Cost of living in Roi Et.

Our August 2026 spot check of the Thai rental portals found about thirty-five apartment listings across the whole province, with observed asking rents of roughly ฿1,500 to ฿7,000 a month clustering between ฿2,000 and ฿4,500. The bottom of that is student stock around Roi Et Rajabhat University at Ko Kaeo in Selaphum; the top is better apartment and mansion units in the town centre. Houses and townhouses — which is what most relocating families take, particularly with the international school inside the municipality — do not appear in the listing data and are negotiated directly. There is no published rent index for this province, so every figure on this page is either an observed asking rent or a clearly labelled indicative estimate.

This is the budget line Roi Et forces on you more firmly than most Thai provinces, and the reason is the one running through every page on this hub: there is no railway anywhere in the province — the Northeastern Line's two branches pass either side and Roi Et sits in the gap. So there is no cheap intercity fallback for the long distances. The airport is in Thawat Buri, the Rajabhat is out at Ko Kaeo in Selaphum, the regional hospital is in the town, and Khon Kaen — the nearest railhead and nearest city-scale amenity — is about 113 kilometres northwest. In the town centre songthaews and tuk-tuks will do. Anywhere else, budget a motorbike at minimum; a family will want a car.

Roi Et is a rice province in the middle of a rice region, and everyday eating is at the low end of Thai costs: markets, street food and shophouse restaurants. The Thung Kula Rong Hai plain to the south grows the jasmine rice that took a Thai geographical indication in 2006 and a European Union Protected Geographical Indication in 2013 — the first Southeast Asian product to receive EU GI recognition — which means the staple here is a premium export product sold locally at local prices. What costs money is imported and Western groceries, which have to come from Khon Kaen or arrive by delivery; budget for that as a deliberate line rather than assuming a big-city supermarket.

The provincial tier is unusually good: Roi Et Hospital is a Ministry of Public Health regional hospital with 879 beds, running a CPIRD medical education centre for Mahasarakham University. Routine care in the state system is inexpensive. The costs to plan for are insurance and transport rather than day-to-day treatment — BAANLYY could not verify a private hospital in the province, the deepest private and tertiary resource is Khon Kaen about 113 kilometres away, and with no railway anywhere every transfer in that direction is a road transfer. Confirm that your cover includes out-of-province treatment and road medical transport, in writing.

If your children will attend Thai state or private-Thai schools, this line stays small and Roi Et is one of the cheapest places in Thailand to raise a family with a hospital and an airport nearby. If they will attend the international school, it becomes the dominant item in the household budget: Silver Fern International School published 2025/26 annual tuition running from about ฿267,000 in the earliest years to about ฿506,000 at MYP 2, with a ฿10,000 application fee, a ฿50,000 annual or ฿30,000 termly registration fee and a ฿40,000 refundable deposit on top, and a 10 per cent discount on second and third children. Boarding is quoted on enquiry. Confirm the current schedule with the school directly — these move annually.