Running a household abroad for a summer.

What a long stay actually requires

The Gulf summer, June through August, is the season that defines this desk. Families leave home when temperatures reach the high forties and stay for weeks or months, often across two locations, frequently with three generations and sometimes with a household that already exists at home and expects to exist here. The staffing question follows immediately, and it is more granular than families expect: who cooks, who cleans, who does the laundry for fourteen people, who watches small children at a pool, who drives, who shops for groceries, who receives deliveries, who is awake if a grandmother needs something at three in the morning.

A useful first exercise is to write down the household as it runs at home and then mark every function that the villa or hotel already supplies. Serviced villas in Phuket and Samui typically include daily housekeeping, a villa manager, and often a cook, which resolves half the list before anyone is hired. Hotels resolve most of it entirely, which is why families with complicated households sometimes choose a hotel suite arrangement over a villa despite preferring villa privacy. What remains after that exercise is the actual hiring brief, and it is usually shorter than the family feared: often a driver or two, sometimes a nanny, sometimes a cook who understands the family's kitchen, occasionally a nurse or carer.

Bringing your own household, and what the law requires

Many families ask whether they can simply bring their own people, and the honest answer is that it depends on what those people will do. A personal attendant, nanny or carer travelling as part of a family group is common. But the moment a foreign national performs work in Thailand, Thai work permit law is engaged, and it is engaged regardless of who pays them or where. This is not a technicality that quietly goes unnoticed on a three-month stay; Thai labour authorities take foreign employment seriously and the consequences of getting it wrong fall on the worker as well as the employer. Any family planning to bring domestic staff for an extended stay should have the position confirmed in advance by a Thai immigration lawyer, and should plan on the assumption that permissions take time.

The practical consequence is that most long-stay households end up mixed: a trusted person or two travelling with the family within whatever the correct permissions allow, and locally engaged Thai staff for the day-to-day functions. That mix works well when the roles are drawn clearly and badly when they are not. The commonest friction we resolve is not between the family and the local staff; it is between a long-serving household member from home who has always run the kitchen and a local cook who has been hired to run the same kitchen. Deciding who is senior, in advance and out loud, prevents a summer of quiet difficulty.

Agencies versus referral

There are two routes to local staff and they fail in different ways. Agencies are fast, replace people who do not work out, and handle the paperwork. The weaknesses are that quality varies enormously between agencies and even between placements from the same agency, that the agency's own screening is often thinner than its brochure suggests, and that the agency holds a commercial relationship with the worker which can complicate loyalty and confidentiality. Referral, meaning a person recommended by a villa manager, another family or a private office, tends to produce better people because the recommender's reputation is attached. It is slower, offers no replacement if it fails, and puts the vetting burden entirely on you.

For a summer household we use both and we do the verification ourselves either way. That means identity documents seen and copied, a criminal record check obtained through the proper channel, at least two prior employers contacted and actually spoken to rather than emailed, and a trial period built into the arrangement openly so that both sides can end it without embarrassment. For any role involving children or a vulnerable adult, references are non-negotiable and we speak to the family the candidate worked for, not to the agency's summary of them.

Fair terms, which is also the practical answer

Fair terms are a moral matter and they are also the most effective staff retention and discretion measure available. Thailand sets minimum wages by province and has specific legal provisions covering domestic work, including rest day entitlements. Those are floors and not targets. For a demanding private household running long hours across a full summer, the market rate sits comfortably above the statutory minimum, and paying it is the difference between staff who stay for the season and a rotation of strangers through the family's home. Every rotation is a discretion risk and a fresh briefing burden.

What we put in writing, in Thai and in the family's language, before anyone starts: the role and its boundaries, the hours and the days off, the overtime rate and how it is approved, the rate of pay and the day it is paid, meals and accommodation if provided, the confidentiality undertaking with its specifics spelled out, the notice period on both sides, and what happens if the family's travel plans change and the engagement ends early. That last clause matters more than families expect, because plans do change, and a household worker who gave up other work for the summer deserves a defined answer rather than a conversation on the day.

• Written terms in both languages, signed before the first day.
• Hours, rest days and overtime defined, not assumed.
• Pay above the provincial minimum for private household hours, paid on a fixed day.
• Confidentiality specifics: no photographs, no naming the family, no visitors.
• A named household manager who gives instructions, so staff are not pulled three ways.
• Notice and early termination terms covering a change in the family's plans.

Staff accommodation and the shape of the day

Most large Phuket, Samui and Hua Hin villas were designed with staff quarters, and their quality varies from genuinely good to an afterthought behind the laundry. Look at them before signing the villa, and look with the same eye you would use on a guest room: air conditioning that works, a proper bathroom, a lock on the door, and separation from the family's living areas that protects the privacy of both. Where a family's own staff travel with them, the question of whether they stay in the villa or in nearby accommodation is worth deciding early, since it changes both the villa requirement and the daily rhythm.

The rhythm itself needs designing. A household that runs on Gulf hours, with a late dinner and a late night, cannot be staffed by people who started at six in the morning. Either the day shifts later for everyone or the household needs two shifts, and pretending otherwise produces exhausted staff by week two. Where the family observes prayer times, the schedule should accommodate Muslim staff members who do the same, and Friday midday should be planned around rather than worked through. Ramadan travel, though quieter, raises the same question in a sharper form and should be discussed with staff rather than assumed either way.

Food, the kitchen and the halal question

For observant households the kitchen is the most sensitive part of the arrangement and the one most often left to chance. A local cook may be excellent and have no experience of a halal kitchen, and that is a training matter rather than a disqualification, provided it is addressed before the first meal rather than discovered at it. What has to be agreed explicitly: where meat is sourced and that it carries certification, that pork and alcohol do not enter the house at all if that is the family's rule, and how utensils and preparation surfaces are kept separate. CICOT, the Central Islamic Council of Thailand, is the national halal certifying authority and certification is granted per establishment rather than per chain, so a supplier is verified individually and not by brand. Bangkok's Middle Eastern quarter around Soi Arab and the halal butchers and grocers of the Nana area supply many of our households, and in Phuket the island's own Muslim communities and markets do the same.

Managing it without becoming the manager

The failure mode of a long stay is that the lady of the house becomes the operations manager of a small hotel while nominally on holiday. The structure that prevents it is a single household manager, whether that is a senior member of the family's own staff, the villa manager, or a coordinator from our office, who holds the rota, does the hiring, handles pay, receives complaints, and is the only person giving instructions. Every family that has skipped this has ended up with the same result: three people giving three sets of instructions, staff who cannot succeed, and a principal fielding questions about laundry. One name on the door is the whole technique.

Thai labour law, minimum wages and the rules on foreign nationals working in Thailand change and are enforced. Verify current wage and employment obligations with the Department of Employment at the Ministry of Labour, and confirm any arrangement involving foreign domestic staff with a licensed Thai immigration lawyer before travel.

This briefing is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Thai rules change frequently and individual cases differ. Verify current requirements with the relevant authorities, including the Immigration Bureau, the Board of Investment, the Land Department, the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, and take advice on your own facts before acting.