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The Social Security Fund is Thailand's state insurance scheme for employees, funded by matching deductions from salary and employer contributions. An employer registers employees with the fund, though whether this applies to your own job depends on how your employment and work permit are set up — check with your employer and the Social Security Office (sso.go.th). We have not found official guidance confirming what a foreign employee gets in return, including on leaving Thailand for good, so treat the sections below as points to check rather than as guaranteed benefits.
In short
- The deduction is worked out from your salary, up to a monthly ceiling.
- We have not confirmed what treatment and hospital arrangement registration actually gives a foreign employee — check with the Social Security Office.
- Thai social security may include cash benefits for sickness, maternity and job loss, but what a foreign employee can actually claim is not confirmed by the official sources we checked.
- What a foreign employee gets, if anything, on leaving Thailand — a pension, a lump sum, or nothing — is not something we could confirm from official sources; ask the Social Security Office before you plan around it.
- The contributions you actually pay reduce your taxable income if you file a Thai tax return.
How much is deducted and how it is worked out
Your contribution is calculated as a percentage of a regulated monthly wage base, with a floor and a ceiling set by ministerial regulation, not simply your full gross salary. Thai press reports describe a regulation that raised the ceiling from THB 15,000 to THB 17,500 a month from 1 January 2026, with a matching maximum contribution of THB 875 a month from each side — you and your employer. We have not read the regulation's own text, so treat this as a reported figure rather than a confirmed one, and check it against your own payslip.
Within that wage base, the contribution is commonly reported as 5%, also set by ministerial regulation; we have not confirmed that rate from the regulation's own text. As an illustrative example only: an employee earning THB 25,000 a month, which is above the ceiling, would see a deduction capped at the maximum rather than calculated on the full salary.
Your employer pays a matching amount from its own funds, which may or may not appear separately on your payslip. We advise comparing the line for social security on your payslip with the figures above each time your salary changes, and asking HR to explain any gap rather than assuming its cause.
Healthcare: your hospital and what is covered
We have not confirmed from official sources what treatment a registered employee receives, how a hospital is named, or how it can be changed later. These are points to confirm with the Social Security Office or your employer's HR department before you plan around a particular hospital or type of cover.
If you are also comparing this cover with a private health policy for visa purposes, that is a separate question with its own rules, and we would look at both together before you decide what to keep.
Benefits: sickness, maternity, job loss
We have not confirmed what cash benefits, if any, are available to a foreign employee in cases of sickness, childbirth or job loss. Ask the Social Security Office the following questions:
- Is a sickness cash benefit available to you, and how does it interact with any paid sick leave from your employer?
- Are you eligible for any payment around childbirth, beyond the medical cover?
- Do you qualify for an unemployment payment if you lose your job, and on what conditions?
Our lawyers can help you put these questions to the Social Security Office and check what applies to your own contribution history.
Pension or lump sum when you leave Thailand
What a foreign employee receives on leaving a Thai job — or leaving Thailand for good — is not something we could confirm from official sources. Before you make plans around getting money back, check directly with the Social Security Office about the conditions, the application process and who you need to go through.
After leaving a job: Section 39
Section 39 of the Social Security Act provides for voluntary insurance. We have not confirmed the conditions for using it after leaving employment: the deadline for joining, the amount you would pay, or whether a foreign former employee can use this option at all. If your work permit and visa situation allow you to remain in Thailand after leaving a job, ask the Social Security Office about Section 39 before your cover lapses — the gap between employers is exactly when this question matters.
Contributions and income tax
If you file a Thai income tax return as a tax resident — broadly, if you spend 180 days or more in Thailand in the calendar year, as explained in when you become a Thai tax resident — the social security contributions you actually paid during the year reduce your taxable income, under the Revenue Department's allowance rules. We do not quote a yearly cap here, because the Revenue Department's current figure for 2026 has not been confirmed from its own published materials. Ask your employer for payroll records that show the contributions actually paid, and keep these for filing your Thai tax return.
What to do next
Start with your payslip. If there is no line for social security at all, ask HR to confirm whether you are registered with the scheme and why. Employers' social security filings are also used to evidence the Thai-staff ratios checked for work permits, so a registration gap is worth sorting out promptly rather than left unexplained. If the deduction looks wrong against the figures above, or stops without explanation, raise it with HR before it becomes a bigger problem.
If you are changing employers, leaving Thailand, or simply unsure whether your registration is in order, our team will check how your work permit and social security registration fit together, and tell you plainly what we find. Write to us in Russian or English; we answer within 24 hours and agree the cost before any work begins. For the wider picture of filing and residency, see our tax support for foreigners in Thailand.
