Thailand’s social security reform moves ahead, but not all measures are in force

The May agenda covered pensions, SSO governance and wider coverage

At a policy meeting with the Social Security Office (SSO), employer and employee representatives, Labour Minister Julapun Amornvivat identified several areas for reform. They included a new old-age pension calculation method, restructuring the SSO, extending protection to informal and platform workers, and strengthening management of the Social Security Fund.

The pension proposal centred on CARE, or Career Average Revalued Earnings. Instead of relying on the final 60 months of insurable wages, the approach is designed to reflect contribution earnings over a worker’s broader career. In May, however, the ministry said the reform still required consultation and agreement among the relevant parties.

The same distinction applied to worker coverage. The ministry was discussing legislative changes for informal and platform workers; the meeting did not itself enrol those groups into a new mandatory social security scheme.

For practical context, see Thailand economy and finance. This development also connects with Thailand SEC forms taskforce for bond market reform.

CARE has moved from policy proposal to a Cabinet-approved draft

On 14 July, the Cabinet approved in principle a draft ministerial regulation for the CARE pension formula. The draft would use contribution wages across the insured person’s career, with past earnings revalued before the pension is calculated. It also includes transition protection for existing pensioners and for some people retiring during the first five years of the new system.

That Cabinet decision was an important step, but it did not make CARE immediately operative. The approved draft states that the new method would take effect 180 days after publication in the Royal Gazette. On 11 September, the Labour Ministry was still running a public-information campaign around the planned formula and describing the calculation rules as being prepared for change.

Progress elsewhere was less advanced. A ministry working group was still discussing protection for platform workers on 8 September, while SSO structural reform continued to be described as an area under study rather than a completed reorganisation.

Foreign employees should look first at their insured-person status

Thailand’s Social Security Act bases Section 33 coverage on employment and insured-person status, and the Labour Ministry has confirmed that foreign workers who are registered under Section 33 receive the relevant social security protection. A foreign employee may therefore be affected by pension reform if they are actually inside the SSO system and meet the applicable contribution and benefit conditions.

Living in Thailand under a long-stay visa is not, by itself, social security enrolment. Business owners, remote workers and others outside an insured category may have a different position, so the May reform agenda should not be read as creating automatic benefits for every foreign resident.