Foreigners working in Thailand have rights when a job ends, but the rules aren’t always easy to find in English. This guide shows you what you’re owed when you resign, get let go or reach the end of your contract.
We cover notice, severance, leave and final pay, plus what happens to your work permit and visa when the job ends. There’s also a section on what to do if your employer won’t pay, and a note for teachers at private and international schools, who fall under different rules.
Please note: Thailand Starter Kit isn’t a law firm, and this guide is general information, not legal advice. If you’re in a dispute with your employer, talk to a labour inspector or a Thai lawyer about your own case.
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Contents
- Key Takeaways
- Does Thai Labour Law Cover Foreigners?
- Notice: How Much Warning You Get
- Severance Pay
- When Your Employer Doesn't Have to Pay Severance
- Fixed-Term Contracts
- Leave You're Entitled To
- Final Pay
- Your Work Permit and Visa When the Job Ends
- What to Do If Your Employer Won't Pay
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sources Cited
Key Takeaways
- Thai labour law covers you if you work for an employer in Thailand and get paid wages. Your nationality doesn’t matter, but teachers at formal private schools come under the Private School Act instead, which still guarantees benefits at least as good.
- Notice has to be in writing and takes effect on the next pay day. Your employer can pay you instead of making you work it.
- If you’re let go after 120 days, severance starts at one month’s pay and rises to about 13 months after 20 years.
- Your employer can skip severance only for serious misconduct, and they have to say which reason when they let you go.
- You don’t get severance if you resign, but you still get your final wages and unused leave.
- Final pay is due within three days of your last day.
- Your permission to stay ends with the job, so go to Immigration on your last day.
Does Thai Labour Law Cover Foreigners?
You might think the rules are different for you because you’re on a work permit. They aren’t. The law that protects workers here is the Labour Protection Act, and it doesn’t care about your passport. If you work for an employer and they pay you wages, you’re an employee, and the Act applies to you.
That covers most expats with a work permit. An engineer at a Thai company and a manager at a foreign company’s Bangkok office are both employees. Your contract can call you something else, but the law looks at what you actually do.
The main exception is working directly for a government agency, which has its own rules.
Teachers at private schools need to check one more thing. Thailand’s Private School Act splits private schools into formal schools, which follow a set curriculum toward a recognised qualification, and non-formal schools with flexible courses, which can include language and tutoring schools. If you teach at a formal private school, the Labour Protection Act doesn’t apply to you. Instead, the school has to give you benefits at least as good as that Act, under rules set by the Private Education Commission. That exemption only covers formal schools, so a teacher at a non-formal school is under the Labour Protection Act like anyone else. International schools licensed under the Act count as formal schools. If you’re not sure which kind your school is, ask the school or check its licence.
The Act sets the floor. Your contract can give you more, like longer notice or extra leave, but it can’t give you less. So when your contract and the law disagree, we’d go with whichever gives you more.
Notice: How Much Warning You Get
Notice is the warning one side gives the other before a job ends. Thai law has one simple rule for it, and it works the same whether you resign or your employer lets you go.
The timing follows your pay dates. Notice has to be in writing. You give it on or before a pay day, and it takes effect on the next pay day. Nobody has to give more than three months.
Say you’re paid on the 25th of each month. If your employer hands you a letter on 25 October, your job ends on 25 November. If they hand it over on 26 October, it ends on 25 December instead. One day makes a whole month’s difference, so we’d check the date on any letter you’re handed.
Your employer doesn’t have to keep you working through the notice. They can pay you for that time and let you go the same day. If they skip notice and don’t pay for it either, they owe you the wages you’d have earned until the notice would have kicked in.
The same rule works the other way. If you resign, you give written notice on or before a pay day too. Check your contract for its own notice clause, and we’d keep a dated copy of your letter, because the date decides when you’re free to go.
Probation doesn’t change any of this. The law treats a probation contract like any open-ended job, so once you’ve worked 120 days, notice and severance apply even if you’re still “on probation”.
Severance Pay
If your employer ends your job, severance is the part that really adds up. It’s the lump sum they owe you on the way out. You qualify once you’ve worked 120 days in a row, and the amount grows with your years of service.
| How long you’ve worked | Severance (days of your last wage) | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 120 days to under 1 year | 30 days | 1 month’s pay |
| 1 year to under 3 years | 90 days | 3 months’ pay |
| 3 years to under 6 years | 180 days | 6 months’ pay |
| 6 years to under 10 years | 240 days | 8 months’ pay |
| 10 years to under 20 years | 300 days | 10 months’ pay |
| 20 years or more | 400 days | About 13 months’ pay |
So if you earn THB40,000 a month and you’ve worked there for four years, you’re owed 180 days of wages. That’s about THB240,000, which is real money to walk away from. These are minimums, so a contract that promises more is the one that counts.
The steps in the table are where timing matters. One 2022 reader’s contract was ended a week before they’d have moved up to the next step. So if you’re close to one, we’d note your start date and check it against any letter you’re handed.
Severance applies whenever the employer ends the job. That includes the employer quietly stopping your work and pay, or the business closing down. It doesn’t apply when you resign. Quitting gives up the severance. So if you’re asked to resign instead of being let go, we’d think hard before signing a resignation letter you didn’t write, because it can cost you months of pay.
The forums have plenty of these stories. Forum readers in 2013 and 2020 described employers asking for a resignation letter when the job was ending anyway. In 2013 the advice was to sign only once the severance package was in hand, and in 2020 a reply said not to sign a resignation letter at all. The 2013 reader said he’d hold off signing until a letter confirming three months’ pay arrived.
When Your Employer Doesn’t Have to Pay Severance
If things went wrong at work, you might worry you’ve lost your severance. Your employer can skip both notice and severance only for serious misconduct, as listed in the law:
- Being dishonest in your job, or deliberately committing a crime against your employer.
- Deliberately causing your employer damage.
- Being careless in a way that causes your employer serious damage.
- Breaking a fair work rule after a written warning. A warning lasts one year, and a serious case needs no warning at all.
- Missing three working days in a row with no good reason.
- Being sentenced to prison by a final court judgment. If the crime was minor or an accident, it only counts when it caused your employer damage.
The employer has to give the reason in the termination letter or tell you when they let you go. If they don’t, they can’t bring it up later. So a letter that only says “contract terminated” actually works in your favour, and we’d keep it somewhere safe.
Poor performance, a clash with your manager and cost-cutting aren’t on the list. If you’re let go for any of them, you’re owed severance, and we’d push back on any employer who says otherwise.
Fixed-Term Contracts
A contract with an end date feels like it settles everything, but it only settles the notice. The job ends on that date, so no notice is needed. Severance can be skipped on a fixed-term contract only when the work is:
- A one-off project outside the employer’s normal business, with a fixed start and end.
- Occasional work with a definite end.
- Seasonal work.
The work also has to finish within two years, and there has to be a written contract from the start.
This matters most for teachers, because many are on one-year contracts that get renewed every year. Regular teaching at a school is the school’s normal business, so it doesn’t sit easily in any of those categories. We wouldn’t assume you’re excluded just because your contract has an end date, so we’d take it to a labour inspector and ask.
At a formal private school, the Private School Act applies instead (see the section on who’s covered), and severance on a contract that isn’t renewed has been argued in court, so we’d ask the private education authorities (the Ministry of Education’s Office of the Private Education Commission) or a labour lawyer.
Teachers’ experiences here are mixed, and most of what’s online is a few years old. In 2017 and 2018, posters in the teaching forums said few teachers who took a non-renewal to the labour office came away with anything, and that some cases were passed to the education authorities instead. In 2019, another teacher reported winning severance for ten years of service at the Labour Court.
None of these posters said whether their school was formal or non-formal, and that decides which law applies, so read them as stories, not predictions. We’d still go and ask, and as one of those posters put it, asking costs nothing.
Our guide to teaching English in Thailand has more on teaching contracts.
Leave You’re Entitled To
Leave tends to get forgotten in the rush of a job ending, but it’s money too. You get at least six working days of paid annual leave once you’ve worked a full year. Your employer sets the dates or agrees them with you. You can only carry unused days into the next year if you both agree in advance.
When the job ends, your employer has to pay you for any annual leave you haven’t used. That’s true whether you resign or get let go. If you’re let go for anything other than serious misconduct, you also get paid for the part of this year’s leave you’ve already earned. We’d count your unused days yourself before your last week, so you know what to expect.
Sick leave is paid for up to 30 working days a year. If you’re off for three days or more, your employer can ask for a doctor’s certificate. If you can’t get one, you explain to them instead.
If you’re expecting a baby, maternity leave is up to 120 days per pregnancy, and your employer pays full wages for up to 60 of those days. This went up in late 2025 from 98 days, with 45 of them paid. The same change gave employees up to 15 days of fully paid leave to help a spouse who’s just given birth, taken within 90 days of the birth. (Verified October 2026.) Social Security also has childbirth benefits for insured workers, which our Thailand Social Security guide explains. If you teach at a formal private school, the Private School Act takes you out of the social security law too, so ask your school which scheme covers you.
Good to know: Christmas isn’t a public holiday in Thailand, so most workplaces stay open on 25 December. Unless you work at an international school, which usually closes for a winter break, you’ll need to use your annual leave if you want Christmas off. This surprises a lot of people in their first year working here.
Final Pay
Once the job’s over, you shouldn’t be chasing your money for weeks. Your employer has to pay everything they owe you within three days of your last day. That means your last wages, overtime, unused annual leave, any notice pay and your severance.
If they pay late, they owe interest at 15% a year on top. If they hold the money back on purpose, the penalty gets steeper.
Tip: We’d ask for the calculation in writing, with your last wage, your leave balance and your years of service. A mistake is much easier to spot on paper than in a meeting, and it’s one of the papers you’d bring to a labour inspector.
Your Work Permit and Visa When the Job Ends
Losing a job is stressful enough without your visa going with it, but that’s how it works here. Your permission to stay in Thailand was granted for that job, so it ends the moment the job does. You also can’t work anywhere else until you have a new work permit.
Immigration tells you to report to the same immigration office that gave you your stay, on your last day of work. So sort out the paperwork below before that day, while you still have a working relationship with your employer.
In the forums, one 2023 reader advised agreeing an end date a few days after your last working day, and a 2025 reply said the letter’s date is your last permitted day of stay. One reader in 2023 said their large employer took the passport and dealt with the labour office and Immigration for them.
What to Do on Your Last Day
You’ll need your passport and a letter from your employer:
- Ask your employer for a letter to Immigration stating your last day of work. It should be signed by an authorised director, with the company’s registration papers attached.
- Take your passport and the letter to the immigration office that granted your stay, on your last day. The officer stamps your passport.
- Know what you plan to do next before you walk in, because your options depend on it.
How Much Time You Have
If you’ve got a new job lined up, a Department of Employment guide describes two routes:
- Stay and switch: cancel your visa at Immigration and ask for seven more days without an overstay fine. You use those days to apply for the new work permit and cancel the old one.
- Leave and reapply: leave Thailand and apply for a new Non-Immigrant B visa at a Thai embassy.
That guide is from a provincial office and isn’t dated, so we’d confirm the seven days with Immigration before you count on them.
Readers’ experiences vary too. In 2023, one reader described it as applying for an extension, being refused, and getting seven days to leave, while one reader said they were given 20 days. Seven days is tight, so we’d have the new employer’s paperwork ready before you go in.
Our guide to transferring a business visa and work permit without leaving Thailand walks through the first route. The Thailand work permit guide covers the paperwork for a new permit.
If you don’t have a new job, plan to leave within the time Immigration gives you, or switch to another visa you qualify for, such as the Destination Thailand Visa. Overstaying costs THB500 a day, up to THB20,000, and our overstay guide covers what else can happen. We wouldn’t risk it.
Tip: Filing a pay complaint doesn’t automatically let you stay longer. Ask Immigration what they’ll allow before you plan to stay for the case.
What to Do If Your Employer Won’t Pay
If your three days have come and gone and the money hasn’t arrived, you don’t have to go straight to court. You can complain to a labour inspector at the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare. The hotline is 1546, or 1506 and then press 3.
- Gather your contract, payslips, the termination letter or messages, and the written calculation if you have one.
- Call 1546, or go to the labour protection office in the province where you work or where your employer is based.
- File your complaint. The inspector looks into it and has 60 days to decide, which can stretch by up to 30 more.
- If the inspector orders your employer to pay, the employer has 30 days to do it.
- If either of you disagrees with the decision, you have 30 days to take it to the Labour Court. After that, the decision is final.
Those 30 days go quickly, so we’d mark the date as soon as the decision arrives.
If you think you were fired unfairly, the Labour Court can also award you damages on top of your severance. A Bangkok labour office explains that the court looks at your age, how long you worked there, the hardship the firing caused you and the reason you were given. Court papers are in Thai, so we’d talk to a lawyer who handles labour cases before going down that road.
Language was the obstacle two readers raised. In 2019, one teacher who went to the Labour Court said the staff were helpful, but everything was in Thai, so they needed their own translator, and there were one or two mediation sessions before any hearing. One 2020 reply said you need to speak Thai or take someone along who does, and another warned that an employer who won’t pay simply waits while your visa runs out and you have to leave. So we’d bring a Thai speaker to every meeting and keep an eye on your visa dates the whole way through.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my employer fire me on the spot?
Only if it’s serious misconduct. For anything else, you get notice or the pay instead.
Do I get severance if I quit?
No, it’s only for when your employer ends the job. You’ll still get your last wages and any unused leave, though.
My school didn’t renew my one-year contract. Am I owed severance?
You might be. At a non-formal school, we’d ask a labour inspector. At a formal private school, we’d ask the private education authorities (the Ministry of Education’s Office of the Private Education Commission) or a labour lawyer.
Did the 2025 changes affect severance?
No, they were about maternity and spouse leave. Severance and notice work the same as before.
Sources Cited
- Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541, English text (Department of Labour Protection and Welfare): who counts as an employee, notice, annual and sick leave, final pay, interest, the severance scale, dismissal without severance, fixed-term contracts, complaints and appeals.
- Private School Act B.E. 2550 as amended by Act No. 2 B.E. 2554, Thai text (Ministry of Education): formal and non-formal schools, and section 86 on teachers at formal schools and the Labour Protection Act.
- Labour Protection Act (No. 9) B.E. 2568, Royal Gazette text of 7 November 2025: maternity leave, maternity pay and spouse leave.
- Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, labour law page: the 1546 and 1506 hotlines.
- Immigration Bureau, Bangkok office FAQ: permission to stay ending with the job, the employer’s letter, last-day reporting and the overstay fine.
- Department of Employment, foreigner FAQ on changing employer: the seven-day route and the leave-and-reapply route.
- Bangkok Area 3 Labour Protection and Welfare Office, unfair dismissal damages (Thai): what the Labour Court weighs.
