Every Required Element on Your Thai Supplement Label

MOPH Notification No. 293 B.E. 2548 (2005) is precise about what has to appear on a dietary supplement label sold in Thailand, and Thai FDA reviews that label as part of the product approval process itself, not as an afterthought once the formula is approved. Thai language, a food serial number issued after approval, importer name and address, a fixed-form warning statement, and health claims drawn only from the permitted list: these are not suggestions, they are the specific conditions a label has to satisfy before it clears review, and each one is checked individually rather than assessed as a general impression of overall compliance.

Why the Thai language requirement trips up more brands than it should

No. 293 requires the consumer-facing label on a Thai-market dietary supplement to be in Thai. This is not a rule that a bilingual label can satisfy by adding smaller Thai text alongside a dominant English label. Foreign brands entering the market often assume that a bilingual layout, where the Thai translation is technically present even if visually secondary, meets the standard. It does not. Thai FDA reviews labeling as part of product approval, and a submission where required Thai elements are missing, incorrectly formatted, or visually subordinate to foreign-language text will not clear review.

English can appear on the label alongside Thai, but it cannot substitute for Thai on any required element. The importer's name and address, for instance, must appear in Thai regardless of whether an English version also appears. The product name itself must include the Thai-language category descriptor ผลิตภัณฑ์เสริมอาหาร as part of the declared name, not as a separate note elsewhere on the packaging.

The fixed list of mandatory elements

No. 293 specifies exactly what a compliant label has to contain, and each element has to be present and correctly formatted for the label to pass review.

The product name must carry the Thai-language category descriptor ผลิตภัณฑ์เสริมอาหาร as part of the name itself; a trade name alone, without this descriptor, does not satisfy the requirement. The food serial number, เลขสารบบอาหาร, is assigned by Thai FDA only once the product is approved, and it has to appear on the label in the specific format Thai FDA prescribes. This is precisely why label artwork gets finalized after approval rather than before: the number simply does not exist until approval is granted.

Both the foreign manufacturer's name and address and the Thai licensed importer's name and address, the Orr.7 license holder, have to appear on the label, and both have to be in Thai. Net quantity is declared in the unit appropriate to the product form: weight for solids, volume for liquids, count with per-unit quantity for capsules or tablets. The ingredient list has to run in descending order by weight, and any additives need to be listed under their Thai FDA-approved functional names or E-numbers, not generic descriptions.

The expiry date declaration has to use either "ควรบริโภคก่อน" (best before) or "วันหมดอายุ" (expiry date) in the required format, followed immediately by the appropriate storage conditions. A fixed-form warning statement, prescribed word for word by Thai FDA, has to appear stating that the supplement is not a substitute for a balanced diet and is not intended to treat disease; the exact Thai-language wording is specified directly in No. 293 and is not something a brand can paraphrase. Any health claim on the label has to come exclusively from the permitted list under MOPH No. 447 B.E. 2566 (2023), using the exact permitted wording rather than a close approximation.

The inner label and outer carton are both under review

For any supplement sold in secondary packaging, a capsule bottle inside a carton being the common case, both the inner label on the bottle and the outer label on the carton have to carry the required elements from No. 293. The outer carton is not a separate marketing surface that gets to carry a different, looser standard of claims than the inner bottle label.

A recurring mistake in market entry is treating the outer packaging as promotional real estate that escapes the same scrutiny applied to the primary label. Thai FDA does not draw that distinction: both surfaces are reviewed, and a claim appearing on the carton that is not present on the approved inner label will either block approval outright or surface as a rejection during a post-market inspection, well after the packaging has already been printed and distributed.

The sequencing problem that trips up first-time entrants

Brands new to the Thai market often try to finalize packaging artwork on the same timeline they would use at home, where label content is largely a marketing decision made early and locked in before the regulatory submission catches up. That sequence does not work in Thailand, precisely because the food serial number, one of the mandatory elements described above, literally does not exist until Thai FDA grants approval. Any packaging printed before that number is issued is, by definition, printed without a required element, which means print runs committed too early either have to be scrapped or reprinted with the number added once it is known. The more reliable sequence treats the regulatory submission as the driver of the artwork timeline, not the other way around: draft artwork can be prepared in parallel with the approval process, but the final print run should wait until the serial number, and any conditions attached to the approved claims, are confirmed.

This sequencing discipline matters just as much for reprints and packaging refreshes on products already approved and on shelf. A brand refreshing its packaging design for aesthetic reasons still has to confirm that every mandatory element from No. 293 survives the redesign intact, since a visual refresh that inadvertently shrinks the Thai-language warning statement or repositions the food serial number below a fold can turn a routine rebrand into a fresh compliance problem.

Building label artwork around the approved formula, not around assumptions

The reliable approach is preparing the label submission directly from the approved product formula, confirming that every listed ingredient, every declared quantity, and every claim on the label matches what was actually approved. A label that contradicts the approved formula in any respect is grounds for rejection on its own, independent of whether the underlying product is compliant. Artwork decisions around food serial number placement, warning statement positioning, and the relative prominence of Thai-language elements all need to be made with Thai FDA's actual review criteria in mind, not signed off on assumptions before approval is in hand. DeeMED Consulting builds label submissions against the approved formula as part of our Thai FDA supplement labeling and claims review, so artwork gets finalized once, correctly, rather than reprinted after a rejection.