Thailand Adjusts Welfare Card Criteria For 2025
Thailand expanded its 2025 National Welfare Card program to cover over 5.3 million previously unregistered vulnerable people, removing parental tax deductions and agricultural loans from eligibility disqualifications.
On July 7, 2025, the Office of Fiscal Policy director Winit Wisetsuwanphum announced the results of the eighth meeting of the Public Welfare Committee for Grassroots Economy and Society. The committee approved preliminary registration and qualification assessment results for the 2025 National Welfare Card registration program, and authorized adding a new target group. The Interior Ministry identified 5,383,393 vulnerable people without existing welfare cards during field registration from June 4-21, 2025, who will now be processed for eligibility checks.
Key changes to 2025 welfare card criteria include:
1. Eliminating the parental support tax deduction criterion: The program will no longer disqualify people whose income-earning family members claimed parental care expenses as tax deductions.
2. Adjusting the 100,000-baht debt threshold to exclude agricultural loans: Following the Bank of Thailand's recommendation presented to the cabinet on June 2, 2025, the debt limit will not count agricultural credit. Agricultural loans differ from standard loans as they are seasonal and sometimes provide disaster relief, and therefore may not reflect actual financial capacity or wealth status the way other debts do.
Additionally, the Finance Ministry is considering allowing current welfare card holders who lose eligibility under 2025 criteria to access the Thai Helps Thai Plus (60/40) program for two months (August 1 – September 30, 2025), since they were ineligible during the original registration period.
The changes will be submitted to the cabinet for consideration before the results are announced as scheduled on July 17, 2025.
