Thai Will Template: Free Bilingual Sample and Download (2026)

Last updated on August 6, 2026

This page explains what a Thai will template must contain to be valid, walks through every clause of the sample above, and is honest about the point where a template stops being enough. It is written by the lawyers who draft these documents, not by a template shop.

The full legal background sits on our main guide: making a will in Thailand.

What a Thai Will Template Must Contain

Thai law is not fussy about wording. It is extremely fussy about form. A will can be beautifully drafted and still be void because of how it was signed. Under the Civil and Commercial Code, an ordinary written will needs all of the following:

• Writing. It must be a written document. Thai law does not recognise a video will or an audio recording as an ordinary will.
• A date. The date of making must appear on the document (Section 1656). An undated will invites an argument about which of two wills came last.
• The testator’s signature. Yours, on the document.
• Two witnesses, present at the same time. You sign in front of both of them, and both then sign to certify your signature. All three signatures belong to one sitting, in one place. A will signed in instalments is void and cannot be rescued afterwards.
• Witnesses who are allowed to witness. Not a person who is a minor or otherwise not sui juris, not a person of unsound mind or adjudged quasi-incompetent, and not a person who is deaf, dumb or blind (Section 1670).
• Witnesses who are not inheriting. A gift to a witness, or to the spouse of a witness, is void (Section 1653). The rest of the will survives, but that gift dies. This is the single most common defect in wills that expats prepare themselves.
• A testator aged 15 or over. A will made by a person who has not completed their fifteenth year is void (Section 1703).

Notice what is not on that list: a notary, a lawyer, a stamp, and registration at the district office. None of them is required for an ordinary Thai will. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

The Sample Template, Clause by Clause

The sample PDF above has twelve numbered clauses. Here is what each one is doing and why it is there.

1. Testator. Identifies you: name, nationality, date of birth, passport or Thai ID number, and address. Precision matters because the Land Office and the banks will compare this against your documents years later.
2. Declaration of intention. States that this document is your last will and revokes earlier ones. Read the Thai will and foreign will guide before you use a broad revocation clause: it can accidentally cancel a will in another country.
3. Administration of my estate. Names your estate administrator and sets out their powers, including paying debts, funeral costs and taxes from the estate. The Thai court makes the formal appointment, but it normally appoints the person you named.
4. Legatee. Who receives what. In the sample, the whole estate passes to one person; real wills often split it, and each share needs to be unambiguous.
5. Keeper of the will. Who holds the original. There is no national will registry in Thailand, so a will that cannot be produced is a will that does not exist.
6. Surviving of legatees. What happens if a beneficiary dies before you. Without this clause, that share falls into intestacy and Thai statutory succession decides it instead of you.
7. Severability. If one clause is struck down, the rest of the will stands.
8. No contest provision. Discourages heirs from challenging the will.
9. Omitted. Confirms that anyone not named was left out deliberately, not by oversight. This closes off a common line of attack.
10. Insufficient estate. How gifts are reduced if the estate cannot cover them all.
11. Interpretation. Singular includes plural, and which language prevails. In a bilingual will this clause is not decorative: Thai courts work in Thai.
12. Capacity of the testator. Your declaration that you are of sound mind and acting freely.

After the clauses comes the part that decides whether any of it works: the signature page and the witness attestation, where both witnesses write their own name, address and contact details in their own handwriting. That is not a formality. Years later, a court may need to trace and question those witnesses, and their own handwriting is what makes them traceable.

When a Template Is Enough, and When It Is Not

A template is genuinely enough when your situation is simple: you are leaving everything to one or two adult people, your assets are a Thai bank account, a condominium and a vehicle, nobody in your family disputes anything, and you have no minor children.

A template is not enough, and will cost your family far more than a lawyer would have, when any of these is true:

• You own land through a Thai company or a nominee structure. The shares, not the land, are what passes, and the will has to say so correctly.
• You have minor children. Guardianship and a trust arrangement to a set age need real drafting.
• You have a will in another country. The two documents must be scoped so they do not revoke each other. See the conflict of law guide.
• Your family is likely to fight. A previous marriage, an unrecognised partner, estranged children: these are the wills that end up in court, and they are the ones that must be drafted to survive an attack.
• You want to leave Thai land to a foreigner. A foreign heir can inherit land but generally cannot keep it, and must dispose of it. The will should deal with that explicitly. See can a foreigner inherit land in Thailand.

Three Ways to Get Your Thai Will

Our fixed fee is 3,900 THB for a bilingual will. Many Thai firms still charge 10,000 to 20,000 THB for the same document. The full fee list is on the cost section of our main guide.

Thai Will Template: FAQ

Written by Mr. Sebastien H. Brousseau, LL.B., B.Sc., Bar of Quebec, 30 years in law and 20 years practising in Thailand. This is general legal information, not advice on your situation.