Cost of living
Build a realistic monthly budget by lifestyle tier.
Try it free →Read the ranges as ranges. There is no published Ranong rent index and almost no community-contributed price data — the trackers that cover Phuket and Chiang Mai depend on foreign residents submitting figures, and Ranong has the second-smallest population of any Thai province. One number here is not an estimate: the statutory minimum wage, ฿347 a day, is published, and it is the floor the rest of this page sits on. Everything else below is a clearly-labelled indicative estimate built from what a very inexpensive Andaman province costs, not a verified benchmark. Use it to shortlist, then confirm current asking prices directly.
Monthly budget lines
| Item | Single | Couple | Family | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | ฿3,000–7,000 | ฿5,000–11,000 | ฿8,000–18,000 | A room or small apartment in Ranong town at the bottom; a townhouse or detached house in Bang Rin or the districts at the top. Ko Phayam runs materially higher for a long-stay bungalow. |
| Utilities (power, water, gas) | ฿700–1,600 | ฿1,200–2,500 | ฿2,000–4,000 | Air-conditioning is the swing factor and it runs harder here than the rain suggests — Ranong is hot and humid year round. On the islands, power has historically come from solar and generators, which changes both the cost and the reliability. |
| Internet & mobile | ฿500–900 | ฿600–1,100 | ฿800–1,400 | Fixed fibre is normal in Ranong town and Bang Rin. Coverage thins in the northern and southern districts and is a genuine question on the islands — verify at the specific address before signing if you work online. |
| Food & groceries | ฿4,000–8,000 | ฿7,000–14,000 | ฿12,000–22,000 | Markets and local restaurants are cheap and the province is a fishing province, so seafood is the value item. Imported goods mean a drive to Phuket or an order shipped in, and cost accordingly. |
| Transport | ฿1,500–3,500 | ฿2,500–5,000 | ฿4,000–8,000 | There is no mass transit and no railway, so this line is a motorbike or car plus fuel and maintenance. Anyone commuting the length of the province on Highway 4 should size it upward. |
| Health insurance | ฿2,000–6,000 | ฿4,000–12,000 | ฿7,000–20,000 | Varies enormously with age and cover. Check specifically that your policy covers treatment outside the province — the realistic referral path from Ranong runs to Phuket — and that it includes medical transport. |
| Boats & island logistics | ฿0–3,000 | ฿0–5,000 | ฿0–8,000 | Zero if you live on the mainland; a real recurring line if you live on Ko Phayam or Ko Chang. Count the boat both ways, the cost of getting anything bulky across, and the fact that some of it stops for weather. |
Four realistic budgets
Single long-stayer, Ranong town
฿17,000–28,000/moA room or small apartment in Khao Niwet or Bang Rin, a motorbike, market and local-restaurant food, fibre internet and modest insurance. This is comfortably one of the cheapest ways to live on a Thai coastline, and it is cheap because there is no foreign-resident base bidding anything up.
Couple, Bang Rin or the southern coast
฿28,000–45,000/moA townhouse or small house, one car or two motorbikes, a mix of home cooking and eating out, and insurance for two. The top of the range assumes a newer house and regular trips down Highway 4 to Phuket for things Ranong does not stock.
Family with school-age children
฿45,000–80,000/moA detached house in Ranong town or Bang Rin, a car, Thai government or private-Thai schooling, and the assumption that international schooling is not available in the province. If an international curriculum is a requirement, the budget changes shape entirely and so does the location — see the schools guide before using this line at all.
Long-stayer on Ko Phayam
฿25,000–50,000/moA bungalow taken long-term out of season, a motorbike, boats to the mainland, and food that has travelled. Counter-intuitively this is the most expensive way to live in Ranong rather than the cheapest: everything is shipped, power may be generated on site, and half the year the logistics work against you.
Why it is cheap: what the province actually pays
Rent and food track local incomes more closely than they track the number of foreigners in town, and the local income floor is a published figure. Under Wage Committee Announcement No. 14, in force since 1 July 2025 and unchanged into 2026, Ranong's statutory minimum wage is ฿347 a day — roughly ฿10,400 a month at a thirty-day equivalent. That is the honest reason the ranges above are low, and it is a better reason than “no expats bidding it up”, which explains the top of the market and not the bottom.
| Where | Minimum wage | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Ranong | ฿347/day | Band 15 of the 17 the Wage Committee set — third from the bottom nationally, shared with fifteen other provinces including Ratchaburi, Lampang and Satun. |
| Chumphon (north, over the isthmus) | ฿351/day | The nearest neighbour and only ฿4 higher: the road between them does not cross a wage cliff. |
| Phang Nga (south, down Highway 4) | ฿352/day | The other land neighbour, ฿5 higher. Ranong's floor is low for the region but not detached from it. |
| Phuket | ฿400/day | The top band, and the province this site's schools and healthcare guides send Ranong residents to. Four hours south, ฿53 a day higher — a 15 per cent step, and the sharpest one in the Andaman. |
| Hotels (types 2, 3 and 4) and entertainment venues — anywhere in Thailand | ฿400/day | A nationwide carve-out that does not care which province you are in. A hotel worker in Ranong town is legally on the same floor as a hotel worker in Patong, ฿53 above the shop assistant next door. |
Two qualifications matter here, and they pull in opposite directions. The first is that the minimum wage does not reach the whole of Ranong's economy: the law's definition of agricultural work — cultivation, livestock, forestry, sea-salt farming and fishery that is not sea fishery — sits outside these rates, so the province's rubber and cashew plantations are not covered by the ฿347 floor at all. Ranong's other headline industry, sea fishing out of Saphan Pla, is not caught by that exclusion. So when anyone tells you the province is cheap because it lives on plantations and boats, half of that sentence is describing work the wage floor does not govern and half is not. The second is the hotel carve-out above: in a province with a hot-springs resort trade and island tourism, part of the labour market is legally on ฿400 while the rest is on ฿347, which is why service prices in Ranong town do not fall as far below Phuket's as the headline gap suggests.
Cost questions
How much do you need to live in Ranong?
As a directional figure, a single long-stayer living simply in Ranong town can be comfortable on roughly ฿17,000–28,000 a month, a couple on ฿28,000–45,000, and a family on ฿45,000–80,000 assuming Thai schooling. These are honest estimate ranges rather than a verified index — the cost trackers that cover Phuket or Chiang Mai run on expat submissions and Ranong — 192,927 registered residents in 2024, the second-smallest population of the 77 provinces — does not have the resident foreigners to generate that data. Confirm rents and school fees directly.
Is Ranong cheaper than Phuket or Krabi?
Substantially, and it is the main financial argument for the province. There are two mechanisms and it is worth separating them. The first is the wage floor: Ranong's statutory minimum is ฿347 a day against Phuket's ฿400, a 15 per cent step across four hours of Highway 4, and local prices for labour-heavy things — a haircut, a repair, a plate of food, a cleaner — sit on that floor. The second is demand: there is no foreign-resident base and no tourist economy at Phuket's scale to put a premium on rent. Krabi, at ฿354, is much closer to Ranong on the first mechanism and far above it on the second, which is why the rent gap with Krabi is wider than the wage gap. What you give up for the saving is the property market, the international schools, the private hospitals and the community — which is exactly why the saving exists.
What is the minimum wage in Ranong?
฿347 a day, under Wage Committee Announcement No. 14, which took effect on 1 July 2025 and has not been superseded — there was no new national increase in 2026. That places Ranong in band 15 of the 17 the committee set, third from the bottom nationally, alongside fifteen other provinces. Two exceptions are worth knowing. Hotels in categories 2, 3 and 4 and entertainment venues are on ฿400 a day everywhere in Thailand regardless of province, so Ranong's tourism employers are on the top national rate. And agricultural work as the law defines it — cultivation, livestock, forestry, sea-salt farming and non-sea fishery — falls outside these rates altogether, which covers Ranong's rubber and cashew plantations but not its sea-fishing fleet. This is a legal minimum, not an average wage; skilled and salaried work pays well above it.
What are the hidden costs of living in Ranong?
Three. First, the vehicle: there is no mass transit and no railway, so a motorbike or car is a fixed cost from day one rather than an option. Second, the trips out: anything specialised — medical, retail, schooling — means Highway 4 to Phuket, and those journeys add up. Third, if you are looking at the islands, logistics: boats, freight, generator fuel and a wet season that interrupts all of it. Budget the third line only if it applies to you, but budget the first two always.
Does the rainy season cost money in Ranong?
It can, and it is worth planning for. Ranong and Trat are the only two Thai provinces receiving more than 4,500mm of rain a year, against a national norm of 1,200 to 1,600mm, with torrential rain from May to October. Practically that means damp-related maintenance, dehumidifiers running, more delivery and travel disruption, and — on the coast and near the river mouths — flood risk that should be checked street by street before signing a lease rather than discovered later.
Why doesn't this page give exact figures?
Because we cannot verify them, and inventing precision would be worse than admitting the gap. There is no published Ranong rent index and very little community-contributed price data for a province this small. Every number above is a clearly-labelled indicative range built from what a very inexpensive Andaman province costs, and the honest advice is to treat it as a shortlist tool and confirm current asking prices directly once you have chosen an area.
Sources & References
- Wage Committee Announcement No. 14 — minimum wage rates in force from 1 July 2025
- Ministry of Labour — minimum wage
- Ministry of Labour — agricultural work and its wage coverage
- Ranong province — Wikipedia
- National Statistical Office, Thailand
- Tourism Authority of Thailand
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
All figures are indicative estimates in Thai baht, not a verified index, and not financial advice. Confirm current rents, fees and premiums directly with landlords, schools and insurers. Hero photo via Pexels.
Founder of BAANLYY · International real estate broker, investor & relocation specialist
Last updated 4 September 2026 · Last reviewed 4 September 2026