Minimum wage in Thailand, 2026

This is an evergreen page. Thailand sets wage rates by Wage Committee notification, usually annually, so we re-check it against the Royal Gazette each year. The header carries the date it was last verified.

The Bangkok rate: ฿400/day

The statutory minimum wage in Bangkok is ฿400 per day. It took effect on 1 July 2025 under Wage Committee Notification No. 14. Before that, from 1 January to 30 June 2025, Bangkok sat at ฿372/day.

That ฿372 figure still circulates. Some expat guides and even one widely shared ILO factsheet on domestic work continued to cite it after the July 2025 increase. It is out of date. The current number is ฿400, and it has been ฿400 for almost a year.

Source: Ministry of Labour, "Starting July 1, Ministry of Labour revises minimum wage" (Wage Committee Notification No. 14, effective 1 July 2025). Notification No. 14 followed Notification No. 13 (effective 1 January 2025).

Minimum wage by province, 2026

Thailand does not have a single national minimum wage. The Wage Committee sets a band of provincial rates. These are the figures in force as of June 2026.

Source: Wage Committee Notification No. 14, effective 1 July 2025, per Ministry of Labour summary; cross-checked against Nishimura & Asahi, PKF, DLA Piper and ASEAN Briefing summaries. National range ฿337–฿400. *Monthly figures are illustrative arithmetic (daily rate × 22 working days), not a separately gazetted monthly wage.

The change most people miss: it now covers domestic workers

This is the part of the minimum-wage story that almost no expat guide states plainly. For decades, domestic workers in Thailand were carved out of the minimum-wage rule. A maid, a nanny, a live-in carer — none of them had a legal wage floor.

That ended on 30 April 2024. On that day, Ministerial Regulation No. 15 (B.E. 2567) took effect under the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541, and it extended the provincial statutory minimum wage to domestic workers for the first time.

The rule is simple to state.

This applies to Thai and migrant domestic workers alike — Burmese, Lao, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino workers included, wherever they are lawfully employed. MR 15 replaced MR 14 (B.E. 2555), which had explicitly left minimum wage, working-hour limits, overtime and maternity leave out of reach for this group.

Source: Ministerial Regulation No. 15 (B.E. 2567), issued under the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541, published and effective 30 April 2024 (DLPW Legal Division); ILO, "2024 Thai regulations on domestic work." Full breakdown: our MR 15 explainer.

What ฿400/day means as a monthly wage

Employers tend to think in monthly salaries; the law thinks in daily rates. Here is how the Bangkok floor translates.

At ฿400/day across a 22-day working month — six days a week with the legally required weekly rest day — the implied cash floor is roughly ฿8,800 per month. Pay across more working days and the floor rises with it. The number is a multiplication of the daily rate, not a separate monthly minimum, so the exact figure moves with how many days the worker actually works.

One point trips up almost every household: food and lodging do not count toward the wage. Offering a live-in maid "฿8,000 a month plus room and board" in Bangkok is paying below the floor, because the cash portion alone is below ฿8,800. The room is real, but legally it sits on top of the wage, not inside it.

Source: ILO MR15 employer factsheet, June 2025; Tilleke & Gibbins, "New labor regulation provides protections for domestic workers."

The floor is a floor — the market sits above it

The minimum wage is the legal bottom, not the going rate. In practice, Bangkok market salaries for domestic help sit well above ฿8,800/month. A live-in full-time maid through an agency typically runs ฿15,000–฿20,000; a live-out full-time maid ฿15,000–฿18,000; a nanny ฿15,000–฿25,000.

So why does the floor matter if the market already clears above it? Two reasons. First, the lowest-paid arrangements — rural live-in roles, informal cash deals — can still sit at or below the floor, and those are now unlawful. Second, the floor gives a worker who keeps records a concrete legal claim where before there was none. The honest reality is that enforcement is patchy and an estimated nine in ten in-home cleaners work informally, so the documented worker has the leverage.

Market ranges: maidthailand.com salary research, June 2026 — see the Thailand domestic helper salary atlas 2026 for sourcing and the full role-by-role breakdown.

Has anything changed for 2026?

On the minimum-wage rate itself: no. As of June 2026, the rates set by Notification No. 14 (effective 1 July 2025) remain in force, and no new rate has been confirmed. Rate increases in Thailand arrive by Wage Committee notification, and none has been published for 2026 at the time of writing.

Two adjacent changes are worth knowing, because they get confused with the minimum wage but are not it:

• The Social Security contribution wage ceiling rose from ฿15,000 to ฿17,500 per month on 1 January 2026. This affects contribution calculations, not the minimum wage — and domestic workers remain outside the mandatory Social Security scheme in any case.
• A new Employee Welfare Fund is slated for around October 2026. Again, separate from the minimum wage.

Source: maidthailand.com regulatory tracking, June 2026 (Topic 5 non-wage notes). Social Security ceiling change confirmed for 1 January 2026.

What happens if you underpay

Underpaying below the minimum is a breach of the Labour Protection Act, and since MR 15 that breach is just as available against a household employing a maid as against a factory. The labour inspectorate can order back-pay of the shortfall plus the other entitlements MR 15 carries — paid rest day, public holidays, sick leave, annual leave — and MR 15 violations carry a fine of up to ฿200,000 and/or up to one year's imprisonment.

If the worker is foreign and undocumented, a second and separate set of penalties applies under the Royal Ordinance on the Management of Employment of Foreign Workers B.E. 2560 — a fine of ฿10,000–฿100,000 per worker for a first offence, rising to ฿50,000–฿200,000 per worker, up to one year in prison and a three-year ban on hiring foreigners for a repeat. Those are work-permit penalties, not wage penalties, but they stack on top.

Sources: MR 15 penalty ceiling — ILO MR15 factsheet (up to ฿200,000 fine and/or up to 1 year). Foreign-worker penalties — Royal Ordinance B.E. 2560 as amended by Decree No. 2 (B.E. 2561), ss. 101–102, current post-2018 figures.