The 4:1 Thai-to-Foreign Employee Ratio for Business Visa Extensions

Reviewed by ThaiLawOnline, a licensed Thai law firm practising in Thailand since 2006. Thai lawyer of record: Wichuda Atthamethakon, LL.M., Thai Bar Licence 3149/2556.

Last updated on 25 September 2026

4:1 ratio (อัตราส่วนพนักงานไทย 4 ต่อ 1, also written four-to-one ratio or 4 to 1 rule) is the requirement that a Thai company employ four Thai nationals for every foreigner it sponsors for a work permit and the matching one-year extension of stay. It travels with a second figure, 2,000,000 baht of paid-up registered capital per foreigner. Neither number is in the Foreigners’ Working Management Emergency Decree itself; both come from the criteria applied by the Department of Employment and the Immigration Bureau, which is why they are enforced at every renewal rather than only once.

Where the rule comes from

The ratio is an Immigration rule. It is item 2.1(5) of the criteria table annexed to Immigration Bureau Order 12/2568 of 23 January 2025, and Immigration applies it when it grants the one-year extension of stay for business: the business must keep one foreigner to four permanent Thai employees. The work permit itself is governed by a different instrument with a different test. For an ordinary company limited the Department of Employment regulation of B.E. 2547 sizes the employer by capital, one permit per 2,000,000 baht of paid-up registered capital, and sets no headcount ratio for a company at all. A foreigner who wants to work here for a year needs both, which is why the two tests are so often run together. The four Thai employees must be genuine: on the payroll, paid at least the provincial minimum wage, registered for social security and appearing on the monthly contribution form for the preceding months, typically three. Capital must be paid up, not merely registered, and each additional foreigner needs another 2,000,000 baht and another four Thais.

Neither figure scales without limit, which matters when a company plans its third or fourth foreign hire. For a company limited the regulation works on capital, and that route is capped at ten, unless the employer paid at least 3,000,000 baht of corporate income tax last year, brought in at least 30,000,000 baht of foreign currency from exports, brought at least 5,000 foreign visitors as a tourism business, or employs at least 100 Thai nationals. The four Thai employees are no part of that regulation for a company: the only headcount route it contains, one foreigner per four Thai employees and not more than three, is clause 6, which applies where the employer is a natural person. The ratio a company meets is the Immigration one above. The criteria are clause 5 of the Department of Employment Regulation on the criteria for considering permission for aliens to work B.E. 2547. It was made under the older Working of Alien Act, and the Emergency Decree of 2017 keeps existing subordinate rules in force so far as they do not conflict with it and until rules made under it replace them.

Halving applies where the foreigner is married to a Thai national: two Thai employees and 1,000,000 baht, for that spouse’s permit only. A company operating under the Treaty of Amity needs 3,000,000 baht. BOI-promoted companies do not have to meet the ratio at all, since the BOI approves their foreign positions directly.

What it costs and where companies go wrong

The real cost of a permit. Four Thai employees at the Bangkok minimum of 400 baht a day is 48,000 baht a month in wages plus the employer’s social security share, before any office or accounting cost. That figure, not the 3,000 baht government fee, is the price of a self-sponsored permit, and the self-sponsoring guide sets out how owner-managed companies plan for it.

Common mistakes. Counting part-time helpers, relatives or shareholders who draw no salary; letting a Thai employee leave shortly before renewal without a replacement on social security; and paying four salaries to people who never work. The last is the ghost employee, and it now sits inside the nominee enforcement described in the nominee crackdown guide: it invites a fraud allegation against the director, not just a refused permit. The documents that prove the ratio are the monthly social security form, the PND.1 withholding return and the employee list with copies of ID cards.

The numbers, and who is exempt

The standard rule and its variants are easiest read side by side.

The ratio is a condition of permission to stay, not a company law rule: a Thai company with no foreign staff may have as few employees as it likes. It also has nothing to do with the 51/49 shareholding split under the Foreign Business Act, though the two are often confused because both appear in the same company file at renewal.

Three structures get the ratio relaxed to one Thai employee per foreigner rather than four, and are also excused the 2,000,000 baht of paid-up capital and the audited financial statements that sit beside it: an international trade business operating as a representative office, a regional office, and a multinational company operating as a branch office. That is item 2.1(6), in the same limb as the 4:1 itself, and its list of three is exhaustive. A startup also reaches one to one, but through a different limb of item 2.1 with conditions of its own, and the difference decides what a young company has to show. That limb covers the eighteen targeted industries the state supports and startups certified under Annex C of the order by DEPA or the National Innovation Agency; it asks for a foreign employee earning at least 50,000 baht a month and a company with at least 1,000,000 baht of registered capital, a quarter of it paid in the first year and the whole of it by the fourth. Inside that limb the eighteen targeted industries carry the one-to-one ratio outright, while for a startup the one-to-one ratio applies once five years have passed since the company was registered. None of these relaxations touches the capital the Department of Employment asks for; they are relaxations of the Immigration ratio only, and a business that expects to rely on one should confirm it is filed in the category the order names.

Frequently asked questions

See also: work permit, social security, registered and paid-up capital, BOI, and the guides on work permits in Bangkok and self-sponsoring a work permit.