by Law 80/2025), Austria through tobacco law, and the UK under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

7. A realistic product shortlist for a Thai hemp business

Ranked by regulatory difficulty rather than margin:

  1. Hemp seed, hulled seed and seed oil for food. The cleanest route, provided the EU 3.0 / 7.5 mg/kg limits (or the destination’s equivalent) are met.
  2. Fibre, hurd and hempcrete feedstock. No cannabinoid question at all; the constraint is freight economics.
  3. CBD extract and isolate within the Thai 0.2% extract threshold, specified to buyers as ≤0.2% total THC and sold as a cosmetic ingredient or B2B raw material. Deregulated from narcotics control in Thailand but still under Thai FDA product law. At the destination, the question is cosmetics or food law rather than narcotics law.
  4. Finished cosmetics. Viable, but formulate to the destination’s rule. Japan sets ppm residual THC limits; China bans cannabis-derived cosmetic ingredients outright.
  5. CBD foods and supplements into the EU. Currently blocked by Novel Food; do not build a launch plan around imminent authorisation.
  6. Raw hemp flower. Controlled at the Thai end since June 2025 and prohibited or restricted in many destinations; see Low THC Does Not Save a Bud.

For anyone selling hemp seed, fibre or extract out of Thailand: which destination has actually been the least trouble? Not the most profitable: the least trouble, meaning documents accepted first time and no held shipments. That is the more useful number when planning a second market, and it is not published anywhere.

And on the licensed side: has anyone completed a licensed section 46 export application since June 2025? Timelines, refusals and document requests would be more useful than any legal summary.

Related reading: Low THC Does Not Save a Bud; the article on raw CBD flower versus extract in destination markets; Testing Before Export (total THC versus Δ9); Getting Paid and Getting There; the article on EFSA’s CBD intake figure; and the article on Thai cannabis penalties.

Sources

Some Thai points above rest on law-firm commentary rather than the Royal Gazette text, and those are marked where they appear. The Gazette volume and section numbers should be checked at ratchakitcha.soc.go.th before relying on them.

This article is reference information for readers operating legally in their own jurisdictions. It is not legal, customs, food-safety or tax advice. Food, cosmetics and narcotics law differ in every market named here and are changing quickly. Verify with the competent authority and a qualified specialist before formulating, labelling or shipping.