A general licensing law, not a dedicated domestic-worker system
Thailand's framework for sending any citizen abroad to work, including into domestic work, sits in the Employment and Job Seeker Protection Act B.E. 2528 (1985), administered by the Department of Employment (DOE). A recruitment agency needs a separate DOE licence specifically for overseas placement, distinct from a domestic Thai recruitment licence, and no agency or employer can send a worker abroad without the DOE Director-General's permission first. Once she arrives, she is required to notify the local Thai Labour Office in writing within 15 days, or the Royal Thai Embassy if the destination has no Labour Office.
This is a general-purpose law covering every sector Thailand sends workers into, not a dedicated domestic-work pipeline. Unlike the single jointly-run channel some neighbouring source countries use for domestic placements specifically, Thailand's route for a domestic worker runs through the same DOE licensing and permission steps as any other overseas job. The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur keeps an Office of Labour Affairs that publishes guidance on working in Malaysia and Thai labour law, but whether it performs a contract-certification step for domestic-work contracts specifically could not be confirmed from its published pages, so this is worth asking the embassy directly rather than assuming either way.
What's confirmed on the Malaysian side, and what isn't
Immigration's current published figures group Thailand with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam at RM3,000 in net monthly household income to hire one helper, with a personal bond of RM250 on the Foreign Domestic Helper schedule specifically. That bond figure is worth being precise about: a separate Immigration document covering a different visa category, the Professional Visit Pass, lists Thailand at RM300, a different figure for a different purpose. If an agency quotes RM300 for a Thai domestic helper's bond, ask which schedule it's using.
What this page won't state as a settled number is a monthly salary floor for a Thai domestic worker. Thailand's Department of Employment issues destination-specific wage notifications for overseas workers, including one dated 14 May 2013 covering Malaysia, but the document itself is in a format that couldn't be read in the sources checked, so neither its figure nor whether it names domestic work specifically is confirmed. Ask your agency for the current salary being offered rather than expecting a published legal minimum.
The corridor's status, and one connection still unconfirmed
No documented pause or freeze specific to the Thailand-Malaysia domestic-worker route turned up in the sources checked. That's an honest open finding rather than proof nothing was ever paused, since the same search approach did surface a known history for other source countries. What is confirmed is that the corridor is currently active and under review: Malaysia and Thailand's labour ministers agreed in principle in August 2026 to modernise the two countries' 2003 bilateral Labour Cooperation MOU, covering worker welfare and recruitment mechanisms, with technical talks now authorised.
What isn't confirmed is whether that 2003 MOU, or the update now being negotiated, covers domestic work specifically as opposed to the plantation, construction and manufacturing sectors Thai workers are also placed into. Until that's clarified, treat the domestic-work route as running on the general DOE licensing framework above rather than assuming a domestic-work-specific bilateral agreement is in force. Confirm the current position with your agency or the embassy.