Like many countries in South and East Asia, Thailand is seeking to improve retirement savings for informal and self-employed workers. Its proposed retirement lottery seeks to make pension saving more attractive by attaching it to the chance of a prize. The question is whether this will draw new money into retirement accounts or simply fuel wider lottery spending.
In Thailand, government officials and those employed in the formal sector are guaranteed a minimum pension upon their retirement. In contrast, informal workers only have access to a voluntary program. The National Savings Fund (NSF) was designed to solve this problem by helping Thailand’s informal workers save towards a pension. The NSF provides informal workers with an individual savings account, supported by a matching contribution from the government, a guaranteed return on investment and tax benefits. The challenge is to achieve wider NSF coverage and to encourage existing members to save more regularly.
In 2025, around 20.9 million workers — 52.4 per cent of Thailand’s labour force — were engaged in informal employment. Since its introduction in 2011, the NSF has failed to gain widespread popularity, with only 13.7 per cent of informal workers joining the scheme by April 2026. Though financial literacy among Thais is improving, only around 14 per cent achieve their retirement savings goal.
