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Thailand food label requirements: MOPH Notification No. 450

Food sold in Thailand is labelled in Thai under the Food Act B.E. 2522 and Ministry of Public Health Notification No. 450 (B.E. 2567) on the labelling of prepackaged food, in force since 19 July 2024. It replaced Notification No. 367 and its amendments; labels made to the old rules could be used until 19 July 2026, so every pack now follows No. 450.

Checked: 29 October 2026

Mandatory items

What every food label carries

The name of the food, the food serial number inside the อย. frame, the name and address of the maker or of the importer with the country of manufacture, net quantity, main ingredients with percentages, allergen information, additives, the expiry or best-before date, storage and directions, and any warnings the food’s own notification requires. Imported food carries a Thai label, often a sticker, before it is sold.

What No. 450 changed

“Best before” now follows the Codex meaning; listing ingredients in descending order is recommended rather than required; shellfish and squid joined the allergens. A draft amendment of December 2025 proposes more allergens, new rules for additives and an optional digital label — check whether it has been adopted.

The GDA label

Snacks such as potato chips, crackers, cookies, wafers and bakery products, and some ready meals, carry the GDA label on the front: energy, sugar, fat and sodium per pack against daily values. The Healthier Choice logo is voluntary.

Non-food goods under the Consumer Protection Board’s label control carry a Thai label with the name, maker or importer, use, price and warnings.

Why the rules look like this

Thailand uses its labels as a public-health tool, one nutrient at a time:

1. 2011 — the GDA front label becomes mandatory on snacks such as potato chips, crackers and wafers, the foods children buy alone. The front of a Thai snack is a health notice before it is a billboard.
2. 2016 — the Healthier Choice logo arrives as a reward for reformulated products; brands redesign to earn it.
3. 2017 — an excise tax on sugary drinks starts, stepping up every two years to 2025; drink makers cut sugar and print the new figures. A Thai drink label changes when its recipe does.
4. 2019 — partially hydrogenated oils are banned, so “0 trans fat” stops being a selling point.
5. 2024 — Notification No. 450 replaces No. 367 after a decade, aligning dates with Codex as Thai exports grow. Labels written for export and for home now share one logic.

Seasons that sell packs

Chinese New Year gift baskets and Mid-Autumn mooncakes in Bangkok’s Chinese community, Songkran in April, and the year-end New Year hampers drive gift packaging; each item in a hamper keeps its own Thai label and อย. number. Convenience stores sell more packaged food per person than almost anywhere in the region, so small packs with a clear front and a readable GDA are the everyday format.

Who answers for the label

The producer or importer that holds the food serial number, and anyone who sells misbranded or fake food.

The designer and the printer are not named by these laws — but a contract can make them pay for the reprint. Keep the client’s written approval of the final copy; Drint’s review link records it.

If the label is wrong

A label that breaks the notification is fined under the Food Act; food whose label deceives on origin, quality or quantity is treated as misbranded, and food falsely presented can be deemed fake, which carries prison terms. The Thai FDA also orders recalls and publishes warnings with the product’s name, and customs refuses imports whose Thai label or อย. number is missing.

Who else loses, beyond the fine

A wrong label costs more than its fine, and the cost travels down the chain:

1. The shopper — an undeclared allergen can put someone in hospital; that is why recalls for allergens move fastest.
2. The brand — a recall notice with its name stays online for years, and retailers may delist the product.
3. The importer and distributor — stock held at the port or in a warehouse, storage fees, relabelling labour, sometimes a whole container sent back.
4. The shop — products immobilised or pulled from shelves in the middle of a season.
5. The printer — a reprint at its own cost if the contract says so, and a lost client either way.
6. The designer — the reprint blamed on the artwork, unless the client’s approval is on record.

The อย. mark and the date

The food serial number is 13 digits inside the official อย. frame, in a colour that contrasts with the background, on the main panel. Dates name day, month and year; whichever calendar the label uses (Buddhist or Common Era), keep it the same for every date on the pack. The GDA label sits on the front, at the size its notification sets for the pack’s front area.

Mistakes, and a check before printing

The usual problems: wording copied from a Notification 367 label; an imported pack whose Thai sticker forgets the importer or the country of manufacture; the อย. frame redrawn or stretched; claims such as “ไม่มีน้ำตาล” without meeting the claim rules.

1. Write every mandatory item in Thai.
2. Place the 13-digit number in the official อย. frame on the main panel.
3. Add allergen information, shellfish and squid included.
4. Add the GDA label on the front if the food is in its list.
5. For imports, name the importer and the country of manufacture on the Thai sticker.

Cosmetics and controlled goods

Cosmetics under the Cosmetics Act B.E. 2558 carry a Thai label with the name and type of product, the ingredients, directions, the name and address of the maker or importer, the notification number (เลขที่ใบรับจดแจ้ง), the batch, the manufacturing date, the expiry date when shelf life is under 30 months, and warnings. Goods under a Thai Industrial Standard that is mandatory carry the TISI (มอก.) mark.

Worked example: a 200 g box of butter cookies

Made in Vietnam and sold in Thailand, the pack reads, line by line (the client’s own names and numbers replace those in brackets):

1. คุกกี้เนย
2. [เลขสารบบอาหาร 13 หลัก ในกรอบ อย.]
3. ส่วนประกอบที่สำคัญโดยประมาณ: แป้งสาลี [ ]%, เนย [ ]%, น้ำตาล [ ]%, ไข่ [ ]%
4. วัตถุเจือปนอาหาร: สารช่วยให้ขึ้นฟู (INS 500(ii))
5. ข้อมูลสำหรับผู้แพ้อาหาร: มีข้าวสาลี นม ไข่
6. น้ำหนักสุทธิ 200 กรัม
7. ผลิตโดย: [ผู้ผลิต] ประเทศเวียดนาม · นำเข้าโดย: [ชื่อและที่ตั้งผู้นำเข้า]
8. ควรบริโภคก่อน: [วัน เดือน ปี]
9. ฉลาก GDA ด้านหน้า: พลังงาน น้ำตาล ไขมัน โซเดียม ต่อกล่อง

Why it reads this way

Cookies are on the GDA list, so the front carries energy, sugar, fat and sodium per box; the main ingredients go with percentages, and the importer and country of manufacture sit on the Thai label.

How Drint helps

Three kinds of people make packs for Thailand with Drint, and each needs something different:

Free, no account: the barcode generator, the mm to inches converter and the paper sizes table.

1. A business with its own brand — Drint has no label kit for Thailand yet, so the checklist on this page is your check before export. See the pack in 3D before it is printed, send the design to the person who must approve it with a review link, and hand the printer one CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer, so nobody retypes the label.
2. A household business — start from a ready dieline cut to your exact box or bag size instead of paying for a die drawing, use your own photos on 3D mockups for your online shop, and keep the mandatory text exactly as you wrote it: Drint never translates or rewords a client’s copy.
3. A designer — lay out several markets from one design, each with its own language and items, keep every client’s approvals in one place, and show finished packs on a portfolio page at drint.io/your-name.

Laying it out in Drint

1. Drint has no label kit for Thailand yet: add a text block for each item of the table above, in the order the law lists them.
2. Paste the client’s copy as they wrote it — Drint does not translate or reword it.
3. Place official marks (symbols, numbers, logos) from the authority’s own files at their stated size; export the CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer for your printer.

Official sources

1. สำนักงานคณะกรรมการอาหารและยา (อย.) — อาหาร
2. สำนักงานคณะกรรมการคุ้มครองผู้บริโภค (สคบ.)

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Lay out the label in Drint

Questions

A summary written to design packs, not legal advice. Check MOPH Notification No. 450 (B.E. 2567), the notification for your food group and the GDA notification on the Thai FDA site before printing.