What Is the DBD Registered Mark, and Does It Matter for Your Online Store Website? (2026)

If you have ever walked into a gold shop or an old family wholesaler in Thailand, think about what usually hangs on the wall behind the counter. Most of the time it is a framed commercial registration certificate, with the shop's name and registration number, placed where every customer can see it.

Hardly anyone walks over and reads it line by line. But one glance is enough to feel that the shop is real. It has a name and an address, and if something goes wrong, you know where to find it.

When a shop moves its selling onto a website, that wall behind the counter disappears. A customer opening your website for the first time does not see a shopfront or a person. They see product photos and a bank account number to transfer money to. The DBD Registered mark is that framed certificate, moved online.

To be fair from the start, plenty of online shops sell very well without this mark. I am not saying a shop without it is untrustworthy. This article explains what the mark confirms for your customers, how to apply for it, and how to put it on your website so that it is actually useful.

Because a frame on the wall that nobody can check is just a picture.

Three questions: should your website think about this mark yet?

Try answering these three questions about your own shop.

1. Do customers have to transfer money or pay through the website before they receive the product or service?

2. Are most of your customers people who have never heard of your shop, arriving from a search or an ad rather than from a friend's recommendation?

3. Has a customer ever asked "Do you have a physical shop?", "Is this a real company?", or asked for proof before paying?

If you answered "yes" to two or more, this mark speaks directly to the question your customers are already asking themselves. If you answered "yes" to one or none, for example a shop where most buyers are regulars, or a website that only gives information and asks customers to call, this is not urgent yet.

What DBD Registered is, and what it confirms about your shop

DBD Registered is a certification mark issued by Thailand's Department of Business Development (DBD), Ministry of Commerce, to online shops that have completed e-commerce registration. Applying for the mark and searching for marks both happen on the Department of Business Development's DBD Registered trustmark system, which lists the E-Commerce Division as its contact.

What customers see when they click it

What many people do not realise is that this mark is not just a logo to stick on a page. According to the Department's installation guide, when a customer clicks the mark, it links to the Department's database and shows the shop's registration information and its permission to use the mark.

The Department's system also has a search page where marks can be looked up by online shop name or URL, registration number, business type and area. A careful customer can double-check a shop that way too, and the same system has a menu for filing complaints.

This kind of check matters more than it might seem. The Department's press release No. 222 describes a case where scammers claimed the Department had issued a company a certificate of credibility for e-commerce, then spread the document on social media to invite people to invest. When the Department checked, the company had never applied for either the DBD Registered or the DBD Verified mark. An image of a document or a logo proves nothing unless someone clicks or searches back to the Department's system.

From a shop owner's point of view, that is an advantage. If others can fake a mark easily, what sets your shop apart is a mark that takes customers straight to real information from the Department's system. That is why the installation section below matters more than the mark itself.

What the mark does not tell anyone

This part matters. The DBD Registered mark confirms "who is selling": the shop is registered with the state and there is identity information that can be traced. It does not certify that the products are good, that deliveries will be on time, or what after-sales service will be like.

If your website says "Certified by the Ministry of Commerce, every order guaranteed", you are claiming more than the mark confirms. A more accurate line tells customers that the shop has completed e-commerce registration and invites them to click the mark and check for themselves.

So what is DBD Verified?

The Department of Business Development also issues a second type of mark called DBD Verified. The Department's installation guide uses the same steps for both marks and lists a separate email contact for Verified.

The Department of Business Development's press release No. 222, dated 24 October 2024, explains that DBD Registered certifies that the business operator, whether an individual or a juristic person, has confirmed it really exists. DBD Verified is a credibility mark issued to registered e-commerce operators that meet the Department's criteria, showing that the website has passed an assessment against the Department's e-commerce quality standard. The same release states that this mark is valid for 1 year.

The same release gives figures as of 18 October 2024: 115,471 online shops and juristic persons had applied for the DBD Registered mark, and 177 websites had applied for DBD Verified. I have not found more recent figures, but this is enough to show that far fewer businesses apply for Verified than for Registered.

As for the detailed criteria a business must meet to get Verified, I could not find the current document. If your shop is interested in Verified, ask the E-Commerce Division directly through the contact details given in this article, so you get an answer that is correct this year.

"We already sell well. Surely we don't need it?"

That can genuinely be true, and I am not going to argue with it. Shops with regular customers, real reviews to show, or sales that come mostly through people they know are trusted because of what customers have already experienced, not because of a logo.

This mark carries weight with one particular group: people who do not know your shop yet, who found your website for the first time through a search, and who are deciding whether to transfer money. They have no history with you to go on. What helps them is evidence they can check with a third party.

Another question usually follows: "Is our shop legally required to complete e-commerce registration?" The answer depends on each shop's type of business and falls under Thailand's commercial registration law, so I am not the right person to answer it for you. Ask the Department of Business Development directly, at the E-Commerce Division, phone 02-547-5958 to 60 or email e-commerce@dbd.go.th, as listed on the Department's trustmark system.

How to apply for the mark

According to the application infographic the Department publishes on its criteria for requesting the mark page, last updated in November 2025, the route depends on what kind of seller you are.

If you sell as an individual

1. Apply for e-commerce registration at your local administrative organisation or, in Bangkok, at the district office for the location of your head office.

2. Wait for approval of the mark by email.

If you sell as a juristic person

1. Log in to the trustmark system with your juristic person registration number and the same password you use to file financial statements online (DBD e-Filing). If you have forgotten the password, the system has a menu to reset it by email.

2. Fill in your shop's information completely.

3. Wait for approval by email.

One small thing helps juristic persons get through the first step without a hitch. The password for the system is the same one used to file financial statements online. If your company has an accounting firm file its statements each year, the owner may never have seen this password. Before you start, ask your company's accountant who holds it, so you do not have to reset it unnecessarily. The email address in the system should also be one the company actually reads, because both the approval and the code for the mark arrive by email.

How to install the mark so customers can really click to check it

This is the step many shops leave half-done, and the mark ends up as an image that goes nowhere when clicked. The Department's installation guide is fairly clear about it. Here is a summary.

The code arrives by email, and must not be changed

Once approved, the Department sends the mark's Source Code by email as a text file. The shop pastes the code into its web page file at the position it wants. The guide states clearly that the Source Code sent by the Department must not be modified in any way.

This is where mistakes are common. Some websites save only the logo image and paste it in, or wrap the image in their own link, and then nothing appears when a customer clicks. The Department's guide itself notes that when clicking the mark shows no details, it may be caused by the website making the link itself.

Only on the registered domain

The code must be placed only under the URL that has been registered for e-commerce. The guide's example: if you register www.abc.com, you have to place the code at www.abc.com only.

Not inside a script tag

One more point your web team needs to know. The guide says the Source Code must not be placed under a <script> tag. If placing it makes the page misbehave, shows the mark incompletely, or shows no information when clicked, the Department's advice is to keep the code on the website for now and contact its staff to check.

Where to put it

The Department's guide lets each shop choose the position; it does not require a particular spot. I recommend two places. The first is the footer of every page, because that is where people already look for a shop's identity details. The second is near the payment button or on the order confirmation page, because that is the moment customers hesitate most. Next to the mark, add a short line saying it can be clicked to check the registration details, because many customers may not realise the logo is clickable.

If you want an example of that short line, something like this works: "This shop has completed e-commerce registration with the Department of Business Development. Click the mark to view the registration details." A line like this says only what the mark actually confirms, and promises nothing beyond it.

If your website runs on a ready-made platform

The Department's guide describes opening your website's HTML, PHP or ASP file in a text editor and pasting the code in, which suits websites where a team manages the code. If your website is built on a ready-made platform or a content management system, what you need is a place that accepts raw HTML without the system converting or stripping it, and that is not inside a script tag, as explained above. If you are not sure your platform can do this, ask the platform provider before applying for the mark.

If you have a web team, ask them to put the code in the shared footer used on every page, rather than page by page, so any change or move only has to be made in one place.

Once it is installed, open the website on your phone and click the mark yourself. If your own shop's details appear from the Department's system, it works. If clicking goes nowhere, the frame is on the wall but the certificate inside is still blank.

A real example: the Naiin bookstore website

If you want to see a real one, visit the Naiin bookstore website and scroll to the lower part of the home page. You will find the DBD Registered mark linking straight to the Department of Business Development's system, not an image that goes nowhere when clicked.

Clicking the mark opens an information page from the Department's system showing the business owner's name, the shop name, the registration number, the shop's URL, the type of business, the address, the status of the mark, the date the mark was granted and its expiry date. When I opened it on 25 September 2026, the page showed that the shop received the mark on 3 August 2004 and that the mark expires on 23 May 2030. This is the same kind of page your customers will see when they click the mark on your website.

If your website has had the mark for a long time, click it again and check that the link still goes to the dbdregistered.dbd.go.th system. While looking for an example, I found some shop websites whose mark code still points to the trustmarkthai.com domain, and on the day I checked, both the mark image and the verification link on that domain failed to load. If your website is like this, ask the E-Commerce Division what to do next.

What your website should have ready before you apply

The mark only helps if the page customers see is ready. If a customer clicks the mark and sees a registered shop name that does not match the name on the website, or cannot find a phone number anywhere on the site, trust goes down instead of up.

Check first that the shop name and contact details on the website match what you will register, that customers can find your return and delivery policies, and, if you have forms where customers enter personal information, that those forms ask for consent correctly. I have covered that last point in detail in the PDPA checklist for business website forms.

If you are still unsure whether your shop should have its own website or sell only on marketplaces, read the pros and cons of having your own online store website first. And if you are about to build your first online store and want to know which features are really necessary, there is a summary in our guide to choosing features for a first e-commerce website.

Back to the frame behind the counter

The registration certificate hanging in a gold shop does not make the gold any purer. What it does is give a first-time customer the confidence to keep talking, because they know who they are buying from. The DBD Registered mark does the same job on a website. Installed properly, following the guide, so that customers can really click to check it, it becomes a frame customers can walk up to and read whenever they like.

For legal questions about which shops must register, or the conditions for DBD Verified, rely on the Department of Business Development's answer first.

If you are planning an online store and want your web team to prepare the pages so they are ready for the mark from day one, you can see our services and scope on the TumWebSME packages page, then tell us about your shop.

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