Thai Year to English Year Converter

Recent Thai years and their English years

Thai year to English year, year by year

Thailand puts the Buddhist Era on every official document — identity cards, house registration, contracts, receipts, tax forms — so a Thai form hands you a year like 2559 where you were expecting 2016. Most people here call the Western year the English year, so "what is 2559 in English?" and "what is 2559 in the Gregorian calendar?" are the same question. The answer is 2016, because Thai years run 543 ahead.

The rule is that simple in both directions. There is one exception, for documents before 1941, that almost nobody knows about and that quietly produces answers one year out.

"English year" and "Gregorian year" mean the same thing. English year is simply what the Western calendar year gets called in everyday English in Thailand — on forms, at immigration desks, in conversation. Its formal names are the Gregorian calendar and the Common Era, written CE or AD. There is no separate English calendar: 2016 is 2016 whether you call it the English year, the Gregorian year or 2016 CE. Only the starting point of the count differs, and Thailand counts from a different one.

The basic rule. The Buddhist Era runs 543 years ahead. To turn a Thai year into an English year, subtract 543. To go the other way, add 543. So Thai year 2559 is 2016, 2540 is 1997, 2568 is 2025 and 2569 is 2026. In reverse, 2016 is 2559 and 2026 is 2569. The second table on this page lists every Thai year of the last century against its English year, if you would rather look yours up than do the subtraction.

A way to remember it without the arithmetic. Anchor on a year you already know. BE 2500 is 1957. BE 2540 is 1997, the year of the Asian financial crisis, which most people in Thailand can place immediately. Count up or down from there.

The exception worth knowing. The 543 offset only holds for dates from 1 January 1941 onwards. Before that, the Thai year began on 1 April rather than 1 January, which means January, February and March belonged to the *previous* Thai year.

So for dates in those three months before 1941, the offset is 542, not 543. 1 February BE 2480 is 1 February 1938, not 1937. This matters if you are looking at old land records, historical civil registration, or any archival document — and getting it wrong shifts the date by a full year.

The change happened because the government of the day wanted the Thai calendar to line up with international practice. BE 2483 was declared a short year of only nine months, April to December, and BE 2484 then began on 1 January.

Where the Buddhist Era starts. It counts from the year the Buddha attained parinirvana. Thailand and Cambodia count the year after that as BE 1, while Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Laos count it differently by one year. Thai and Burmese Buddhist years can therefore differ by one, which is worth remembering when reading documents from neighbouring countries.