Leave by country / Thailand
Thailand annual leave entitlement
How much paid leave people in Thailand get, what happens to unused days, and what you owe when someone leaves — in plain English, whether you run a team there or work on one.
Thailand guarantees six working days of paid annual holiday a year once an employee has worked continuously for one full year, under section 30 of the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541. The employer fixes the dates in advance, leave carries over only where the parties agreed to accumulate it, and section 67 requires unused holiday to be paid out when employment ends.
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What the law actually says
Section 30 entitles an employee who has worked continuously for one full year to an annual holiday of not less than six working days, fixed in advance by the employer or set out in an agreement between the two. In subsequent years the employer may fix more than six days. For an employee with less than a year of service the employer may grant leave on a pro-rata basis — the wording is permissive, so it is a discretion rather than a duty. Six working days is the lowest statutory floor in this table, and it has not moved since 1998; Thai employers commonly grant considerably more by contract.
Worth knowing: Section 67 requires the employer to pay for unused annual holiday when employment ends, in proportion to the leave earned in that year and including holiday accumulated under section 30, provided the employee has not committed an offence under section 119. Section 64 attacks the problem from the other side: where an employer simply fails to grant the holiday, it must pay holiday pay as though the employee had been required to work on a holiday.
What happens to unused leave in Thailand
Thai annual holiday does not roll over by default. Section 30 allows the employer and employee to agree in advance that the holiday be cumulative and postponed to be taken with the following year's, so carry-over depends on that agreement existing. Section 64 makes quietly failing to grant leave expensive rather than free, and section 67 turns whatever is left into a payment when employment ends.
When employment ends, the untaken balance must be paid. This is the rule across the European Union and Australia, and it is the sharpest contrast with the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.
If you run a team in Thailand
- Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 6 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
- Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
- Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.
If you work in Thailand
- Check your contract gives at least 6 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
- Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
- When you leave, untaken statutory leave must be paid out. It cannot be forfeited.
Countries with the same 6-day minimum
Calculating an employee's balance
Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.
Tracking Thailand leave correctly
Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.
For a single-country team, Leavo handles Thailand accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.
Thailand annual leave: common questions
How many paid annual leave days are employees entitled to in Thailand?
6 working days is the statutory minimum in Thailand, equivalent to 1.2 weeks on a five-day working week, under Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998), s.30. Employers and collective agreements may grant more, never less.
Must unused annual leave be paid out when employment ends in Thailand?
Yes. Payment in lieu of untaken statutory leave is required when the employment relationship ends in Thailand. During employment, statutory leave must be taken as time off and cannot be exchanged for cash.
Can an employer in Thailand refuse a leave request?
An employer can usually influence when leave is taken for operational reasons, but cannot deny the entitlement itself. The right to the minimum number of days is statutory and cannot be contracted away.
Do public holidays count towards the 6-day entitlement in Thailand?
No. Public holidays are separate from the 6-day statutory annual leave entitlement in Thailand.
Source
Primary source: Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998), s.30. Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.