They live chiefly on nomadic slash-and-burn farming. Picking and gathering are more frequent than hunting and fishing. Nowadays, many villages cultivate rice in submerged fields and build embankments to protect the soil from erosion. Fertiliser has been used in some places. Apart from pig and poultry raising, cattle breeding has begun to develop to ensure draught power.

The La Ha grow cotton but are not familiar with weaving. They barter cotton for cloth made by the Thai and so dress in the same fashion as the Black Thai.

There are about a dozen or more houses in a village. Houses are built on stilts, with two entrance doors and ladders at both ends. A door is reserved for guests and the other for family life.

Young boys and young girls are free to seek love, and marriage is not forced by parents but must have their consent. To court his mate, the young boy visits the young girl at her house, and plays the flute or the two-string violin and sings before entering into normal conversation. After the marriage proposal, if the bride's family does not return the presents brought by the match-maker of the bridegroom's family, a ceremony is held for the bridegroom's matrilocality. The bridegroom has to live in the bride's family from 4 to 8 years before the wedding is carried out. The bride then joins her husband's family and takes his family name.

Old customs dictate that the dead are buried along with money and paddy rice. The La Ha believe there are supernatural forces including spirits of the forest, the water, the mist and the house. Each person has eight souls, and after a normal death, they become the spirits of the house or the terraced fields. In each family, only the soul of the father turns into the spirit of the house after his death and is worshipped. Every year, when ban flowers blossom, thanks are given in every family in honour of their parents.