Thailand’s crane rulebook was already full. What January 2026 added was a check during the lift.

▌  INDUSTRY BRIEFING  ·  OCTOBER 2026  ·  THAILAND OSH

Thailand’s crane rulebook was already full. What January 2026 added was a check during the lift.

At about 09.15 on 14 January 2026, on the line between Nong Nam Khun and Si Khiu stations in Nakhon Ratchasima province, the front support base of a launching gantry working on the Thai–Chinese high-speed rail contract 3-4 fell more than ten metres onto Special Express Train No. 21. Thirty-one people were killed — thirty passengers and one construction worker — and seventy-one were injured. Three carriages were damaged and the lower northeastern line was closed for ten days, reopening on 24 January 2026. The next morning, 15 January, a gantry and a precast concrete beam came down onto live traffic on Rama II Road in Samut Sakhon; two motorists died and two were injured. Both jobs had the same main contractor, Italian-Thai Development PCL.

Neither accident needed a new law to be unlawful. Thailand’s Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Act B.E. 2554 (2011) has been in force since 16 July 2011, and the two ministerial regulations carrying its lifting duties — the construction regulation and the machinery, crane and boiler regulation, both B.E. 2564 (2021) — since 2021. When the Ministry of Transport’s fact-finding committee reported on 26 May 2026, its finding was not that the rules were missing, but that the checks they already require were not being made.

▌  01  THE TWO DATES

▌  IN FORCE SINCE 31 MAY 2021  The regulation governing lifting on Thai building sites is the Ministerial Regulation prescribing standards for the administration, management and operation of safety, occupational health and the working environment in construction work, B.E. 2564 (2021). It was issued under section 5(1) and section 8(1) of the OSH Act, and by its first article took effect ninety days after publication in the Government Gazette — 31 May 2021. The companion Ministerial Regulation on machinery, cranes and boilers, also B.E. 2564 (2021), replaced the 2009 text. The operational paper followed: a DLPW notice on crane testing forms, signed on 1 November 2022 and published in the Royal Gazette on 9 December 2022, volume 139, special part 288 Ngor, page 6, effective the day after publication.

▌  SET ON 26 MAY 2026, ON A 30-DAY CLOCK  On 26 May 2026 the Ministry of Transport’s fact-finding committee published its conclusions on both January accidents. It did not find mechanical failure. It found systemic failure: at Si Khiu, a single support point taking more than 700 tonnes after a step in the erection manual was skipped; at Rama II, a crane whose safety certification had been out of date for more than two months. The committee then set a date rather than a principle. The Department of Highways was given thirty days from 26 May to produce a dedicated safety standard for gantry cranes and bring in independent third-party inspection. Unapproved modification of equipment was prohibited outright, and future elevated bridge projects were directed to carry real-time tilt and tension monitoring.

▌  02  THE STATUTE BEHIND BOTH

▌  GIVEN 12 JANUARY 2011, IN FORCE 16 JULY 2011  The Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Act B.E. 2554 (2011) was given on 12 January 2011. Article 2 provides that it comes into force one hundred and eighty days after publication in the Government Gazette, which puts commencement at 16 July 2011. It repealed chapter 8 of the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998) and carried the older ministerial regulations across by a transitional provision, so site work did not stop at the boundary between the statutes.

▌  SECTION 8 IS THE HOOK  Section 8 requires an employer to administer, manage and operate occupational safety, health and the working environment in conformity with the standards prescribed in the ministerial regulation. That is the hinge of the system: the Act creates the duty, the ministerial regulations supply the content and the measurements. A note that quotes only the Act describes an obligation without a number attached.

▌  ONE YEAR, OR FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND BAHT  DLPW states the sanction for an employer who breaches or fails to comply with the Act: imprisonment for not more than one year, or a fine of not more than 400,000 baht, or both. Read next to the inspection cycle in section 04, that figure makes a lapsed crane certificate something other than a paperwork matter.

▌  TWO AGENCIES, TWO SETS OF INSTRUMENTS  Workplace safety sits with the Ministry of Labour, through the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare and its occupational safety bureau, which publishes the Act and the inspection guidance. Factory and machinery registration sits with the Ministry of Industry, through the Department of Industrial Works. A crawler crane on a construction site is a workplace machine, and on some sites also a registered factory machine. Neither register replaces the other.

▌  03  THE CONSTRUCTION REGULATION

▌  NOTIFY BEFORE YOU BREAK GROUND  Work may not begin until the operator has notified construction information to DLPW on the prescribed form, and the notice must go in not less than fifteen days beforehand. That date is the first administrative marker on a Thai construction job, and the point at which a regulator acquires the information needed to inspect later.

▌  THE GROUND HAS TO CARRY THE MACHINE  The construction area must be stable and able to bear safely the weight of the machinery, equipment and materials placed on it. At Rama II the crane’s outriggers stood on an inclined surface, stabilised by steel plates stacked more than 80 centimetres high over a sand bedding. Against that arrangement, a stability requirement becomes something a site engineer can be asked to demonstrate.

▌  A SUPERVISOR AT EVERY STAGE  A work supervisor must inspect safety before the work begins and at each stage. At Si Khiu the committee recorded that no engineer and no safety officer were on site at the time of the lift, and that approval documents had been signed before the fact and completed afterwards.

▌  THE DANGER ZONE HAS A DEFINITION  The regulation defines a danger zone, and the definition expressly includes the area in which scaffolding, a crane, or construction machinery or electrical equipment is installed. That wording pulls lifting equipment into the zone regime.

▌  SIGNAGE AT THE GATE  Vehicle entry and exit points must carry risk warning signs and orange signal lights — a clause an inspector can verify on arrival without speaking to anyone.

▌  04  THE CRANE INSPECTION REGIME

This is the part a lifting supplier can read as a specification.

▌  TESTED WHEN IT IS INSTALLED  Article 57: once a crane has been installed, it has to be tested before it is used.

▌  TESTED AFTER A STAND-DOWN  Article 57 again: a crane out of service for six months or more must be tested again before it goes back to work. Six months is measured from the last period of use, not the last certificate.

▌  TESTED AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR  Article 58: crane parts and equipment must be tested at least once a year, by type and by the characteristics of the work, following the rated specifications and the manual set by the manufacturer. Annual, not per-shift: an expired certificate is a legal finding, not a technicality, which is why the Rama II committee treated a two-month lapse as evidence of a system that had stopped checking.

▌  THE TEST FINDINGS NOW HAVE A PRESCRIBED FORM  The 2022 notice fixes the paperwork. Forms are prescribed as Por Jor 1 for fixed cranes and Por Jor 2 for mobile cranes, and an engineer must calculate the safe rated lifting capacity of each type of crane. The completed document is a calculation, not a signature.

▌  FIVE WAYS A HOOK FAILS  Article 92 lists the grounds on which a hook must be rejected: the hook body twisted; the mouth opened by more than 5 per cent; the belly worn by more than 10 per cent; any part fractured or cracked; the shackle deformed or worn. Each is a measurable limit, checkable on site with a gauge.

▌  THE ROPE AND THE PLATE  Article 86 sets seven rejection criteria for wire rope, with safety factors of 5:1 and 3.5:1. Article 65 requires the rated load to be marked on the crane, and Article 64 audible and visual signals.

▌  05  A SECOND REGISTER: FACTORY LAW AND WHO MAY DRIVE

▌  THE FACTORY ACT IS OLDER THAN THE OSH ACT  The Factory Act B.E. 2535 (1992) was published on 2 April 1992 and remains in force. It sorts factories into three categories: those that may operate at once, those that must notify before operating, and those that need a licence first. A licence runs for five years; a renewal filed late but within sixty days carries a 20 per cent surcharge, and a longer delay means applying afresh. For a precast yard supplying a bridge contract, this is the register that applies to the plant itself.

▌  MACHINERY REGISTRATION IS A SEPARATE ACT  Ranking beside the factory law is the Machinery Registration Act B.E. 2514 (1971). The Department of Industrial Works publishes the Factory Act B.E. 2535, the Hazardous Substance Act B.E. 2535 and the Machinery Registration Act B.E. 2514 as one family of obligations in its public guidance. Registered machinery may also be used as security for financing.

▌  THE CURRICULUM FOR THE PERSON AT THE CONTROLS  A DLPW notice dated 23 December 2024 sets the training curriculum for employees who drive power lift trucks. The full course runs to twelve hours. Anyone whose training covers only the six-hour part must complete the missing subjects within four months and sit the assessment, and the pass mark is not less than 60 per cent. The training must match the category of equipment the person operates. It shows how DLPW now approaches operator competence: fixed hours, a remediation window and a threshold score.

▌  06  WHAT IT MEANS WHEN YOU SPECIFY OR BUY

●  If a crane certificate expires and the machine keeps working, who on your side is contractually responsible for noticing?

●  When the anchoring arrangement is changed on site, from one approved method to a rigid one, who signs that change and against which calculation?

●  Does the lifting plan you are handed assume the ground will carry the load, or does it show the bearing calculation?

●  For independent third-party inspection, who approves the inspector, and by what route is a conflict of interest excluded?

●  Will the next elevated bridge contract write real-time tilt and tension monitoring in as a specification line, or leave it as an option?

●  On the day of the lift, who is the competent person on site, and which document proves it?

▌  07  WHAT TO WATCH

●  Whether the Department of Highways’ thirty-day gantry crane standard, due from 26 May 2026, reaches tender documents or stays an internal instruction.

●  How independent third-party inspection is staffed: an inspection requirement is only as strong as the number of competent inspectors able to carry it out.

●  Whether real-time tilt and tension monitoring becomes a contractual line item on elevated works, or remains a recommendation.

●  How far the contractor scorecard and blacklist become purchasing leverage — the January response promised both.

●  Whether DLPW extends the crane testing regime to name launching gantries and bridge-erection equipment explicitly, rather than leaving them to be read into the existing articles.

This briefing summarises Thai national rules. It is not legal advice, and local rules still govern your site.

ABOUT

Shandong Zhinuo (ZNAQ) designs and manufactures tower crane safety monitoring systems and lifting-safety hardware for export markets, including load-moment limiting, zone control and anti-collision functions. We follow Thailand’s lifting-safety framework as it moves from certification on paper toward monitoring during the lift, and build documentation to the stricter of the routes a product may fall under.

▌  CONTACT  shandongzhinuo@outlook.com  +86 176 6371 0314 · en.znaqkj.com

SOURCES

OSH Act B.E. 2554 (2011), Government Gazette text — osh.labour.go.th

ILO LEGOSH country profile, Thailand — webapps.ilo.org

Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, occupational safety bureau — osh.labour.go.th

Ministerial Regulation on construction work safety, B.E. 2564 (2021) — bsa.or.th

DLPW provincial construction-regulation notice, 19 January 2022 — nakhonphanom.labour.go.th

Ministerial Regulation on machinery, cranes and boilers, B.E. 2564 (2021) — bsa.or.th

DLPW crane testing forms notice, Royal Gazette, 9 December 2022 — ratchakitcha.soc.go.th

Department of Industrial Works, factory and machinery registration guidance — diw.go.th

IEAT handbook, legal summaries for factory machinery — lkbie.go.th

Ministry of Transport fact-finding committee conclusions, 26 May 2026 — thailand-construction.com

Rama II Road accident investigation detail, 28 May 2026 — pattayamail.com

Contractor action after the two accidents, 16 January 2026 — chinadailyasia.com

Industry review of lifting equipment on Thai construction sites, 16 January 2026 — apnews.com