Overtime and holiday pay in Thailand
The multiplier is not the hard part — working out which one applies is. It depends on how the wage is expressed and on which kind of holiday was worked, and getting it wrong is the most common payroll error in Thailand.
Work out the pay
Enter how the employee is paid and the hours worked. The calculator picks the correct statutory limb for you and shows which one it used.
This is not cosmetic. It decides how the hourly rate is derived and, on a weekly holiday, which multiplier applies.
Section 68 converts this to an hourly rate by dividing by 30 × the normal daily hours. The 30 is fixed by statute, not by the days in the month.
Used to derive the hourly rate. Normal hours cannot exceed 8 a day, or 7 for work hazardous to health.
Section 23 sets a lower ceiling for hazardous work, so overtime starts an hour earlier in the day.
The ordinary overtime and holiday rules apply in full.
This matters as much as the wage basis. Weekly holidays behave differently from traditional holidays and annual leave.
Overtime is prohibited unless the employee consents in advance and on each occasion — a blanket clause in the contract does not satisfy section 24. Consent is not required for genuinely continuous work that would be damaged by stopping, or for emergency work, but the pay is owed either way.
The statutory rates
| When the work is done | Rate |
|---|---|
| Overtime on a working day — section 61 | 1.5× |
| Work on a holiday, employee entitled to holiday wages — section 62(1) | 1× additional |
| Work on a holiday, employee not entitled to holiday wages — section 62(2) | 2× flat |
| Overtime on a holiday — section 63 | 3× |
Each rate multiplies the hourly wage rate of a working day, or the per-unit rate for piece work. All four are floors — a contract or work rule may pay more, never less. Sections 61, 62, 63 and 68 have never been amended and stand as enacted in B.E. 2541.
Why two employees can be paid differently for the same holiday shift
Section 62 has two limbs. An employee who is entitled to wages on the holiday receives one additional time the hourly rate, because the wage covering that day is already being paid. An employee who is not entitled receives a flat two times, and nothing else for that day. Over a full normal working day the two land on the same economic total — which is why paying a salaried employee two times on top of salary is the classic error, and overpays by half again. They stop coinciding on a part day, because the salaried employee keeps the whole day's wage while the other is paid only for hours worked.
Section 56 is the switch. It requires a working day's wage to be paid for the weekly holiday, for traditional holidays and for annual leave — but the weekly holiday carries an exception for employees paid daily, hourly or by piece. Traditional holidays and annual leave carry no such exception.
So a daily-paid employee working a weekly holiday falls into the second limb and is owed two times. The same employee working a traditional holiday is entitled to wages for that day under section 56(2) and therefore falls into the first limb, owed one additional time. A monthly-salaried employee is entitled on all three and is always in the first limb.
How the hourly rate is derived
For a monthly-paid employee, section 68 divides the monthly wage by 30 multiplied by the average number of working hours in a working day. The 30 is a fixed statutory number, not the number of days in the month. Section 68 is written for computing overtime and holiday pay, and it is not authority for converting a monthly salary into a daily severance rate — severance is measured on a different footing altogether, in days of the last wage rate under section 118.
For a daily-paid or hourly-paid employee the Act supplies no divisor. An hourly wage is already the rate the sections refer to. A daily wage has to be divided by the normal daily hours, which follows from the section 5 definition of the working-day wage as the wage for full normal working time — a construction of the Act rather than a figure it states outright. This calculator flags that on the face of the result rather than presenting it as section 68.
Who is outside the overtime rules
Section 65 removes the entitlement to overtime pay and holiday overtime pay from nine categories of employee. It is narrower than it is usually treated as being, and it does not touch ordinary holiday pay except in one case.
- Section 65(1) — an employee with authority to act for the employer on hiring, granting reward, or termination. Seniority, job title and salary are irrelevant; the test is the actual authority. This is the only category that also loses holiday pay, and only because section 66 says so, and only unless the employer agrees to pay it.
- Section 65(2) — peddling or canvassing sales on commission paid by the employer. No overtime pay, but holiday pay under section 62 is preserved in full.
- Sections 65(3) to (9) — rail work, work away from the employer's premises, watching over premises other than as a normal duty, emergency work, and the other listed categories. These employees receive no overtime pay as such, but are entitled to compensating remuneration equal to one time the hourly working-day rate for the hours worked, and keep their holiday pay.
One category has moved, and it matters. The Ministerial Regulation that placed watching over premises as a normal working duty inside section 65(9) was repealed with effect from around 25 April 2026, so a security guard whose ordinary job is guarding is no longer excluded on that basis — zero is not an available answer for them. A separate Ministerial Regulation of B.E. 2568 sets 1.25× overtime and 2.5× holiday overtime for certain service work, and whether a normal-duty guard falls inside that description is an unsettled scope question. This calculator does not resolve it: select “no category” and it applies the full section 61 and 63 rates, which is the higher of the two possible answers.
Limits the calculator does not enforce for you
- Normal working hours may not exceed eight a day and forty-eight a week, or seven and forty-two for work hazardous to health or safety. Hours beyond those are overtime.
- Overtime and holiday work together may not exceed thirty-six hours a week. Section 26 states no number itself — it delegates entirely to a Ministerial Regulation, which is why the figure should be cited to the regulation and not to the section.
- A rest period of at least one hour is required after no more than five consecutive hours of work, and at least twenty minutes before overtime that runs on from normal hours for two hours or more.
- Overtime requires the employee's prior consent on each occasion. Whether a given task is genuinely continuous or an emergency, which removes the consent requirement, is a question of fact this tool cannot decide.
Overtime and holiday pay
฿2,875
Computed on an hourly working-day rate of ฿125
Which limb applies
Section 62(1) — one additional time
The employee is entitled to wages for this holiday, so the wage for the day is already owed and the holiday-work payment sits on top of it.
Normal working hours on these facts: 8 a day, 48 a week. Anything beyond that is overtime.
Talk to our HR teamSeverance & final settlementFrequently asked questions
Overtime on an ordinary working day is paid at not less than 1.5 times the hourly wage rate of a working day, under section 61 of the Labour Protection Act. Overtime worked on a holiday is paid at not less than 3 times under section 63. Both are floors, so a contract may provide more but never less. For a monthly-paid employee the hourly rate is the monthly wage divided by 30 times the average daily working hours, under section 68.
It depends on whether the employee is entitled to wages for that holiday. Under section 62(1) an employee who is entitled — which includes every monthly-salaried employee — receives one additional time the hourly rate on top of the wage already covering the day. Under section 62(2) an employee who is not entitled receives a flat two times, and nothing further for that day. Paying a salaried employee two times on top of salary overpays by half again.
No. Section 56(1) requires a working day's wage for the weekly holiday but expressly excepts employees paid daily, hourly or by piece. That exception applies only to the weekly holiday — traditional holidays and annual leave carry no exception, so the same employee is entitled to wages on those days. This is why a daily-paid worker is owed two times for a weekly holiday shift but only one additional time for a traditional holiday shift.
Overtime and holiday work together may not exceed 36 hours a week. Section 26 sets no number itself — it delegates the figure to a Ministerial Regulation, so the limit should be cited to the regulation rather than to the section. Normal working hours before overtime begins are capped at 8 a day and 48 a week, or 7 and 42 for work hazardous to health or safety.
Section 65 lists nine categories. An employee with authority to hire, grant reward or dismiss on the employer's behalf gets no overtime pay and, under section 66, no holiday pay either unless the employer agrees. An employee selling on commission gets no overtime pay but keeps holiday pay. The remaining listed categories get compensating remuneration equal to one time the hourly rate rather than overtime pay, and keep holiday pay. The first category is narrow: it turns on actual hiring and dismissal authority, not job title or seniority.
Not as a rule. Section 24 prohibits requiring overtime unless the employee consents in advance and on each occasion, so a blanket consent clause in an employment contract does not satisfy it. Consent is not required where the nature of the work means stopping would damage it, or for emergency work, and in those cases the employer may require overtime as necessary. The obligation to pay the statutory rate applies either way.
Sources
- Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541, consolidated text — Department of Labour Protection and Welfare
- Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541, Thai–English edition — Department of Labour Protection and Welfare
This tool sets out provisions of Thai statute and computes from them. It is not legal advice, does not create a lawyer–client relationship, and does not account for your employment contract, work rules or collective agreement, any of which may provide more than the statutory floor. Whether a particular employee falls within a section 65 category, and whether particular work is continuous or an emergency, are questions of fact it cannot decide. Take advice from a licensed Thai lawyer before relying on these figures.
Payroll that gets the limb right every time
Most Thai overtime disputes are not about the multiplier — they are about which limb applied, whether the consent was valid, and whether the employee was inside section 65 at all. Our payroll team runs these rules across mixed workforces of salaried, daily and piece-rate staff, and documents the basis for each.