What should a Virtual Assistant Services Agreement include under Thai law?

1. Definitions and Interpretation
2. Engagement
3. What the Assistant May Do
4. Access to Client Accounts
5. Payments on the Client's Behalf
6. No Authority to Pay
7. Independent Contractor
8. Fees and Time Records
9. Taxes
10. Confidentiality and Personal Information
11. Use of AI Tools
12. Liability
13. Force Majeure
14. Term and Termination
15. Notices
16. Governing Law and Disputes
17. General

• Fill in the Access Register in Schedule 2 account by account. Give the Assistant its own delegate or user access wherever the service offers it — most email, calendar, cloud storage and social media tools do — instead of your own log-in (Clause 4.1).
• Keep the administrator role and the recovery email and phone number of every account in your own hands (Clause 4.2). If the Assistant controls recovery, you can be locked out of your own business.
• Share any unavoidable passwords through a password manager, never by chat. Turn on multi-factor authentication.
• Agree a code word or a call-back rule for urgent payment requests. Impersonation of the boss by email or chat is the most common fraud against assistants (Clause 4.4).

• The Assistant may send routine emails and messages for you, signed as your assistant (Clause 3.3). Under Thai agency law you are bound by what the Assistant does within that authority, and a third party who reasonably believes the Assistant still has authority may hold you to it. When the engagement ends, tell the people the Assistant dealt with (Clause 13.3(b)).- The Assistant has no authority to speak in your name (Clause 3.3). Keep it that way in practice: do not let the Assistant send messages from your own account.
• Some acts are never allowed without a specific written instruction: signing, accepting terms, changing security settings, deleting accounts, public posts, and sharing private information (Clause 3.2).
• The Assistant may pay approved expenses from the card you provide, up to … per payment and … per month (Clause 5.1). Use a separate virtual card with those limits set by the bank, so the contract limit is also a technical limit. Check the monthly list of payments against the receipts.
• Money or refunds the Assistant receives for you are yours and must be handed over within 2 Business Days; the Assistant cannot deduct its fees from them (Clause 5.4). This follows the Thai rule that an agent must hand over to the principal everything received in the course of the agency.

• The Assistant chooses its own working time within the Availability Window, uses its own equipment and may have other clients (Clause 6). Screen recording, fixed shifts and staff-style discipline point towards employment, which would bring severance pay and social security duties under Thai law. Judge the Assistant by results and time records instead.

• This Agreement is a hire of work (Instrument 4 of the Stamp Duty Schedule), and the Assistant pays duty of 1 THB for every 1,000 THB or part of 1,000 THB of the fees (Clause 8.2). On the Contract Value you entered, the duty on the original is the amount the system calculates from the figures entered, and each counterpart carries the amount the system calculates from the figures entered.Because the Fees are in …, convert the Contract Value to Thai Baht at the exchange rate on the date of signing and calculate the duty on the Baht amount. Pay additional duty if fees received later exceed the estimate.
• Because this Agreement also authorises the Assistant to act for the Client, it may be treated as an appointment of an agent as well, which carries a small fixed duty (10 THB for a specific matter, 30 THB for general authority) paid by the Client. Ask an accountant if you need the Agreement as evidence in a Thai court.

• A Thai company that pays a Thai Assistant normally withholds 3% of the fees and issues a certificate. A foreign Client usually does not withhold Thai tax, but its own country may have rules; the fees are the Assistant's taxable income in Thailand. You ticked gross-up, so the Client bears any withholding on top of the Fees.
• A Thai Client paying an Assistant abroad may have to withhold Thai tax and self-assess VAT on the service. Ask an accountant before the first payment.

• The Assistant will see private matters of the Client and the Client's family. Clause 9 keeps them confidential without time limit, and the Assistant acts as the Client's data processor under the Personal Data Protection Act for contacts' data (section 40), reporting any breach within 24 hours.
• Do not allow emails or documents to be pasted into free AI tools that train on user input (Clause 10.2).

• Remove every access on the same day, change shared passwords, and check the list of connected apps and recovery methods of each account (Clause 4.5 and Clause 13.3). Continuing to use an account after authority ends is unauthorised access.
• Keep time records, approvals, receipts, invoices and payment slips.
• A Thai court works in Thai, so a Party relying on this Agreement in court must file a certified Thai translation.

Compiled from the notes that accompany the English contract templates on this site, published by Phuwara Krobtaku (ภูวรา ครอบตะคุ), Thai attorney-at-law, licence no. 477/2558. The short answer and summary at the top of this page are put together by the site from the template's clause headings and notes. Statutes are quoted only in the official Thai text: Thai is the only official language of Thai legislation, and an unofficial translation can mislead. Article registry OKC-45A7A5. If you reuse this content, please credit the author and link to the original.