The handout called ‘basic income’: what became of Thailand’s 10,000 baht

On 21 August 2024, the Japanese site IDEAS FOR GOOD ran a story headlined “Basic income in digital currency: about 50 million people in Thailand eligible.” The Thai government, it said, would give citizens aged 16 and over 10,000 baht each (about ¥42,000 at the article’s rate) in digital money.¹ To be fair, the article itself noted that the income and savings caps set the scheme apart from the usual definition of basic income. Still, the words that stayed in the headline were “basic income.”

More than two years on, what became of those 10,000 baht? We trace what was promised against what actually happened, then check it against the definition of basic income.

What was promised

In April 2024, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s government finalised the plan, and the cabinet approved it in principle on 23 April. It covered Thai citizens aged 16 and over earning under 840,000 baht a year with less than 500,000 baht in the bank. The government expected about 50 million people to qualify, and the budget settled at 450 billion baht.³ The money would go into a digital wallet in a government app and could be spent only at registered small shops in the area where the recipient lived, within six months, and not on alcohol, cigarettes, fuel or online purchases.²³ The idea was to spread cash evenly across the economy; the Finance Ministry expected it to add 1.2 to 1.8 percentage points to GDP growth.²

There was opposition from the start. The Bank of Thailand voiced concern about the risks of the stimulus, and the central bank, economists and the main opposition party argued that the original funding plan could run afoul of various laws and that there was no basis to justify such a stimulus.²

What actually happened

On 14 August 2024, the Constitutional Court removed Srettha from office, and his successor, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, kept the scheme.³

Phase one began on 25 September 2024: about 14.55 million welfare-card holders and people with disabilities, roughly 145 billion baht in all. But it was not paid through the digital wallet. It went out as cash to bank accounts; the government said the wallet system was still being set up and later phases would use it.⁴

Phase two came on 27 January 2025: 10,000 baht each to about 3 million people aged 60 and over, transferred through PromptPay, the payment service linked to national ID numbers. Again, cash.⁵

Phase three was finally meant to use the wallet: 10,000 baht for about 2.7 million people aged 16 to 20, a budget of 27 billion baht.⁶ On 16 May 2025, Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira was reported to have scrapped it, and The Nation reported that both the NESDC planning agency and the Bank of Thailand had opposed the third phase.⁶ After a committee meeting on 19 May, he rephrased: “It is not a cancellation. If the economic situation improves, we are ready to proceed.” The 157 billion baht set aside for the handouts would go instead to water management, transport, tourism, support for exporters and SMEs, and jobs. US tariffs had darkened the global outlook, and the NESDC was forecasting just 1.8% growth.⁷

At the end of August 2025, Paetongtarn too was removed by the Constitutional Court.³ The idea that 10,000 baht was about to arrive did not go away. In November 2025, Thai PBS Verify flagged as false TikTok clips claiming the money would be paid at the end of the year; the Finance Ministry said there was no policy announcement and no official operational detail for any such handout.⁸ As of November 2026, we could find no announcement that wallet payments had resumed.

OpinionSo, as far as we could find, no round of the 10,000 baht was ever paid through the wallet. What actually arrived was one-off cash for welfare-card holders, people with disabilities and older people. That is not nothing: around 17.5 million people received money. But it was not basic income.

Basic income’s five criteria

The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) defines basic income as “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement,” and lists five characteristics: periodic (paid at regular intervals, for example every month, not as a one-off grant), cash (paid in a medium that lets recipients decide what to spend it on), individual (paid to each person, not to households), universal (paid to all) and unconditional (no means test and no requirement to work or show willingness to work).⁹

Let’s run Thailand’s 10,000 baht through them one by one.

Periodic? No. Every round paid each person once, with no promise of another.

Cash? Not the wallet that was the heart of the plan. Money that can be spent only in one area, before a deadline, on approved items does not let recipients “decide what they spend it on.” The two rounds that did arrive as cash met this test.

Individual? Yes. It was paid person by person.

Universal? No. Even on paper it was for people aged 16 and over under income and savings caps; in practice only welfare-card holders, people with disabilities and people aged 60 and over got it.

Unconditional? No. Nobody had to work, but there were income and savings tests.

OpinionOut of five, only “individual” was clearly met, and “cash” only for the two rounds actually paid. This was a one-off handout aimed at people on low incomes and at the economy. Handouts like this are common policy everywhere, and if we judge it, we should judge it as a handout.

Compared with Japan’s ¥100,000 for everyone

Japan has a close parallel: the 2020 Special Cash Payment (tokubetsu teigaku kyūfukin). Everyone recorded in the Basic Resident Register on 27 April 2020 was eligible for ¥100,000. The programme was budgeted at about ¥12.88 trillion, and about ¥12.67 trillion had been paid out by 31 March 2021.¹⁰

Against the five criteria, the ¥100,000 came close to universal, had no means test and was cash people could spend freely. But it was paid once, so it was not periodic. And one point is often missed: the person entitled to receive it was the head of household, and the money was in principle paid in one sum for the whole household into the account of the household head who applied.¹⁰ Strictly speaking, it did not meet “individual” either.

OpinionThe ¥100,000 was not basic income either. But it was far closer than Thailand’s 10,000 baht. The difference was who could receive it, and who decided how it was spent.

Schemes that do pay again and again

Our timeline includes schemes that really are paid repeatedly. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend has paid eligible residents an annual dividend from the state fund since 1982; the first was $1,000 each. The Marshall Islands’ Enra has paid about $200 every quarter since November 2025 to every citizen living in the country, children included.

OpinionNeither pays enough to live on, and neither meets all five criteria perfectly: Alaska pays eligible state residents, and Enra pays citizens who live in the country. Still, both have the skeleton: payments at regular intervals, to nearly everyone, without a means test. That skeleton is exactly what Thailand’s 10,000 baht lacked.

When a headline says “basic income”

Opinion“Basic income” is a loud phrase in a headline. It draws hope and backlash alike. So when you see it, run the five checks. Is it paid again and again? Can you decide how to spend it? Does it reach each person? Does everyone get it? Is it free of tests and conditions?

Calling everything basic income hurts supporters and critics alike. If a one-off handout fails to lift the economy as hoped, that is not evidence that basic income failed. And if a handout works, that is not evidence that basic income will. Even the Thai coverage wobbled on words: the same third phase was “scrapped” on 16 May and “not a cancellation” but a delay on 19 May.⁶⁷

We are not laughing at Thailand’s plan. Around 17.5 million people really did receive cash. But what we call it changes what we can learn from it. What Thailand left behind is not a basic income experiment; it is a record of how a big handout plan changes shape as budgets and the economy shift. We have also placed that record in the graveyard.