Abstract Let $F(x, y)$ be a binary form with integer coefficients, degree $n\geq 3$, and irreducible over the rationals. Suppose that only $s + 1$ of the $n + 1$ coefficients of $F$ are nonzero. We show that the Thue inequality $|F(x,y)|\leq m$ has $\ll s m^{2/n}$ solutions provided that the absolute value of the discriminant $D(F)$ of $F$ is large enough. We also give a new upper bound for the number of solutions of $|F(x,y)|\leq m$, with no restriction on the discriminant of $F$ that depends mainly on $s$ and $m$, and slightly on $n$. Our bound becomes independent of $m$ when $m<|D(F)|^{2/(5(n-1))}$, and also independent of $n$ if $|D(F)|$ is large enough.