What the new standard-form contract requirements mean for aesthetic clinics and beauty service providers
Prepaid beauty treatment packages in Thailand are now subject to mandatory contract requirements prescribed under the contract-control regime administered by the Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB). These requirements regulate, among other matters, consumers’ cancellation and refund rights and, therefore, limit the business operator’s ability to rely solely on its own contractual terms. Failure to comply may expose the operator to regulatory action and criminal penalties. This alert explains when consumers are entitled to refunds, how refund amounts must be calculated and paid, and what operators should do to manage the process and mitigate compliance risks.
1. The Policy Shift
Acting under Section 35 bis of the Consumer Protection Act B.E. 2522 (1979), the Contract Committee designated beauty enhancement services as a contract-controlled business and prescribed a mandatory standard-form contract. The 2025 Notification was published on 26 September 2025 and took effect on 25 January 2026 following the prescribed 120-day period. It was subsequently amended by Amendment No. 2, which revised and broadened the definition of the regulated business and took effect on 22 May 2026. Contracts entered into under the 2025 Notification before the amendment took effect remain valid until expiry and are deemed contracts under the amended regime.
The OCPB has also commenced compliance inspections of aesthetic clinics and has collected service contracts for review. In June 2026, OCPB officials inspected clinics in Hat Yai and collected contracts to determine whether they complied with the prescribed form. The OCPB subsequently confirmed that aesthetic clinics were being inspected nationwide.
2. Is your business covered?
Coverage depends on the substance of the arrangement offered to the consumer, rather than merely the operator’s business name or licensing category. The regime generally covers an agreement to provide beauty enhancement services for a specified number of sessions or within a specified period, including services offered through electronic channels.
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- Likely in scope: prepaid courses or packages for aesthetic, beauty, skin-care, body-contouring, wellness and related services identified by the Notification.
- Medical clinics are not automatically exempt. The exclusion for treatment of disease by a physician should be read narrowly and does not ordinarily remove aesthetic packages from the regime.
- A genuine pay-per-visit service without an advance course or period commitment may fall outside the definition, but the commercial substance and documents should be reviewed.
3. Refund Obligations at a Glance
The standard-form contract specifies nine grounds on which a consumer may terminate the contract (Clauses 5.1–5.9) and one ground on which the operator may terminate it (Clause 6). The applicable refund depends on the ground for termination.
Pro-rata Calculation
Clause 7 requires the refund to be calculated proportionately by reference to the value of services not yet used or the number of unused sessions specified in the contract. For a package in which each session has the same contractual value, the indicative refund may be calculated by multiplying the amount paid by the proportion of unused sessions. Packages containing services with different values, bundled benefits or promotional pricing require a contract-specific assessment.
Apart from the credit-card fee expressly permitted where payment was made by credit card, the prescribed contract does not expressly authorize administrative or cancellation charges or the retrospective re-pricing of used sessions at a higher walk-in rate.
Sample Illustration
* The illustration assumes a THB 50,000 package comprising 10 sessions of equal contractual value. Actual entitlement depends on the applicable termination ground, the contract, the amount paid and reliable evidence of the services provided.
4. Enforcement Exposure
5. How We Can Help
For more information, please get in touch with our Medical Practice, or alternatively, please contact the authors at thanyaluck.t@kap.co.th, nanthanat@laslegal.co.th or bhimukh.t@kap.co.th
