Hiring Thai chefs in Europe: what the Thai certificate proves and where a cook can actually go

What a Thai cooking certificate proves

Thailand has a national skill standard for Thai cooks, set by the Department of Skill Development of the Ministry of Labour and published in the Royal Gazette in September 2022. It has two levels. Level 1 is open to anyone over 18 with three years of kitchen experience, or 90 hours of training, or a vocational certificate. The test is a one-hour written paper of 50 questions and a three-hour practical in which the cook prepares a set of four dishes: a one-plate dish, a salad or dip, a curry and a dessert. The pass mark is 70 percent, and the practical carries 80 percent of the score.

Level 2 asks for three more years of work after Level 1 and adds the parts of a head cook's job: planning the work, menu and costing, reducing waste and supervising staff. The Department also runs these tests abroad, in Europe among other regions, for Thai cooks already working there.

Treat the certificate as evidence, not as a qualification in the European sense. Level 1 can be reached after 90 hours of training. It shows that a person can cook Thai food to a standard someone tested. It does not replace a two-year vocational training where a country's rules ask for one, and Germany's do.

Germany: a visa built for cooks, with three limits

Germany is the only market we cover with a residence route written for specialty cooks: section 11(2) of the Employment Regulation, together with section 19c(1) of the Residence Act. The Federal Employment Agency's information sheet of September 2025 sets out the conditions, and three of them decide most cases.

The first is the restaurant. It has to be a specialty restaurant of a higher standard serving mainly the cuisine of the cook's country, and the cook has to be a citizen of that country. Snack bars, fast-food outlets, staff canteens, catering companies and delivery services do not qualify. The second is the cook. The agency expects a completed cook training at a vocational school of at least two years plus at least two years of practice in qualified kitchens, and accepts six years of experience only where the home country has no such training. The third is time. Approval is given first for one year and then for three more, so four years in all, and a new permit for the same person is possible only after a three-year break. The agency limits approvals to two cooks per establishment, with exceptions only in justified cases.

The approval also runs with a priority check, and the pay has to match the collective-agreement grade of a chef de partie or sole cook, stated as gross pay in the contract. The Thai Consulate-General in Frankfurt certifies the employment contracts of Thai specialty cooks for 15 euros a document, or 60 euros for the set of four copies it asks for.

The four-year limit is the one restaurants feel. In 2024 Frankfurt's oldest Thai restaurant, open since 1974, had to look for a new cook in Thailand when its cook reached the limit. Plan the succession from the first year, not the fourth.

Poland, Czechia, Croatia and Romania: a cook on an ordinary permit

Outside Germany a Thai cook is hired like any other skilled worker, which removes the two-cook cap and the four-year clock.

Poland runs a type A work permit without a labour-market test since June 2025. The fee is 400 PLN for a permit over three months and the floor is the minimum wage of 4,806 PLN gross a month, but the market is well above it: the January 2026 salary survey puts the median cook at 6,540 PLN gross, with the middle half between 5,470 and 7,860 PLN. Our Poland guides cover the permit queue in detail.

Czechia issues the Employee Card through a Bangkok quota of 460 applications a year, 240 of them for the Qualified Employee Programme, which Thailand joined in July 2025. The programme covers occupations in classes 4 to 8 of the Czech classification, and a cook sits in class 5. It asks the employer to have run for at least two years with at least six employees and to pay at least 1.22 times the minimum wage, which is 27,328 CZK a month in 2026.

Croatia issues a combined residence and work permit after a labour-market test by the Croatian Employment Service, which answers within fifteen days. Since 2026 a seasonal permit can run up to three years with the same employer, and housing has measurable standards: at least 14 square metres for one worker and 6 more for each additional person, with rent no higher than 30 percent of net pay. The minimum wage is 1,050 euros gross.

Romania rebuilt its system in April 2026 around one platform, WorkinRomania.gov.ro, and only occupations on the national shortage list can be filled from outside the EU. The 2026 list, published in August, includes the cook, the head chef and the kitchen assistant. The minimum wage has been 4,325 RON gross a month since July 2026, and the general-labour route counts against a quota of 90,000 for the year. In mid-September a court suspended that list, and new general-labour applications have been paused since 15 September while the ministry appeals.

Finland and Norway: possible on paper, hard in practice

Finland issues residence permits for employed persons when the salary is at least 1,600 euros a month in 2026 and meets the collective agreement, after the employment office has checked whether suitable labour is available in Finland or the EU. A cook gets no fast track.

Norway's skilled-worker permit asks for vocational training of at least three years at upper-secondary level with a Norwegian equivalent, a degree, or special qualifications, which in practice means around six years of documented experience. The immigration directorate lists chef applications among those it checks more closely. A short Thai certificate will not carry a Norwegian file.

Halal kitchens and certified Thai restaurants

For a halal restaurant the cook matters as much as the supplier. Under the halal rules of the Central Islamic Council of Thailand, the cook or food preparer in a halal kitchen must be a Muslim, and Thailand has a large Muslim population, concentrated in the south, with cooks trained in certified kitchens. The restaurant's own halal certificate in Europe still comes from its European certifier, not from the cook.

Thai SELECT is the Thai government's mark for Thai restaurants abroad. It certifies the restaurant, not the person, and as of May 2026 it covered 1,419 restaurants in 70 countries. The criteria reported by the Bangkok Post include a kitchen led by a Thai head chef, which is one more reason restaurants ask us for cooks with documented experience rather than a certificate alone.