What happens to your partner
Not sure where to start? Start here
Written by Greg Berryman. Sources last checked 15 August 2026.
Thai law asks one question about a couple: is the marriage registered. If the answer is no, then however long you have been together, whatever you own together, whatever you both intended, your partner is a stranger to every process that follows.
| If you die or lose capacity | Registered spouse | Unmarried partner |
|---|---|---|
| What do they inherit where there is no will? | A share alongside whichever class of heirs qualifies | Nothing under Thai law |
| Can they obtain the embassy letter that releases your body? | Yes, recognised as next of kin | Only with the next of kin's written authorisation, or where your own government treats them as next of kin |
| Will they hold the only original death certificate? | Only if they are the one who registers the death | Only if they are the one who registers the death |
| Can they apply to be appointed your guardian? | Yes, named in the statute as able to apply | Arguable and untested, and a relative abroad may be preferred |
| Can they act without a court order? | No | No |
Registering a marriage changes three of those five answers. It does not change who ends up holding the death certificate, and it does not remove the need for a court.
What does an unmarried partner inherit in Thailand?
Under Thai law, nothing.
Thai law does not recognise cohabitation or common-law marriage. Under section 1629 of the Civil and Commercial Code an estate passes to statutory heirs in a fixed order: descendants, parents, full siblings, half siblings, grandparents, then uncles and aunts. A registered spouse sits alongside whichever class qualifies. An unregistered partner appears nowhere on that list.
Thai law does not reach all of it, though. Land or a condominium here is a Thai question whatever your nationality. Your bank account and your possessions are governed by the law of the country you were domiciled in when you died, under section 38 of the Act on Conflict of Laws. If that country is not Thailand, its own rules on unmarried partners apply to those assets, and some of them are markedly more generous than Thailand is. Which law reaches which asset is on wills in Thailand, and which country's law applies.
That does not soften the practical position. A Thai court still has to appoint an estate administrator before anything moves, and under section 8 of the same Act it applies Thai law by default unless somebody proves the foreign law to it, with expert evidence, translated, at their own cost.
A will changes all of this, and it is the main reason to make one. See wills in Thailand, and which country's law applies.
Even with a will, nothing reaches your partner until a Thai court appoints an estate administrator. What that involves is on the court order that unfreezes a Thai bank account, and what the appointed person then has to do is on what an estate administrator has to do in Thailand.
Can an unmarried partner collect your body in Thailand?
Probably not, without written authority from someone else. There is one exception, and it is worth knowing which government you belong to.
Before a hospital releases a body, it needs a letter from your embassy. Each embassy issues that letter only to a person it recognises as next of kin, or to someone holding that person's written authorisation. Under the UK definition, next of kin means a spouse, a child over 20, or a parent. Your partner of fifteen years is none of those. A brother you have not spoken to in a decade is.
Canada is the exception. The Embassy of Canada in Bangkok has told this site that where an unmarried partner is identified as the deceased's next of kin in the will, the partner becomes next of kin. It added that where Ottawa's attempts to trace next of kin are unsuccessful, it will treat an unmarried partner as next of kin and issue the letter to them. See when a Canadian dies in Thailand.
Australia has said something narrower: where next of kin cannot be identified or will not act, a letter may be issued to a Thai partner, spouse or friend. That is described as practice rather than policy.
The routes for each nationality are on the embassy letter that releases the body, and the six positions side by side are on who can legally act.
Will your partner get the Thai death certificate?
Only if your partner is the one who registers the death.
The district office issues one original, to whoever reports it, under section 22 of the Civil Registration Act. That may be a hospital administrator, a funeral director, or a relative who arrived first. Every bank, insurer, land office and foreign probate registry will then ask to see a document your partner does not hold.
There is a route to a copy. Under section 6 of the same Act an interested person may apply at the registration office for a copy of the death registration, or have the registrar provide and certify one, and the registrar is required to proceed expeditiously. Section 14 gives the same route to the person who was responsible for reporting the death, the owner of the record, a guardian, an heir, or anyone those people have authorised, on payment of a fee set by ministerial regulation. What that produces is a certified copy of the entry in the register rather than a second original, and whether an institution that asks for the original will take one instead is unresolved. See the Thai death certificate.
It can be settled in advance, and it costs nothing. Section 46 of the Civil Registration Act lets whoever is required to report a death authorise somebody else to do it, and the report then counts as theirs. See registering the death at the amphur.
Who keeps the house when a Thai partner dies?
This one runs the other way from the rest of the page, and it is worth knowing in both directions.
Where the land is in your Thai partner's name, you have no legal right to be there once they die. The land passes to their statutory heirs, who are their relatives rather than yours, and a foreigner cannot own land in any case.
A usufruct registered on the title fixes that, because it is not inheritance. It is a right that already sits on the deed before anybody dies, and whoever inherits takes the land with you still living on it. It ends when you die and passes to nobody. See usufruct in Thailand, and what happens when you die.
What happens to your partner if you lose capacity?
Worse, because nothing ends.
Your bank account freezes and nobody can operate it. Rent, utilities, insurance and care costs keep falling due, and no power of attorney you signed survives to meet them.
In practice your partner often meets those costs from their own money while applying to a court to be appointed your guardian. Nobody is obliged to do that, and doing it creates no automatic right to be repaid. The application takes two petitions, two hearings and at least three months, and the court may decide in favour of a relative living abroad instead.
A guardian, once appointed, can also decide who is allowed contact with you. See guardianship and curatorship in Thailand and if you lose capacity rather than die.
Does it matter which of you is Thai?
Not to the law. It changes which problems land where.
If your partner is Thai and you are not, your partner is the only person in the room who can speak to the amphur, the police and the hospital, and simultaneously the person no embassy will deal with.
If you are Thai and your partner is not, your partner has neither. No language, no standing, and a family who may not want them present at all.
If neither of you is Thai, neither of you can navigate the system, and one event can remove the only person who understood the arrangements.
Same-sex couples have been able to register a marriage in Thailand since 23 January 2025. That changes the answer to every question on this page for couples who register, and changes nothing for couples who do not. Guidance published before that date is now wrong on it.
What can you do to protect an unmarried partner?
In order of how much they achieve.
- Marriage. It resolves more of this, more cheaply, than any set of documents. Available to same-sex couples since January 2025. If it is available to you and acceptable to you, nothing else comes close.
- A professionally drafted Thai will, naming your partner. Inexpensive, and the only thing that puts your partner in the inheritance at all. For a Canadian it does more than that: naming your partner as your next of kin in the will is what makes them next of kin for releasing your body, on the Embassy's own answer.
- Written authority, prepared now, and for an American it means a will. American Citizens Services has confirmed that the signed statement its Embassy acts on is one written by the established next of kin, and that a statement prepared in advance by the person who died carries weight only if it is a valid last will and testament. The Dutch government advises unmarried people who want their remains released to their partner to have a Thai law firm draw up a will or statement to that effect. Where you prepare a statement rather than a will, have it witnessed by a Thai notarial services attorney rather than at your own embassy, for the reason set out on who can legally act, and do not assume your embassy will act on it.
- A registered usufruct, where you live on land in your partner's name. It protects you rather than them, and it is the only thing here that keeps a roof over the survivor without going near the estate. See usufruct in Thailand.
- Deciding who registers your death, and telling them. Costs nothing. Determines who holds the only original certificate.
- An inventory of what exists and where it is. No legal force. Removes weeks of guessing.
- Telling your partner all of this. A partner who expects a three-month court process behaves very differently from one who discovers it at a hospital desk.
Two governments have now been asked the same question separately, and both pointed at the same document. If yours is not one of them, ask it before relying on anything you have signed.
What cannot be fixed?
No document you write gives an unmarried partner a legal right that Thai law withholds. Naming your partner as next of kin in a will decides who deals with your body and your paperwork. It does not override the statutory heirs where Thai law governs the asset.
Make sure your partner is not finding all of this out on the worst day of their life.
What is in the guide?
The pages on this site are free and stay free.
Marriage and a will change the largest parts of what this page describes. What is left is preparation, and your partner is the one who will be holding it. Affairs In Order Thailand: the guide contains:
- An asset and document inventory. What exists and where it is: accounts, policies, property, contracts, the people to call, and where the keys and passwords are held rather than what they are.
- The next of kin authorisation letter, in the wording the British government publishes, with notes on who counts as next of kin and what each of the other five governments requires instead.
- Fourteen pages of nationality modules for British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Irish citizens. The release letter, post-mortems, registering the death at home, and what your embassy will not do, with two comparison tables at the front.
Word and PDF, $49. Buy it once and you are sent the corrected version whenever Thai procedure or embassy practice changes.
Sources
- Get a letter to release a body in Thailand, UK government service, for the next-of-kin definition and the written authorisation route.
- Death of a U.S. Citizen, US Embassy Bangkok, for the letter of instruction and the recognition of a same-sex spouse as next of kin.
- American Citizens Services, US Embassy Bangkok, in correspondence with this site, 10 August 2026, for the meaning of a signed statement.
- Consular Section, Embassy of Canada to Thailand, in correspondence with this site, 12 August 2026, for the position that a partner identified as next of kin in the will becomes next of kin, and that an unmarried partner is treated as next of kin where tracing is unsuccessful. Not published in any Global Affairs Canada guidance.
- Australian consular correspondence with this site, 10 August 2026, for the release of remains to a Thai partner, spouse or friend where next of kin cannot be identified or will not act. Not published in any Australian government guidance, and described by the source as reflecting experience rather than stated policy.
- What to do after a British person dies in Thailand, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, for the single original death certificate issued to whoever reports the death.
- Civil Registration Act B.E. 2534 (1991), section 6 on applying for a copy of a death registration and on having the registrar provide and certify one, section 14 on who may request a certified copy of a civil registration record and on the fee, section 22 on the issue of the certificate to the person who files the report, and section 46 on authorising another person to report a death. English translation published by the Department of Provincial Administration.
- Civil and Commercial Code Amendment Act (No. 24), B.E. 2567 (2024), the marriage equality amendment, published in the Royal Gazette, Volume 141, Part 58 Kor, 24 September 2024, in force 120 days later on 23 January 2025. Thai text, which is the only version with legal force.
- Act on Conflict of Laws B.E. 2481 (1938), section 8 on unproved foreign law, section 37 on succession to immovable property, and section 38 on succession to movable property and the domicile of the deceased.
- Thai Civil and Commercial Code, section 1629 on statutory heirs, section 1635 on the surviving spouse's share, section 28 on who may apply for a person to be adjudged incompetent, section 826 on the extinction of an agency by incapacity, section 1713 on the appointment of an estate administrator, and sections 1417 to 1428 on usufruct, including section 1418 under which a usufruct ends with the death of the holder.
- Whether a Thai or foreign institution accepts a certified copy of the register entry in place of the original certificate, and what a district office asks a foreigner to produce for one, are not published by any source found. Both are open questions and are with a Thai lawyer.
- Whether a partner who meets an incapacitated person's costs before a guardian is appointed can recover them is not addressed here. It is a question for a Thai lawyer.
- Code sections are cited from published English translations. No official English text of Thai legislation exists. Only the Thai text as published in the Royal Gazette has legal force. Thai legal review of these sections is under way, including whether a foreign resident on a long-stay extension is domiciled here for the purposes of section 38. Section numbers are given so the provisions can be checked directly. See about this site.