Adultery as a Ground for Divorce in Thailand

Reviewed by Wichuda Atthamethakon, LL.M., Thai Bar Licence 3149/2556, for ThaiLawOnline, a Thai law firm acting for foreigners since 2006.

Last updated on 2 November 2026

Adultery (การเป็นชู้, kan pen chu, also called infidelity or an affair in divorce pleadings) is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than their spouse. In Thailand it is not a crime, but it is the first ground for divorce in Section 1516 of the Civil and Commercial Code, and under Section 1523 it gives the wronged spouse a money claim against both the unfaithful spouse and the third party. In a contested divorce it is the ground most often pleaded.

How Section 1516(1) and Section 1523 work

Section 1516(1) allows a spouse to sue for divorce where the other spouse has maintained or honoured another person as a spouse, has committed adultery, or has had regular sexual intercourse with another person. Since the Civil and Commercial Code Amendment Act (No. 24) B.E. 2567 took effect on 23 January 2025 the wording is gender-neutral, so husbands, wives and spouses in a same-sex marriage have the same ground and the same claims. The third limb requires regular conduct: the Thai text says the intercourse must be habitual (เป็นอาจิณ), so a single encounter is not enough on that limb.

Section 1523 deals with money. When a divorce is granted on this ground, the innocent spouse may claim compensation from the unfaithful spouse and from the person who had the relationship. The third party can be sued even without a divorce, provided the spouse has not consented to or connived at the conduct. Awards commonly fall between 100,000 and 1,000,000 baht and depend on the length of the marriage, the children, the family’s standing and how public the affair was. Under Section 1529 the claim must be brought within one year of the day the wronged spouse knew or ought to have known of the facts.

Proving adultery before the Family Court

The petition is filed at the Juvenile and Family Court. Adultery is rarely proved by direct evidence, so the court draws inferences from a body of material: chat messages and photographs, hotel and travel records, bank transfers to the third party, witness testimony, and sometimes a private investigator’s report. A single message or hearsay from a friend is not enough. Foreign-language evidence must be translated into Thai and certified.

Practical points for a foreigner: keep the evidence in its original form with dates, do not confront the third party in a way that could itself amount to defamation or assault, and remember that the one-year clock runs from when you knew or ought to have known, not from the divorce decision. The court offers mediation before trial, and a well-prepared case is usually resolved in four to eight months, longer if appealed. The steps are described in the guide to contested divorce in Thailand.

Adultery and the other consequences of divorce

Fault matters beyond the compensation claim. A spouse whose adultery caused the divorce can be ordered under Section 1526 to pay a living allowance to the other, whereas a divorce by consent at the amphur carries no such finding. Two conditions in that section are easy to miss and both are strict. The allowance is available only where the divorce was caused by the fault of one spouse alone and will make the other spouse poorer, because they lack sufficient income from the property or work they relied on during the marriage; it is not a general award for being wronged. And the right is extinguished unless it is raised in the plaint or the counter-claim in the divorce action itself, so a spouse who wins the divorce and asks for maintenance afterwards has lost it. Property is separate: sin somros is still divided equally under Section 1533 whatever the conduct, although a spouse who spent marital assets on the affair can have those sums counted against their half.

Custody is decided on the child’s interests, not on which parent was unfaithful, and adultery alone does not remove parental power. Where the couple can agree, an uncontested divorce with a written agreement is faster and cheaper than proving adultery in court, and the claim against the lover can still be pursued separately within the one-year period.

How courts decide compensation

When the court decides on compensation, it considers several factors. These include the length of the marriage, whether there are children, and the social status of both parties. The court also looks at how public the affair was. Finally, it examines the behavior of the unfaithful spouse and the third party after the affair was revealed. Section 1523 sets no fixed amount: the court assesses compensation from the facts of each case.

Although the law is the same throughout the country, how it is applied can vary from one province or district to another. Because of this, it’s important to get good legal advice, especially when adultery is part of a divorce.

Frequently asked questions

See also: grounds for divorce, desertion, contested divorce, Juvenile and Family Court, and the guides to divorce in Thailand and contested divorce in Thailand.

Last reviewed: 6 September 2026. Sections 1516, 1523, 1526, 1529 and 1533 of the Civil and Commercial Code were read in Thai and in English for this review. Four statements were checked and stand: that adultery is not a criminal offence; that Section 1529 does extinguish the Section 1523 compensation claim after one year, because that section names Section 1523 in terms; that the claim against the third party under Section 1523 paragraph two needs no divorce, while the claim under paragraph one follows a judgment for divorce; and that Section 1533 divides marital property equally regardless of fault. One addition was made: Section 1526 grants a living allowance only where the divorce, caused by one spouse’s fault alone, makes the other spouse poorer, and the right is extinguished unless it is raised in the plaint or counter-claim in the divorce action itself. What this review does not cover, said rather than implied. The compensation range, the four-to-eight-month timeline, the evidence and mediation practice before the Juvenile and Family Court, and the translation requirements are litigation practice and no statute fixes them; they were not verified. The citation of the amending Act that made Section 1516 (1) gender-neutral was not checked against the Royal Gazette, although its commencement date of 23 January 2025 is correct.