Section 386 — Rescission of bilateral contract
Statutory text (Thai original)
ถ้าคู่สัญญาฝ่ายหนึ่งมีสิทธิเลิกสัญญาโดยข้อสัญญาหรือโดยบทบัญญัติแห่งกฎหมาย การเลิกสัญญาเช่นนั้นย่อมทำด้วยแสดงเจตนาแก่อีกฝ่ายหนึ่งแสดงเจตนาดังกล่าวมาในวรรคก่อนนั้น ท่านว่าหาอาจจะถอนได้ไม่
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
If by contract or by the provisions of law one party has the right of rescission, such rescission is made by a declaration of intention to the other party. The declaration of intention in the foregoing paragraph cannot be revoked.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 386 is part of Book 2 (Obligations) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source, with the English translation from the FAO/UN FAOLEX repository. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: a notice of rescission takes immediate effect when received; advise clients to be certain before sending it. For laypersons: once you send a letter terminating a contract, you cannot change your mind — the other side is entitled to rely on it immediately.
Legislative history
Part of the original Civil and Commercial Code codification; no major subsequent amendment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 4778/2558 (2015)
A party may rescind only if the right arises from the contract or from law; there is no implied right to rescind a fixed-term contract early.
A tenant who sought to rescind a fixed-term lease before expiry had to rely on a statutory ground under Section 386, as the lease contained no express contractual rescission clause in the tenant's favour.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 4756/2556 (2013)
A resignation letter that specifies a future effective date is an irrevocable rescission under Section 386 para 2; internal employer approval procedures do not affect its legal effect.
An employee's letter of resignation, delivered to the employer on 10 November 2548 to take effect on 1 December 2548, constituted an irrevocable declaration of intention under Section 386 paragraph 2; the employer's internal approval process did not alter the effective date.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 56 Supreme Court decisions (1955 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 4425/2565 (2022)
- Decision 588/2564 (2021)
- Decision 13145/2558 (2015)
- Decision 4778/2558 (2015)
- Decision 21294/2556 (2013)
- Decision 4756/2556 (2013)
- Decision 10625/2555 (2012)
- Decision 3090/2552 (2009)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 391 11
- Section 387 11
- Thai CPC s. 142 5
- Section 7 4
- Section 224 4
- Thai CPC s. 246 4
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics.
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 386 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 386. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-386/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 386 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-386/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-386/"><p>If by contract or by the provisions of law one party has the right of rescission, such rescission is made by a declaration of intention to the other party. The declaration of intention in the foregoing paragraph cannot be revoked.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 386 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-386/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.