Customs to ban senior officials from receiving reward money starting December

The Customs Department is overhauling its century-old bounty and reward system, introducing a new regulation that will ban senior officials—level 9 and above—from receiving arrest rewards starting in December 2025, in a move aimed at reducing conflicts of interest.

Customs Director-General Panthong Loykulnanta said the department has drafted a major reform of the reward-payment mechanism. The key principle is that senior executives with case-deciding authority—including the director-general, deputy director-generals, advisers, bureau directors and specialists—will be strictly prohibited from receiving bribes or reward money linked to seizures.

A system unchanged for nearly 100 years

Thailand’s customs bounty system has existed since 1926, last amended in 2017, when the reward rate was reduced from 30% to 20% and capped at 5 million baht per case.

However, the mechanism has long been criticised both domestically and internationally—including by the United States—as creating major conflicts of interest due to the high sums involved.

“The National Anti-Corruption Commission has repeatedly expressed concern that reward payments lack transparency and may benefit officials who were not directly involved in enforcement,” Panthong said.

“This is why the department is undertaking a major reform.”

Immediate reform via DG regulation; long-term reform via law amendment

In the short term, the director-general will issue an internal regulation banning senior officials from receiving arrest rewards ahead of broader legal reform. The draft has been discussed in several meetings and will be submitted to the Finance Minister for approval so it can take effect in December 2025.

In the long term, the Customs Department plans to amend the Customs Act, marking the first legal overhaul in 100 years to remove reward payments for officials. The aim is to strengthen governance by starting from the top, particularly among senior officers who play critical roles in enforcement—such as issuing arrest orders, ruling on cases, approving settlements and overseeing investigations.

Every year, the reward system distributes hundreds of millions of baht, with senior officials eligible to receive up to one-third or one-quarter of all payouts.

Towards a global-standard system

In the future, reward payments will follow international standards, Panthong said, noting that courts—not the Customs Department—should be the authority to order payouts.

This change is intended to maximise transparency and eliminate long-standing conflicts of interest embedded in the system for more than a century.