Working in Thailand without a work permit is an offence, and so is employing someone who does not have one. The penalties changed significantly in 2018, and much of the information still circulating online quotes a repealed statute with far harsher prison terms. The current position is more proportionate but still serious, particularly for employers, who are fined per foreign worker and face a hiring ban on a second offence. This guide sets out what the law actually requires now, what the penalties are, and the practical points that catch both foreign staff and the businesses that hire them.

Foreigners cannot own land in Thailand, and most are told the only alternative is a thirty-year lease. That is incomplete. Thai law recognizes several other registrable rights over land, and in the right circumstances they offer better protection than a lease does. A usufruct can last for the holder's entire lifetime. A superficies can make you the legal owner of the house even though someone else owns the land. Each has its own limits and its own way of ending, and choosing the wrong one is expensive to fix. This guide explains what each right actually gives you, how they compare with a lease, and where each one fails.

Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act applies to far more businesses than most owners realise. If you run a hotel, a clinic, a restaurant with a booking system, a property agency, or any company with employees, you are processing personal data and the Act applies to you. It also reaches businesses located entirely outside Thailand that offer goods or services to people here. Administrative fines run to three million baht, and some breaches carry criminal liability. This guide explains what the law requires in practical terms, the obligations that catch businesses out most often, and what compliance actually looks like.

Court litigation is not the only way to resolve a dispute in Thailand, and for cross-border commercial matters it is often not the best one. A foreign court judgment cannot simply be registered and enforced here, but a foreign arbitral award generally can. A single clause agreed at the contract stage decides which of those two positions you will be in years later. Thailand also has a formal mediation regime under which a settlement agreement can be enforced through the courts. This guide explains how arbitration and mediation work in Thailand, what makes an arbitration clause effective, and the deadlines that apply once you have an award.

Thailand has a court designed specifically for employment disputes, and it works very differently from the ordinary civil courts. There are no filing fees. Judges include representatives of employers and employees. Mediation is built into the process. And a dismissed employee can ask for something the Labour Protection Act does not provide: reinstatement, or compensation over and above statutory severance, on the basis that the dismissal was simply unfair. For employers, the same system means that a dismissal which followed every procedural rule can still be found unlawful if there was no adequate reason for it. This guide explains how unfair dismissal claims work and how the Labour Court decides them.

Building a house or villa in Thailand goes wrong more often than most owners expect. The contractor stops showing up. The pool leaks within a year. The finish bears no resemblance to the specification. Thai law gives an employer real remedies against a contractor, including the right to have defective work put right at the contractor's cost, a reduction of the price, and compensation for defects. But it also contains traps that quietly destroy strong claims: terminating too quickly, accepting the work without objection, and a limitation period measured in a single year from the day a defect appears. This guide explains what a contractor owes, how long they remain liable, and what an owner must do to preserve a claim.