Severance Pay in Thailand (2026): What You're Owed

Last verified: August 2026

Losing a job in Thailand comes with a specific, calculable severance entitlement under the Labor Protection Act — it isn't negotiable goodwill from the employer, and it isn't the same thing as your notice period. It's a statutory minimum set by law, owed automatically once the qualifying conditions are met, regardless of what's written (or not written) in an individual employment contract. This guide covers the statutory tiers, how to calculate your own number, and the situations — more of them than people expect — where no severance is owed at all.

The short answer

Statutory severance in Thailand is set entirely by how long you've continuously worked for the employer, paid at your last wage rate:

• 120 days – under 1 year: 30 days' wages
• 1 year – under 3 years: 90 days' wages
• 3 years – under 6 years: 180 days' wages
• 6 years – under 10 years: 240 days' wages
• 10 years – under 20 years: 300 days' wages
• 20 years or more: 400 days' wages

Under 120 days of continuous service, there's no statutory severance at all — the entitlement only starts once that threshold is crossed. Notice how the jump between tiers gets bigger as service length grows: the difference between the first two tiers is 60 days, but the difference between the last two is 100 — the structure weights longer tenure more heavily rather than scaling in even steps. The 400-day top tier isn't in every older summary of Thai labor law you'll find online — it was added by a 2019 amendment to the Labor Protection Act, specifically for employees with 20 or more years of service, and it's worth checking that any source you're reading was actually updated to reflect it before you rely on it.

"Last wage rate" means your regular wage at the point of termination — the same figure used for the daily rate below, not an average across your employment or a number that folds in irregular bonuses. Run your own numbers through our Severance Pay Calculator rather than doing the tier lookup by hand.

How to calculate yours

The calculation itself is simple once you know your tier: daily wage × the day-count for your tier. Thai practice converts a monthly salary to a daily rate by dividing by 30, regardless of how many calendar days are actually in that month.

Worked example: an employee with 4 years of continuous service earning ฿30,000 a month falls in the 3-to-6-year tier — 180 days. The daily wage is ฿30,000 ÷ 30 = ฿1,000. Severance is ฿1,000 × 180 = ฿180,000.

A second example shows how quickly the number scales at longer tenure: 8 years of service at ฿45,000 a month falls in the 6-to-10-year tier — 240 days. The daily wage is ฿45,000 ÷ 30 = ฿1,500, so severance is ฿1,500 × 240 = ฿360,000 — more than double the first example, from a service length only twice as long and a salary only half again as large. That's the tier structure doing what it's designed to do: reward continuous tenure disproportionately, not proportionally.

That's the exact same calculation our Severance Pay Calculator runs — enter your own years of service and monthly salary and it applies the correct tier and the ÷30 daily-wage convention automatically, so you don't have to track down which tier boundary you fall into or do the multiplication by hand.

Notice pay is separate — and additive

Section 17 of the Labor Protection Act requires an employer to give advance notice of termination equal to at least one wage payment period — commonly one month for a monthly-paid employee — capped at three months even if wages happen to be paid on a longer cycle. An employer can skip working out that notice period entirely by paying wages in lieu of notice instead, settling it as a lump sum rather than keeping the employee on through the notice window.

The common misunderstanding is treating notice pay as part of severance, or assuming one substitutes for the other — it's an easy mistake to make, since both show up in the same conversation about the same termination, and an employer isn't always careful to itemize them separately when explaining a final settlement. They don't overlap. They're two separate, additive entitlements arising from two separate provisions of the Act. A qualifying employee terminated without cause is generally owed both: statutory severance under the tier table above, and notice pay (or pay in lieu of it) under Section 17, on top of it — not one or the other. If a settlement offer only accounts for one of the two, that's worth flagging before you sign anything. Use our Notice Period Calculator to work out the specific notice window that applies to your own pay cycle.

When severance is NOT owed

Statutory severance doesn't apply in every termination. The main cases where it isn't owed:

• Under 120 days of continuous service. The tier table doesn't have an entry below 120 days for a reason — there simply isn't a statutory minimum yet at that point.
• Resignation. Severance is an entitlement tied to employer-initiated termination without cause. An employee who voluntarily resigns isn't owed statutory severance, regardless of how long they'd worked there.
• Dismissal for serious cause. The Labor Protection Act carves out exceptions for termination for cause — patterns like dishonesty toward the employer, an intentional criminal act against the employer, or serious misconduct. This isn't an exhaustive legal checklist, and whether a specific dismissal actually qualifies as "for cause" is exactly the kind of question that gets disputed — if you're on either side of that dispute, get advice from a labour lawyer rather than relying on a general guide.
• Genuine fixed-term contracts. Fixed-term, project-based work has its own special rules that differ from open-ended employment — a contract genuinely tied to a specific, time-limited project can end on schedule without triggering the same severance picture as an open-ended role ending early. The details vary by situation and by how the contract is actually structured, not just what it's labeled, so this is worth confirming with an advisor rather than assuming a fixed-term contract works like a standard one.

What else lands in the final paycheck

Severance and notice pay aren't the only things due when employment ends. A departing employee is generally also owed payout for any accrued, unused statutory annual leave — the floor is 6 working days a year after one full year of continuous service, though many employers grant more than that minimum as a benefit — plus any outstanding wages already earned and any unpaid overtime that's accrued but hasn't yet been paid out. It's worth going through your own pay records for the final period before you sign off on a settlement figure, rather than trusting the employer's number to already include everything.

Exactly how quickly all of this gets settled after the termination date varies by employer and by how the termination itself played out, so treat "promptly around your last day" as the general expectation rather than a specific promise, and raise it directly with your employer's HR or payroll if it's dragging out well past that. If you also want to see how a regular paycheck itself breaks down — separate from the one-off termination figures above — our Payroll Calculator shows net pay and total employer cost including social security.

The tax note

Statutory severance paid on involuntary termination gets some tax relief — Thailand's tax code provides a partial exemption specifically for this kind of severance, rather than taxing the whole amount as ordinary income. The exact exemption caps aren't stated here because they need independent verification before publishing as fact; check current Revenue Department guidance or a tax advisor for the specific numbers that apply to your payout. For the broader picture of how Thai income tax works, see our Thai Income Tax for Foreigners guide.

Frequently asked questions

Does resignation get you severance pay? No. Statutory severance applies to employer-initiated termination without cause — an employee who resigns voluntarily isn't entitled to it, regardless of length of service.

Is severance based on base salary or total compensation? It's based on your last wage rate — your regular wages at termination. Discretionary items like bonuses generally sit outside that figure, though exactly how a specific pay component is treated can depend on how it's structured, so check anything unusual against your actual pay slip or an advisor rather than assuming.

Can an employer pay severance in installments? The general pattern is that severance is due at termination, not spread out afterward at the employer's discretion — an employer proposing a payment plan isn't automatically wrong to ask, but it isn't something you're obligated to accept either. If an employer isn't paying what's owed and negotiation isn't going anywhere, the practical route is raising it with the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare's labour office rather than waiting it out indefinitely.

Does the 400-day severance tier really exist? Yes. It was added by a 2019 amendment to the Labor Protection Act for employees with 20 or more years of continuous service, on top of the tiers that existed before it — it's a real, current tier, not an error in a summary you've read.

What if my employer refuses to pay severance I'm owed? The general path is the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare's labour office, with labour court as a further step if it isn't resolved there. The specific process depends on your situation, so this is a case for a labour lawyer or the labour office directly rather than general guidance.

Run your own numbers through the Severance Pay Calculator before any conversation with HR or a labour office — having the correct statutory figure in hand up front makes that conversation far more concrete.

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This guide is informational, not legal advice. Severance and termination disputes are fact-specific — consult a labour lawyer or the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare for guidance on your specific situation.