Can Foreigners Buy Property in Phuket? Condo Quota, Villa Lease and Fees

Yes. Thailand's condominium law lets a foreigner hold a condo unit freehold: it is yours with no end date, and you can sell it, give it away or leave it to your heirs. Two conditions apply, and both are checked at the land office on the day of registration.

The first is the quota. Foreigners together may own no more than 49% of the total floor area of all units in one building. Note the word area. If foreign buyers have already taken the big penthouses, the quota can run out while half the studios are still empty.

The second is the money. The purchase price has to come into Thailand as a transfer in foreign currency and be converted to baht by a Thai bank. For a large transfer the bank issues a foreign exchange form, usually called the FET; for smaller amounts it gives a letter with the same details. Pay in instalments and you need one for every transfer.

How does this look in real listings? We opened 220 condo cards in full and read the ownership field. It was filled in 173 times. Sellers offered the foreign quota in 114 of them, roughly two out of three, and 37 units were for sale only on a long lease.

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Half the condos for sale in our sample ask between 2,970,000 and 8,780,000 THB, and the median sits at 4,970,000 THB. A typical one-bedroom is about 35 m² and asks around 3,800,000 THB. The cheapest square metre is in Phuket Town and Kathu, the dearest near Bang Tao and Laguna.

The main payment at the land office is the transfer fee: 2% of the official appraised value. Custom splits it in half, but custom is not law, so the contract says who pays what. On a unit appraised at the median price the fee comes to 99,400 THB, and the buyer's half is 49,700 THB.

The taxes on a sale fall on the seller by custom. That is either a specific business tax of 3.3% or a stamp duty of 0.5%, never both, plus withholding tax. Here is why it matters to you as a buyer: someone selling within five years pays almost seven times more than someone who has held the unit longer, and that shows up in how hard they bargain.

After the deal the building's running costs begin. Every condo has a juristic person that pays for lifts, the pool, security and cleaning, and owners contribute by floor area. Across 129 listings that showed the fee, the median was 2,280 THB a month per unit, about 59 THB per m². In a new building you also pay a one-off sinking fund contribution at purchase; its size is in the contract.

The order rarely changes. A small reservation deposit takes the unit off the market for an agreed time, and the receipt states when that money comes back. Then a lawyer, not the sales agent, checks the title, any debts to the building, the free quota and the house rules.

Next comes the sale agreement: price, payment schedule, who pays which fee, the registration date and what furniture stays (86% of units in our sample are sold fully furnished). You send the money from abroad with a bank document for each transfer. Before registration the juristic person gives the seller a certificate that nothing is owed to the building; without it the land office will not register the sale.

Registration is the only moment the property actually changes hands. Both sides, or their representatives with a power of attorney, go to the land office, pay the fees, and your name goes onto the title. Everything signed before that is a promise between the parties, not ownership.

Off-plan or finished? About 13% of the cards we opened were in buildings still under construction. Off-plan spreads the payments over the build; a finished building lets you hear the road, meet the neighbours and ask the manager about fees. For a first purchase on the island, the finished building is easier to judge.

If the foreign quota in a building has run out, the unit can still be yours on a long lease. Thai civil law caps a property lease at 30 years. Any lease longer than three years must be registered at the land office, or a court will treat it as a three-year lease.

Registration costs a fee of 1% of the total rent for the whole term plus 0.1% stamp duty. Sellers often promise renewal for another 30 years, sometimes twice. Thailand's Supreme Court does not enforce such pre-written chains: only the first term is guaranteed, and any renewal is a new agreement when the time comes.

So treat the lease as 30 years of use, not as something to pass to grandchildren. To live in and rent out, it works. For inheritance and resale, the quota freehold is the safer form, and the lease is not cheaper per square metre in the listings, which means the choice is about rights rather than money.

Thai land law does not let a foreigner own land, but a building is a separate object, and you can own a house standing on someone else's plot. Almost every villa purchase by a foreigner rests on that split, which turns one deal into two: a registered lease on the land for up to 30 years and ownership of the house, pool and everything built on the plot.

The other route is a Thai company that owns both land and house, with the foreigner holding a minority of the shares. A company has duties that do not go away after the purchase: accounts, yearly filings, taxes and shareholder meetings. It suits people who already run a business in Thailand.

In our sample of 140 villa sale listings, ownership of the house was offered in 96 and purchase through a company in 105. The median villa asks 24,900,000 THB, five times the median condo, and about a quarter of supply sits in Cherng Talay around Bang Tao, Layan and Laguna.

Yes, on a long lease. Short stays are harder: Thai hotel law requires a licence to rent for less than 30 days, and many buildings ban nightly letting in their rules, so check the house rules before you count on holiday income.

We ran our own numbers on open listings. Monthly rent per square metre divided by the sale price per square metre gives a gross yield of about 6.7% a year across the island, from 4.6% in Kamala to 8.4% in Kathu. That is before building fees, the agent's commission, empty months, repairs and tax.

Rental income in Thailand is taxed on a progressive scale, and for buildings the law allows a flat 30% deduction for expenses without receipts. How you file depends on your tax status, so settle it with an accountant before the first tenant moves in. One more check: in 98 of the 105 listings that answered the question, pets were not allowed in the building.